Ask HN: How do I develop skills to comfort people and offer compassion?
I am looking for interesting "book recommendations" particularly.
Someone told me that they were afraid to share their vulnerabilities with me because they feared I might not be comforting or even give them more anxiety.
I have looked up to HN for wisdom over the years and hopefully this ask piques enough interest.
93 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 158 ms ] thread- Practice active listening.
- You're not there to solve the problem, just to listen. Listening is good enough.*
You can actually ask, if they talk about the same thing more than once: Is this something you want me to work on and try to fix, or you just want to talk about? Don't be dismissive, you're not trying to stop the conversation. Tone matters here.
Careful about making it all about you though...
Empathy starts with listening and continues with making a safe space for someone to share deeper feelings.
Passing judgement, problem solving, or dominating the conversation are anti patterns.
I was lucky to get some management training in active listening at a past job. It felt like common knowledge to me but thru training and practicing at work I was surprised to see how uncommon following the fundamentals are in the workspace.
Often everyone is too “busy” and “results oriented” to communicate clearly and to make time to actually listen to one another.
Agreed!
Asking helps me clarify to myself the possible goals (and make it explicit that "just" listening is a valid goal). Even if you don't ask thinking about the question is a nice way to remind yourself that you don't need to solve it for them.
My experience has been that women appreciate this question - I think that most men tend to jump into problem-solving mode and actually being asked is a nice change (here in the U.S.)
And of course there's this 2 minute video to memorably highlight the idea :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg
Although written with another purpose in mind, Never Split the Difference also emphasises over and over how to acknowledge what people are feeling without adding judgment.
As for practicing empathy and compassion I think real world experience is key. Check out anything to do with “authentic relating”. Here’s a group that offers online and in person classes: https://authenticrelating.co/
But empathy and compassion has to be there naturally (which I’m sure it is as it sounds like you’re empathizing with your friend’s situation that they don’t feel safe sharing with you).
The tools above will just help you feel into what’s already there.
Personally, I prefer what can be demonstrably shown via past behavior combined with a sense of charity.
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/amp/a-simple-sentence-wi...
That said, NVC can be a really powerful tool if used with proper delicacy however. The idea of listening, reflecting verbally what and that you heard and then speaking from your perspective with clear markers without aggression can be a very strong way of having challenging conversations.
What described above I've seen happen, but mostly with beginners or people that use this new found ideas as agenda but without actually connecting with the other, expecting miracles or use NVC as a tool for policing. Or people that were already manipulative in the first place, but now just try to use NVC.
It can also come off as manipulative in an already unhealthy situation, where the relationship consists of so much mistrust that bringing anything new to the table is frowned upon and already met with suspicion.
My personal take away from it was to ensure that I prevent destructive communication and prevent blame using words things like "You should have" because they don't give the other tools to work with and actually address the problem at hand. For me the bottom line of the book was that us expressing our emotions and needs to allow the other, if willing, to actually address the problem at hand. It also made me see that sometimes effective communication was blocked because I had to deal with my own things first.
Communication, empathy, and time to actually listen, is something that unfortunately in my culture isn't thought as a core skill.
This seems like something that might work if all involved were using it. But it seems like it would be ineffective and/or annoying to people who are not familiar with it or do not believe in it.
I'd be curious to hear from people who have used NVC techniques with the uninitiated. Are there situations in which it is more likely to work well? Are there tenets from NVC that work universally, regardless of the disposition of the people involved?
There are many "systems" of communication. Another one is the book Crucial Conversations and many online courses. Similar, there are some things that will work everywhere, but a lot that doesn't seem to go so smooth.
There are certain other things that pretty much universally help (listening to another person, for instance). Not being aggressive with your words, keeping yourself calm.
The best luck I've seen is learning a style of communication and then sharing it with those who matter.
But at the end of the day it is a framework for clear, effective communication that guides the practitioner to:
1) Ask for things that they might be given.
2) To investigate how other people are responding to what they observe.
If NVC doesn't work with a communication partner, the next best option is not to communicate. Other strategies are basically forced to either ask for things that can't be given and to ignore other people's responses. Neither of those is a clever approach to relationships.
Non sequiter, but addressing a common mistake, it isn't "Nice, Nonviolent Communication". In theory it'd be possible to tell someone that you're about to murder them while still applying the NVC principles. It is misnamed.
In situations where you have a gathering of people with very little charisma and they're all trying to not hate each other, it just won't work. Because nothing will work - this is how groups of people are.
That said, I would never say that in a work context. In a work context I would tell two people with a conflict that they cannot solve together to request mediation from someone that I already know is charismatic :)
Read the book! There's a story of someone using it successfully while someone is literally physically attacking them (and it stops the attack).
> I'd be curious to hear from people who have used NVC techniques with the uninitiated. Are there situations in which it is more likely to work well? Are there tenets from NVC that work universally, regardless of the disposition of the people involved?
Compassionate listening and communicating your needs clearly are skills that are useful in all situations. NVC is just one nice framework for that.
https://youtu.be/l7TONauJGfc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication
https://www.wichita.edu/academics/fairmount_college_of_liber...
Anymore you can share?
All of life is sorrow.
Escape from sorrow exists.
Escape from sorrow is attainable.
Escape from sorrow is Nirvana.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karu%E1%B9%87%C4%81
Both tongue in cheek and for real. If you don't know why, ask someone else.
I learned a meditation from there called Tonglen. It’s hardcore. I have only done it a few times in my life but it really made me want to help alleviate suffering from other people a lot more after doing that a few times.
The whole book is also littered with scientific studies about meditation. So it can explain things clearly to very sceptical minds, like mine ;)
It takes a relationship where things can be off loaded in more manageable pieces. Boundaries are easier to set as well when both sides only move a few inches in each direction. If you are given too much info, you’ll just punt the football back 50 yards into ‘I can’t deal with all of this’.
With all that said, very few average people have the incentive to take on something like this. You would need an intimate relationship, but even there, even parents, best friends or SO’s can be overwhelmed.
Don’t even try this shit with coworkers. But if you must, you have to keep the topics very scoped and piecemeal. Just like project management.
I am speaking mostly from the baggage-dropping side.
1) Mind Training: The Great Collection translated by Thupten Jinpa. - A large collection of Texts.
2) Essential Mind Training: Tibetan Wisdom for Daily Life translated by Thupten Jinpa - A subset of texts from The Great Collection above.
3) Words of My Perfect Teacher: A Complete Translation of a Classic Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by Patrul Rinpoche - Relevant instruction manual.
Empathy, Compassion, Comfort require fundamental changes to one's psyche and behaviour to be authentic and this is where the above texts are helpful. Take what makes sense to you and leave the rest.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Try to see different people and communities.
I'll risk and say books will not help you develop those qualities but teach you how to look like you have them. It's not the same. To feel it you need to see the world outside of comfortable shell.
Listen to people. When they tell you they don't want to share in most cases you really don't want to know or have anything to do with what they don't want to share. Especially if you have intentions that basically sum up to a savior complex. They have information that you don't and based on that they decided it will not help your relation to get into that. Why not just accept that?
Try to remove (or reserve) all your instincts to judge or evaluate their actions and just focus on listening to people with the premise that their problems, to them, are just as real and important to them as yours are to you.
Remember that essentially all people have a personal narrative where they are the aggrieved hero of the story trying to do the right thing while challenged by outside forces.
Try to listen and understand how and why they feel that way about themselves. They’ll be able to tell.
it is what I am familiar with, be it science, science fiction or fantasy, some of the contents is still valid and good practice regardless of what I believe.