The Empathy Paradox: Mastering Empathy for Others Begins With Knowing Yourself

Tahoe is my place for self-reflection – where is yours?

By Michael Zakaras
Michael is a writer and strategist who specializes in social entrepreneurship and public policy and works with ASHOKA.


I recently returned from a week at Lake Tahoe, where I’ve spent a piece of every summer with my family since I was five years old. My uncle has a cabin on the lake, and it’s unlike any other house I know because I exist there not only in the present but also in the past.

When I'm there, I feel the younger versions of myself accompanying me. On my first dive off the rock, they dive with me, filled with fear and joy and anticipation. I surface in the same bone-chilling water. My brother surfaces beside me. My parents look down from the deck, watching as always. The words permanence and continuity are abstractions. But there, at Tahoe, they come to life.



Tahoe is where I slow down, where I don’t chase things but let them come to me, and where I’ve developed values and ways of being that I have brought back to the rest of my life. It’s where I learned to be fulfilled by living simply: there has never been a TV at the house, and there are no tight schedules or fixed plans. Each part of the day simply eases into the next. We swim and hike and canoe, but most of our hours are filled with communal cooking, leisurely family meals, reading, and storytelling. And there’s an abundance of open time: for listening, for watching, for reflection. I’ll often bring a book and sit between two pines at the water’s edge only to never open it.
In this way, each summer gives me a chance to pull back from my immersion into the everyday world of school or work—of constant activities—and to ask myself what's been really good and what hasn't, and what should be changed. In recent years especially, as a young adult, I've gained a great deal of understanding from these times of quiet reflection. Tahoe serves as a retreat from which I return renewed and replenished for the rest of the year.

In the end, my uncle’s house is the place where I know myself best. My summers there have helped me look at my life as a whole picture. I take on different roles in the world, but I'm always a son and brother in our family. And more recently, a husband. I can put my latest successes and disappointments into a long-term perspective. I can see how much I've changed with every summer, and I can see how much, for better or worse, I've remained the same.


Empathy is ultimately other-regarding, but I’m convinced that mastering it begins with understanding yourself – your emotions, your desires, your flaws. And for me, it includes understanding how lucky I am to have Tahoe in the first place. In this way, empathy is hard: it takes awareness and perspective. It takes space. But in our world of relentless demands and distractions, it’s far easier to become self-absorbed than self-aware. Which is why it’s essential that we create this space for ourselves – in big ways and small – so that we can use our understanding of ourselves to better understand and serve others.

LOVE

WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The ACADEMi of Life, NYC


As we enter a month usually focused on our relationships with others, take a moment to remember the importance of your relationship with yourself.

Who can help us understand love, love of self and others, better than the courageous, funny and self-deprecating author Elizabeth Gilbert. This award-winning writer and NYT bestselling author (EAT, PRAY, LOVE – A story of self-discovery and COMMITTED – A love story) needs no introduction. Her books are a fascinating meditation on marriage, men, relationships, infatuation, and family, and – ultimately – an enthralling celebration and understanding of love.

So please join us on February 24th, at 7pm at The New York Society for Ethical Culture as The ACADEMi of Life presents An Evening in Conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert.

Here are a few things you probably don’t know about her.

• She is an expert on men.
• She impersonated a man for a week for an article she was writing for GQ magazine.
• She worked as a bartender at a bar named Coyote Ugly Salon on NY’s lower east side.
• She wrote an article for GQ magazine on her bartending experience which later became the movie Coyote Ugly.
• She met her future husband in the Coyote Ugly Salon.
• Her first book was a short story collection called PILGRIMS, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award.
• EAT, PRAY, LOVE was translated into over thirty languages and sold over 10 million copies.
• Her TED talk on Creativity is one of the most watched.
• In 2008, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Here are a few powerful nuggets from her recent book Committed

• Infatuation the most perilous aspect of human desire – that famously distracted state in which you cannot concentrate on anything other than the object of your obsession.
• People are far more susceptible to infatuation when they are going through delicate or vulnerable times in their lives. The more unsettled and unbalanced we feel, the more quickly and recklessly we are likely to fall in love.
• Divorce is the second most stressful experience most people will ever undergo in their lives. The emotional havoc that accompanies divorce is often colossal.
• Part of what makes the experience of divorce so dreadful is the emotional ambivalence.
• It can be difficult, if not impossible, for many divorced people ever to rest in a state of pure grief, pure anger, or pure relief when it comes to feelings about one’s ex-spouse.
• All human beings have failings, so to be fully seen by somebody, and to be loved anyhow-this is a human offering that can border on the miraculous.
• Marriage, childbearing and child rearing are personal, complicated and generally ambivalent decisions.
• Childless women who are a part of the ‘Auntie Brigade’ should be honored and celebrated for they often take upon themselves the task of nurturing those who are not their official biological responsibility.
• If you honestly want a society in which people choose their own partners on the basis of personal affection, then you must prepare yourself for the inevitable. There will be broken hearts; there will be broken lives. Exactly because the human heart is such a mystery.

As the big love day approaches, take a moment to ponder this observation: the most important relationship and the greatest love affair you will ever have is the one with self. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Don’t miss this candid modern dialogue with Elizabeth Gilbert on these very important topics. Details http://bit.ly/fUnTC5

Family

…what does it mean?
By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The ACADEMi of Life, NYC


As the holidays approach, the conversations begin regarding the dread and duty people feel about spending time with their family. It seems as if we have been conditioned or socialized to believe that we must love and get along with our families. Life has taught me that love cannot be legislated, coerced or demanded, it has to be authentically given…even to our family.

What is this thing called family anyway? We are born and we get to meet these people called our parents; Mom & Dad…we become sons and daughters. We also get to meet the extended family, grandma and grandpa, sisters, brothers and cousins. Then later we meet the nieces and nephews and grand nieces and grand nephews. The western culture dictionary definition of family (from Latin: familiare) is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity (same blood), affinity, or co-residence.

Throughout the years we discover that we have varying levels of affection for these people to whom we are connected by blood. Some we love, some we like and some we don’t care for at all. I have had friends who have confessed that they feel as if they were strangers in their own families, yet they yearn for the ‘belonginess’ of a family. I have had mothers tell me how much they dislike their kids, and I have had brothers and sisters relate the difficulties they have getting along with their siblings.

Why is there is so much strife within a family? Families test us, they bring out the best and worst in us. As in other relationships, the family serves as a basic training ground to redress pass hurts and disappointments and if we can get pass that and only show love, then we become better people and the world becomes a better place. Families are really our spiritual practice…the milieu where we learn to become our best selves despite the challenges of ‘getting along’.

I know from personal experience that as much as my immediate family can be challenging and dysfunctional at times, there is nothing more memorable than spending quality time with them. The shared history, the loving moments, the birth of the new ones, the fights, the disappointments, the divorces, the marriages, the deaths, are all necessary and important experiences for us to learn and grow in love. I cannot imagine what life would be like without them.

The true essence of our creation is Love. Love is what rules the universe, so to be able to transcend and love the people closest to us who truly know our weaknesses and frailties, is the ultimate in unconditional love. As human we have a difficult time loving ourselves and other unconditionally. To date, I have found that a mother is generally the only person on earth, who comes closest to delivering unconditional love…the person who will continually and consistently be there to support and love her children, even the ‘most troubled'.

As we celebrate the holidays, let’s try hard to love, to see the good in all, be emphatic, be understanding and tolerant. Know that our negative actions and reactions are all coming from our wounded childhood traumas… so when Grandma says something that really makes you crazy…just pause, take a breath and smile! Happy Holidays!

TRUE WEALTH

Raising Balanced, Responsible, Productive Children!
By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The ACADEMi of Life, NYC


‘Mama may have, Papa may, but God bless the child that’s got his own’ – Billie Holiday

How do you raise children that are emotionally balanced, productive and have decent values? For eons, the answer to this question has eluded most parents; especially wealthy ones. There seems to be no guaranteed formulas or guidelines for raising ‘successful’ kids.

Increasingly we read about children of the wealthy leading less than productive, values driven lives. The stories in the media are endless regarding the ‘curse of rich kids,’ the excessive partying, drugs and alcohol use. The parents of these children face significant challenges of raising them to become responsible, emotionally balanced adults who grow up to be contributing members of society with meaningful lives of their own.

The increasing money culture in the US ‘is producing a record number of heirs—but handing down values is harder than handing down wealth.’ In fact Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world has proclaimed his intention to leave each of his children only about $10 million and Warren Buffett, the second richest, has said, “I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.”

‘It suggests that two of the richest men on the planet see their own fortunes as a ticking time bomb—and potentially corrosive to their children’s future well-being.’ No one learned this better than Warren Buffett’s son, Peter Buffett Author, Composer, Emmy Award-winning Musician & Philanthropist. His recent book ‘Life Is What You Make It’ reveals that the real inheritance handed down from his parents was a philosophy: forge your own path in life regardless of your circumstances. It is a creed that has allowed him to follow his own passions, establish his own identity, and reap his own successes.

Buffett and Gates philosophy is supported by Harris Stratyner, a Manhattan psychologist who reveals that the thing that most distressed rich kids fantasize about when it comes to their family money, is not that they have too much of it, but “that they’d made it themselves.” It’s often difficult for them to feel fulfilled about anything valuable that has been handed down to them, since self-esteem and self-worth are generally tied to achieving your own successes.

In NYC on 11/11/2010 A Conversation and Concert with Peter Buffett "for young people seeking to find his or her place in the world, and for every family hoping to give their children the best possible start in life.” http://bit.ly/8YlMti

MOTHERLY LOVE

What is this thing called a mother’s love?
By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The ACADEMi of Life, NYC



Several experiences this weekend lead me to reflect deeply on the meaning of motherhood. The first experience was my attendance at a Barack Obama’s initiative to serve brunch to mothers at a homeless shelter in NYC to celebrate Mother’s Day. These mothers were women from all walks of life each mentally challenged and the majority had children. The second experience was seeing two movies; ‘Babies’ and ‘Mother and Child.’

So what did I learn from those experiences? I realized that being a mother is probably one of the most difficult roles a person elects to undertake. I also realized that society does not allow us to be truthful about the awesome responsibility and difficulty of motherhood. The way it’s portrayed in the movies is an experience that is always blissful and peaceful, yet the reality is sometimes very different. I recall a friend telling me that the only way she survived the birth of her son, was to pretend that he was only going to be with her for a short time.

A mother’s love, especially in the formative years, is a selfless unselfish act and is considered the highest kind of love. Most women want kids and are happy with their newborn. Eric Fromm in ‘The Art of Loving’ describes the love of a mother as: ‘A mother's love is bliss, is peace, it need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.' But as the child grows up and begins to separate from the mother, motherly love becomes difficult because it continues to require unselfishness, the ability to give everything and want nothing in return.

According to Fromm, ‘the real achievement of motherly love lies not in the mother’s love for the small infant, but in her love for the growing child.’ He concludes that ‘a woman can be a truly loving mother only if she can love’ meaning that she is a happy person who loves herself, her family, her husband, other children, strangers and all human beings. Well said Eric!!