Compassion v. Empathy
& a Prompt on Increasing Tension
I’ve just finished a four month advanced IFS training with IFSCA, the Canadian IFS institute. I trained with them last year too. The cohorts are small. There were twenty of us, from all over the world. I feel so lucky to have been in this group. Last year’s cohort was also amazing, and we still meet twice a month to discuss practice issues and to practice with each other.
IFS is the kind of modality the therapist or coach must actually practice in order to be able to use it well with others. I have 14 scheduled sessions a month with other practitioners, supervision twice a month, my monthly neuro-affirming group, and clients.
I mostly see weekly clients, but some come twice a month, some monthly. So you can imagine that I have a fairly full schedule, but my days don’t feel busy. I rarely feel stressed out, even when I make my daily government protest calls. In fact, I mostly feel a sense of serenity, in spite of the government, and especially in the woods with my dog.
Actively listening and offering compassion feeds me. Recent studies show that we (humans) don’t suffer overwhelm or burnout from too much compassion. (Here and here are two previous substacks I wrote about compassion.) Empathy can cause burnout, but we can access an unlimited supply of compassion.
Empathy asks us to put ourselves in someone else’s place and to feel their feelings. Compassion is being with, able to offer support. Even without my IFS training, I can offer support the way we all do, by helping to co-regulate. (Of course I had to learn to regulate my own nervous system first. When I struggled with emotional regulation, I confused empathy with compassion. I’d get caught up in feeling with others instead of for them.)
Co-regulating, sharing my calm state to help a dysregulated being become calm, is innate in animals. Many studies have shown how pets reduce our blood pressure. My dog actually hugs me. My friend’s cat snuggles into their neck to stimulate their vagus nerve by purring there.
Coaching, I feel I’ve found my life’s work. And I don’t have to make it happen, the way I had to try to get my plays developed and then produced. Shifting my creative efforts to poetry, I don’t need to work to make that happen either. I write, study, read, revise, get feedback, revise, submit and publish, but there’s almost no heavy lifting involved.
It’s as if I have dialed down what used to be my version of life lived at its loudest and fastest. Now simpler, quieter, and full of ease. This could never have happened without my IFS practice.
If you’re IFS-curious, reach out! I’d love to show you, in a free demo, how IFS can work for you.
THE PROMPT:
Having just written about how I’ve let go of so much tension, let’s shift to narrative storytelling in terms of how does something increase in tension? What can you do to increase the tension in your tales? Think of a rubber band that is more tense when it’s stretched. What adds tension in the body of a character? (Make a list.) If the character is feeling it, chances are the audience will feel it too.
Consider Fear as a way to add tension. Is there something your protagonist fears? Can you make a list of potential fears for your characters? This might be tied to what they Value. Or how they Identify themselves. Internal fears tend to include being exposed as unlovable or unworthy, to be excluded from the clan, or sickness, pain, and death, including the loss of loved ones. Value fears can be about internal worthiness and external performance.
For example, Mrs. Parks will feel worthless if she can’t help her students because she values learning. This fear is tied to her identity as a teacher. And yet, she also fears losing her job, tied to her identity as successful or a breadwinner for her family, and she can’t force her students to learn. When does she make the decision to cheat on the standardized tests?
In this made-up example, I could have stopped at the fear, tied to her identity as a teacher, but that doesn’t lead her to the action she takes. I had to add other fears tied to other identities, and stressors like difficult students who don’t even see the value in trying to do well on the tests. The more I pile on, the more the story takes shape.
Create Stakes by tying potential consequences to fears or piling on little paper cuts of stressors like failures, lack of cooperation in others/the universe, and missing deadlines, accidents, whatever you can invent that can pile up. Tension can increase that way. Fear of Failing or Disappointing others or one’s self could play a part.
Add danger. Get specific. What kinds of dangers are there in the world you’ve built? (Another list.) What are possible actions to take to avoid danger? Sometimes an action that seems to do a person good has negative consequences down the line. Things they didn’t consider when they chose this course of action. What are the potential consequences?
Even something that seems innocuous, like in that book, Fortunately Unfortunately, can help. Here is an exercise, also a great car game to play, where for each thing that happens (good or bad), there’s a (good or bad) consequence. We learn to suspend judgment because so much that seems bad can be spun into something good, or vice versa. It’s great fun and loosens up our ability to create turns in our narratives. Yes, it’s a super silly kids game, but it helps us with flexibility. For example, when a young man finds a horse in the forest (fortunate), he tries to ride it and breaks his leg (unfortunate), when the army arrives looking to make him a soldier, they don’t want him (fortunate), etc. Your turn!
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I appreciate the distinction you make between empathy and compassion, Emma. I'm sure it will prevent a lot of burnout for your readers, including me.
I’m thrilled for the ease you’re finding, and am working towards allowing that, too.
What is IFS, Emma? I am an empath and that aspect of me, although helpful when directing, can become an obstacle to being truly effective in other walks of my life. I’d like to find my way to compassion first, as it is not as debilitating, not an obstacle to action that needs to be overcome.