empathy as a superpower

EMPATHY

as a Superpower

@davestrock

So grateful for Angela’s talk, and for Amber and Erika for putting on this conference. Many confs have only a single “touchy feely” talk so it’s great to see so many. After all, people are the hard part of software. !Just as Angela said in her keynote, I don’t fart rainbows and I’m a also a JERK. That was the reason for the journey that led to this talk. A few years ago, I was thinking about the “learn a new language every year” idea and decided my language for that year would be People. Its been over 2 years now, and I’m still not sure how far down that path I am yet.

“A human being is part of the whole

called by us universe, a part limited in time

and space.

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, !a part limited in time and space.

“We experience ourselves, our

thoughts and feelings as something

separate from the rest.

“We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest.

“A kind of optical delusion of

consciousness.

A kind of optical delusion of consciousness.

“This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our

personal desires

“This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires

“and to affection for a few persons nearest to

us.

“and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

“Our task must be to free ourselves from the

prison

Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison

“by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living

creatures

by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures !

“and the whole of nature in its beauty.

and the whole of nature in its beauty.

“The true value of a human being is

determined by the measure and sense

The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and sense

“in which they have obtained liberation

from the self.

in which they have obtained liberation from the self.

“We shall require a! substantially new ! manner of! thinking

if humanity is to survive.”-Albert Einstein

“we shall require a substantial new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive” !Speaking the post world war 2 problems and the atomic bomb Humans have a tendency to entangle themselves with ideas of SELF. Who we “are”

EMPATHY

the ability tounderstand and sharethe emotions of others

REQUIRES

presenceandlack of divisiveness

Presence - The ability to focus attention on EXPERIENCING the current moment !Divisiveness - Judgement BLAME

an epidemic ofdisconnect

Technology enables us to “connect” twitter, facebook, instagram Yet we are more disconnected than ever before. And the problems we face are bigger, and more difficult than ever before.

CONCEIT

better than

The western definition of CONCEIT is thinking oneself better than another person. !I had a real breakthrough when I learned the Buddhist definition

CONCEIT

better than,less than,or equal to

The Buddhist definition of conceit is thinking yourself better than, less than, or equal to another person. !Maybe its hard to see what another option could be.

don’t play thecomparison game

The other option is to just not play the comparison game.

COMPASSION

concern forthe suffering of others

The wish to see others free from suffering

EMOTIONS

EMOTIONS

are notthoughts

EMOTIONS

are triggered bythoughts

OUR FRIEND

theLimbic System

Most of what we consider emotions are generated in our brain in what is called the Limbic system.

STARRING

theAmygdala

The star of that system, as it relates to emotion, is the Amygdala

The Limbic System is a set of closely interconnected regions at the center of the brain Takes in raw sensory input Performs processing related to emotion, memory, basic body functions Sends information to the Cerebral Cortex Amygdala (green) processes emotion and quickly floods the body with chemicals FEEDBACK LOOP

FIGHT

FLIGHT

FREEZE

The most familiar feedback loop from the Amygdala is the Fight or Flight response

90 seconds

That’s the amount of time it takes your body to absorb the chemicals your amygdala injects into your bloodstream. Lets say external stimulus enters the amygdala and causes a strong emotional reaction. If you’re still feeling it more than 90 seconds later, your amygdala is now reacting to THOUGHTS not stimulus.

THOUGHTS?

pretty mucheverything else

So what are thoughts? Thoughts are what we normally see if we look inward. The brain is a thinking machine… And therein lies the problem. Its an overused muscle for most of us. Its a hammer and everything is a nail. Given any problem: I KNOW I CAN HANDLE IT…

BECAUSE I’M

CLEVER

BECAUSE I’M CLEVER! !Turns out… there are a lot of problems with relying on intellectualizing everything.

EMOTIONS

are fast

Emotions happen at least an order of magnitude faster than higher order thoughts. So fast they may not be noticed consciously.

REASONING

is slow

Reasoning is pulling the full computational power of the mind to solving some problem. But its SLOW

REASONING

is influencedby emotions

And it is completely entwined with emotion. !Often what feels like reasoning is actually rationalization, called “motivated reasoning”

i live in my mind

I’m sure this isn’t true for any of you, but I live mostly in my mind. !Constantly lost in thought

we tell ourselves stories

This is because we tell ourselves stories. Humans have an strong ability to learn from stories and to represent events as stories.

What do you mean ‘just stories’!?!?

Don’t mean to diminish how real they feel to you, I DO mean to diminish your assurance on their accuracy. THE FEELINGS ARE REAL. THE STORY IS SUSPECT. Memory are not video tape.

MEMORIES

your brainsees morethan your eyes

In case you need a little prodding on the fact that our memories are neither accurate nor immutable

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

Not only does the brain combine inputs from TWO eyes into ONE image, but the eyes have a giant BLIND SPOT (#4) At the spot where the optic nerve (#3) enters the eye, there are no rods & cones. There is a HOLE in the image.

empathy towards others

what am i telling myself?

Most of the time I catch myself thinking, I’m telling myself a story. !Most of the time I catch myself in an emotional feedback look, I’m telling myself a story

i’m feeling ________

i’m telling myself ________

because

I’m feeling nervous because I’m telling myself I’m not good enough !I’m feeling sad because I’m telling myself that she doesn’t care about me.

EVERYONE

hastheir reasons

RESPECT

It all starts with basic respect for people as humans.

RE - SPECT

to look again

If we can have that basic respect, we can keep looking. Over and over. !And one the easiest ways to do this, is to use CURIOSITY

shift to curiosity

EVERYONE

has the sameuniversal needs

I believe every behavior is an attempt to meet a universal human need

only strategies differ

It’s only the strategies for meeting those needs that differ

EVERYONE

has the sameemotions

Everyone has the same emotions !!AND STRANGELY ENOUGH….

EVERYONE

has the sameemotionalexpression

Not talking about REACTIONS Instead expressions of GENUINE emotion

Anger, fear, disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness. !First proposed by Darwin that all primates, not just humans, share common facial expressions. !Continued by Dr. Paul Ekman and others. !True not only for white folks from Berkley, but tribes in New Guinea as well.

Results of a study of heat output of various emotions Not only did they find that different emotions had different heat signatures But those heat signatures had high correlation among all subjects. !Yellow - Warmest Light Blue - Coolest

and

SHOULD

BECAUSE

Here’s a life-line that helps me notice I’m in a story. BECAUSE is a clue that you think you know WHY another person did something. !SHOULD is setting everyone up for failure. SHOULD is the start of Judgement !Why SHOULD anything happen? Nothing NEEDS to happen.

BLAME

SHAME

JUDGEMENT

CRITICISM

The amygdala triggers Fight of Flight when it feels threatened. Usually when there is disconnect, one of these four is at play. Either in yourself or in the other person. NOTICE when we’re in this mode. SHIFT to something else.

INSTEAD OF BLAME

look forunderstanding

Blame is saying someone should or should not have done something

INSTEAD OF SHAME

look forreassurance

Shame is saying someone shouldn’t be HOW they are.

INSTEAD OF CRITICISM

look forappreciation

Reframe a criticism as appreciation. Instead of “I hate your commit messages”, try “I really like when you write commit messages that let me know why you did certain things” !Focus on the positive instead of the negative

INSTEAD OF JUDGEMENT

look forcompassion

get out of your head

Stop thinking so much. Stop using that hammer for everything. Drop down into feeling. !What does it feel like to be sad? Upset?

–Marshall Rosenberg

“Intellectual understanding blocks empathy”

This is the part where I tell you to ignore all the fun science we just learned, because it actually gets in the way. The further you go into conceptualizing . The farther you go away from direct experience. !You don’t have to know what it’s like to be a single mother. Instead you can understand how it feels to be scared. To be overwhelmed.

empathy towards self

How do we know how it feels?

how do you feel?

We often ignore or push away our feelings. Its hard to know how another feels if you’ve never let yourself feel it. Though you CAN empathize with their likely desire to push them away just as you did.

EMOTIONS

are a form oflong-term memory

Memories are enfaced with emotion to remind us what it felt like. But maybe we don’t want to feel that way anymore. Its important to try to tease these things apart. What we want is to understand our feelings, without being pushed around by them. Without feeling the need to push them away. Without feeling like we can’t CONTROL our reactions.

–Victor Frankl

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. !

In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. !

In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

vs

RESPONSIBILITY

CHOICE

So we want to be able to choose. We want to widen the space between the stimulus and our response. !Are you responsible for your thoughts?

vs

RESPONSE ABILITY

CHOICE

If you have no ability respond, you have no choice and it’s futile to blame yourself.

PRACTICE

Consciously choosehow to BREATHE

Turn an unconscious behavior into a conscious one Average lung capacity is 6L Average tidal volume is only half a liter, not even 10% What is it like to breathe without controlling? What about deep breaths? What about fast breaths?

CHOOSE

how you relate toyour experience

Do you push it away? Try to change it? Accept it? !Once you accept it, you can move on. ACCEPTANCE seems to be one of the most powerful actions we can take.

PRACTICE

Mentally note emotionsas they arise

Amygdala’s purpose is to keep us from danger. The system will continue to alter you to what is going on until you acknowledge it. Once acknowledged, the system has no need to continue. We see this in brain scans. Someone in the middle of a strong emotional reaction and the brain activity is very high. At the moment they metaling note (technically called “affect labeling”) the emotion, the brain activity quiets down substantially.

stop the amygdala’sfeedback loop

This is one way to stop the feedback loop and give yourself the space to choose.

empathy towards

self and others

Systems thinking Being reintroduced by “lean” and others. The system is the most important determinant of the outcome. Not the actors within that system.

change the system

not the actors

You can’t change people, but you can sometimes change the systems at play.

“Compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral

outrage, fear.” –Joan Halifax

If we’re to solve these really big, complicated problems We must vigilantly look for the ways in which we’re being disconnected. We have to become conscious of the things that were previously unconscious.

thank you

!

Einstein: http://forward.com/workspace/assets/images/articles/TAS-InstituteAdvancedStudy-120430.jpg!

Limbic System: http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/252/flashcards/1048252/png/funtions1328988965116.png

Eye: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Evolution_eye.svg

Emotional heat map: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/12/26/1321664111.abstract

Ekman Facial Expressions: http://writersforensicsblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/ekman_facial_expressions.jpg

ATTRIBUTION

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