How Empathy Can Help You Create Big Change When You’re in the “Messy Middle”

Here we are in what Brené Brown calls “Day 2” in her Unlocking Us podcast.  She refers to it as the intense “in between.”  The time after the die has been cast - we are past the point of no return.  

There’s a glaze that has formed again over our initial raw feelings that burst forth back in March when COVID hit and rippled shock through us all. Now I notice emotional cover-up again, like how caulking and a fresh coat of paint can close up the cracks where the foundation has shifted - both in my own emotions and what I see on Facebook and other social media.

In place of the heartfelt emotions I saw at the beginning of our pandemic when everything was raw, I now see pointing of fingers. I see how hard it is for us all to be with our own emotions.

Ironically, I see this in myself even though I spent the greater part of the summer writing about emotions.  I took a group of beta testers through this process I call Empathy Co-Creation™ - giving them tools to help unearth emotions to harness their energy and power to create more of what matters in their life. 

Brené talks about Day 2 being not only the messy middle but also where the magic happens.  She references that this is more than just what she sees in her own practice but also a theme in most storytelling, described as Act 2.  I found a great article here that describes Day 2 as “The Protagonist’s Arc.” This messy magic happens because it’s the point of transformation - when the protagonist is willing to be vulnerable and ask for help, recognizing that we can’t do it alone.  

I resonate with this so much – not only from a broader perspective due to the heaviness of COVID, racial injustice, climate issues and more, but also in the way I see creation happen time after time, project after project when going through the process. 

It corresponds to the way I have laid out the Empathy Co-Creation framework of my course – the Discover & Blend modules in the process are what I would call “the messy middle.” 

And it’s also where I find myself now – I’ve written what I know, and I find myself in this in-between phase.  Vacillating between wanting to put it on a shelf and just push it forward, knowing there’s still more for me to uncover.  Knowing that I must be willing to dig deep myself… I must be vulnerable and ask for help to get through the middle.  I’m seeing that we, that I, can’t skip the middle. 

I have this unique vantage point of having a job where its purpose is to excavate, understand, explore, investigate and finally create from a “mess” of information.  To make it mean what it needs to mean – to create by marrying heart data with ideas and vision. I have explored what people want in depth for the purpose of creating solutions based on emotional needs.

I’ve spent thousands upon thousands of hours writing specific discussion guides, conducting focus groups, drawing templates to facilitate conversations around the emotional landscape of various categories. Whether for toilet paper, how people care for their hair, what foods they like to eat and why or how they shop for their pets.

And I began thinking a couple years ago about, if we could create products and services in mass based on people’s emotions, why can we not use the same methodology to create solutions for the good by internally reflecting on and being with our own and others’ emotions with more empathy.

My job, at least professionally, is to sit and listen with complete detachment and only curiosity to what someone’s telling me and to probe further in order to understand from their perspective what reality looks like for that person. 

And when I am tuned into who this person is and what their reality is without judgment and only curiosity, my ego, my fear, my amygdala falls to the back seat and instead, honors the prefrontal cortex with which creation occurs. I believe that if these skills can be utilized to harness our own emotions in depth and/or the emotions of others in a way that creates powerful transformation, the divisiveness, conflicts, judgment, defensiveness will rest.

It will step aside because we will be in a state of creating with and for each other. Now I know this sounds quite unreasonable considering where we are, but I also know that it works. I know it works because I am paid well to do this very thing for the purpose of creation, and I have watched the fruits of my labor manifest into extreme abundance for those who are able to create from it.

It is time that we all stop judging each other.  It is time to start getting curious. Just start listening.  For when we slow down, get curious, and listen to another’s heart, our own heart shifts, and the judgment chains we are trapped in start to loosen a little. 

I also recognize the irony it has been for me to be an “expert” in empathy interviewing and yet have been shut off to my own emotions for so many years. The life changes I’ve been through the last few years have created a new recognition about how challenging it is to be empathetic when we either believe strongly about something or we care deeply for someone. And even greater a challenge still for many of us, is to be self-empathetic. 

Ironically our beliefs we emotionally care about the most can keep us from accessing our empathy. And what is empathy? Empathy is the catalyst, the connection to compassion if you let it be. It is the tool that moves us from our mind and into our hearts. I developed an Emotional Landscape framework as a part of this course I wanted to share here. I like frameworks.  And because there is so much being written about emotions these days, I needed to create a new way to think about emotions in a context that I know works.

This framework is through the lens of creation and control – along the horizontal axis are emotions that either keep you “stuck”(the far left side) or have “momentum” (the far right) while the vertical axis are emotions that help put you in a state of “in control” (top) or “out of control” (bottom).  When we can uncover what’s really going on inside us emotionally and why, and shift to what is desired, we can become more creative and feel more in control. 

When anyone, especially a group, comes together in a space of creative control, magic happens. Products are made. Strategy is developed. Things change in a massive way.

But back to the messy middle.  Here is some of the feedback on my course from my initial testers:

1.     My course could be possibly better served if it was pulled out of the linear framework and more into buckets or themes

2.     It would be good to have almost a recipe or cookbook so that people can utilize the different tools based on where they are in their creative process or what they are trying to create.

3.     Consider tailoring to people based on “what” they’re trying to create -  whether it’s a small or large change or a certain area of life, something specific (a new career) or general (a new attitude).  

4.     I have been focused on the “how to” (empathy) instead of the “benefits of” empathy. 

So will you help me customize my course so that it’s better suited for all of these factors?  I now have a better understanding of some of the “benefits” of empathy – how my empathy tools can actually benefit others.  And I have a link here (and below) to a survey so I can now do for myself what I’ve been doing for others – better analyze what benefits matter most and to whom?  If you’re interested in me bringing this to life, can you click the link and take the survey for me? All questions are optional – you can answer what you feel comfortable with. 

I’ve been reluctant to put these ideas out into the world until I feel more confident it will be a game changer.  So much of what I’ve done over the years - creating tools processes questions etc. have all been customized for specific project objectives.  I’m wanting to now categorize what I’ve been working on for years in a way that can help leaders in their personal and professional endeavors in a way that is the most meaningful and can create the most change.

I want successful affluent leaders to be able to dig in below the surface to harness their power, their creative energy, to help them create more of what really matters in their lives.

Here’s a link to a quick survey – if you’re interested in this idea moving forward, would you be so kind to tell me what you want to create and where you are in the creative process?

Regardless, I hope you’re keeping well in this messy middle.  That you’re finding hope – that there are moments at least where you live in the top right quadrant above and you are finding your way back on solid ground.  I believe we are going to get there, and that what we are learning along the way will stay with us when we do. 

How to Create Space and Connection in a Virtual World Like a Teacher

I resisted being a teacher.  Although my undergraduate degree was in Education, I swiftly pulled the plug on that deal after my student teaching semester.  Up until now, I’ve never identified as a teacher, and I’m starting to understand why.

Instead, I have strongly identified as a “marketing researcher,” which really doesn’t mean much to a vast majority of the population.  But recently, I have had this overwhelming pull to “teach” something I see as a need.  The need to teach: why and how empathy can facilitate creating things that matter.

As a marketing researcher, I have spent the majority of my career unearthing people’s emotional desires and tensions to help brands speak to their customers in a way that can alter choice. 

Big brands do that because they know:  people make decisions based on emotional desires and frustrations (even when they think they are making decisions with rationale).

Recently, I have been playing with the idea of using empathy to better connect with oneself and each other for the purpose of helping individuals and organizations create more of what matters.

It started with a question - “what if the empathetic marketing research process could be turned inward so that individuals and small groups could unearth their own and other’s emotions to create more of whatever matters in their own lives?”

It has been more of a challenge than I thought to learn how to take this concept out of marketing research, and into real life connections. 

This summer, I pulled together a group of women beta testers to review my initial “online course” and who I consider to be:

1.     B@dass in their careers

2.     Brilliant in their thinking

3.     Big-hearted

As the process unfolded, I saw the need to do more than just the learning content and to help them “help each other” with “support sessions” for their creative project.  Naively, I thought that bringing together a “focus group” for their individual support should come naturally for me – facilitating the unearthing of emotions to help them tap into their power and create from that is “what I do”, I told myself. 

 But as time grew nearer to our first session, I realized why I never became a teacher: I have anxiety of losing control of a group’s dynamics and worry they would self-destruct. 

This had nothing to do with the group - it comes from my own fear of not feeling safe with others who are smart. I fear judgment, or perhaps seen as crazy, or possibly unseen or unheard.  

And while that may seem a little extreme, these fears center around what I have seen throughout my life - of people who “care” for each other. And in their “care”, destroy one another in a group setting.  Doing things like shutting people down, “teaching” the one who is vulnerable, over-spiritualizing or becoming the educator, over “sympathizing” or coaching or cheerleading. 

All of these things may be well-intentioned, yet they do not foster the safety that is needed for full expression; instead, they shut it down.  Nothing new can be created when people are emotionally shut down, afraid to say what they really think or feel.  And nothing new can be created when those creating are feeling judged.  True creation happens in the space of empathy.  For empathy allows creation to unfold. 

 That is why I believe if we are going to truly “be” with each other authentically, we must learn to show up as our “empathetic self” vs. our “caring self.”  When this happens, heart-activated solutions present themselves.

For 17+ years in focus groups, I have created a “container” of space in a controlled environment – one where people feel safe enough to openly express their opinions.  As a result, I have been witness to really cool creations.

But it’s one thing to create a safe “container” in a controlled environment, especially when it’s with a group of strangers.  In some ways, getting strangers to connect authentically in a deep way is easy because there is little to no fear of loss of future connection.  It’s a one and done conversation.  Plus, the ones who are actually creating based on emotions are behind the glass.

 It’s quite another to guide others who intend to create for and with each other, and have potential fears associated with emotional exposure to be with each other safely, especially in a virtual environment such as Zoom. 

It’s more complicated when you begin diving into more authentic conversations with people you care about. Because when you are helping a group form for deeper connection and creativity you must also be with multiple levels of “emotion” – your own, each individual member and the group as a whole.  

So, I put together an overarching way to think about the Empathetic Self vs. the Caring Self – and why the caring self does not foster the creativity needed, while the empathetic self does.

Considering I have formed a career doing this, I was shocked at how new it felt to create a container for others to be with others.  I struggled afterwards - with my own feelings of shame and disconnection because I wanted to “do better” at simultaneously guiding each member to contribute with “empathy” WHILE keeping the whole group’s energy focused toward the heart instead of the mind.

It’s one thing to create connection, it’s quite another to be connected while teaching it – especially in an empathetic way for myself.  Doing so requires all at the same time:

1.     Creating connection between the emotions of each individual, the one sharing and the group as a whole

2.     Redirecting positively– so each member can stay in emotional conversation

3.     Navigating technology – creating virtual energy

4.     Creating guardrails for emotional presence.

5.     Being present with my own emotions as I danced between creating control over the group’s comfort vs. surrender and trust to the individuals in the process

I realize how much I, too, struggle with being present in my heart rather than my head when I am trying to teach something.  

Here’s what I discovered.  I need to:

1.     Slow down.   When teaching something, I must break things down a bit more – I notice my reluctance to want to be the expert and prefer to ask questions than “talk too much.”  I prefer to just jump in and do it; that’s my learning style and assume it’s others, too.  So, after a quick recap of the thinking, we jumped into the process. I realized afterwards that it would have made everyone feel more comfortable practicing asking open-ended questions if I had given some examples of the type of questions that take people to their heart vs. their mind.

2.     Simplify, then Define each step.  I used words like “Insight” and “Brainstorm” and realized as I was running down the field toward the goal, I might be the only one who knew where the ball was!  Someone asked if I could define an insight – and suddenly my own insight appeared – “Ohhh, I thought to myself.  Defining insight would help everyone understand more clearly WHY it’s important to uncover emotional understanding, not just behaviors.  Because an Insight is the aha moment when one can gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing. When Empathy and Insight come together, deeper connections are made. 

3.     Give the Why – In case you are wondering, it’s not immediately clear in most group settings why you would possibly want to unearth fears, desires, and other feelings. (unless perhaps in group therapy settings).  Because, in most cases, it is quite taboo to express emotions fully.  The opposite is required – keep your emotions in check, bite your tongue, turn the other check, be a stoic.  We are taught at every turn to have “emotional control” so it’s an interesting outlier to have been hired by massive companies for years to do the opposite. Ironic, right?  I’m learning that it is not intuitive as to why there are very good reasons to uncover and be with other’s emotions in a controlled environment.  Teaching others to connect to create through the power of both heart and mind is a part of what needs to be taught. 

4.     Model, Tell a Story and/or Give Examples first.  My style is – ok, here’s the rough swag, now go do it.  Ummm, not helpful when trying to create safe space. As mentioned, emotional unearthing doesn’t necessarily feel “normal”, so easing people into doing new things requires a bit more hand holding than just giving them a bike and pushing them off!   I saw that each step in the process we used needs a further “why” as well as an example or story of how to make it concrete.

5.     Interrupt with integrity (“Yes and…”) I observed myself not being able to stop me as if in a slow motion reel shouting out to myself – “nooooooooooo” as I watched myself jump in to correcting a question.  It’s as if there were 2 parts of me – the part that knew better and the part that was so programmed to do what I do that I just split in half pouring all of my insides on the floor and then attempting to clean up the mess I made.  “Practice what you preach” was the lightbulb moment – it’s one thing to “tell others” to build on what others are saying, using positive builds such as “yes and” and “what if” – but if I don’t give myself the same guardrails or reminder, I just do what I know to do.  I correct the behavior.  And correction is not necessarily what the process is all about, is it?  No, it’s not. 

So, back to teachers.  I wonder how many are struggling with this same need to keep the classes learning (with their mind) and yet emotionally engaged (with their heart) on some level to create work in this new world.  We are in a new era of heart and mind working together.  And it’s not easy for any of us.

And yet, I am grateful to learn what I am trying to teach - correction via judgment is less important than connection via empathy and surrender of control.  It is through the connection to ourselves and others that we will pierce through the pain into creation with strength, love and resilience.