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The Align Your Purpose Program
STEP SIX: EMPATHYKNOWING & SOLVING UNMET NEEDS
Light For The Souls
Copyright © Vladimir Kush
A L IGN YOUR PUR POSE P ROGRAM - S T E P S I X : EMPATHY
Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
3
IN THIS LESSON:
• Empathy as Emotional Intelligence• If Nothing Else, Know the Need• The Downside of Empathy
The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense amysterious connection to eachother.
“
”Meryl Streep
Welcome to Step 6! Where we learned last lesson that the essence of asking questions could lead us into
receiving and a genuine opening of our hearts, in this lesson we look more closely at how to continue heart
expansion: through both receiving and giving. Such heart expansion helps us further awaken and step into
our personal power while also helping us intuitively align our purpose with our actions—because where the
mind can become confused or choose the wrong path at any given turn... the heart always knows its own
Truth. We only need know our own hearts. ☺
Empathy becomes a beautiful next step to this end as it is one of the heart’s most exquisite talents. Through
it we sense the mysterious connection we have to all beings and to all things. Through it we can also give
our own gifts, love and actions in ways that transform those we care for... and which have the opportunity
to create massive ripples of change across the planet.
Additionally, empathy helps us understand an aspect of our world that lies beyond data and factual
information: through it we can understand people—and to achieve anything in your personal or professional
life, it is vital to understand the people in your world.
In fact, researchers, doctors and scientists often point to Empathy as a key defining characteristic found in
successful people and those in leadership positions.
The other side to empathy is that in order to give the essence of ourselves, we first learn to receive the
essence of those we choose to serve, assist and love. And we learn to do so from a place of healthy
openness—meaning what flows into us can be felt and recognized, but then also allowed to flow out. We
do not let another’s suffering become our own suffering, for then rather than lifting another up, we have
instead brought ourselves low... and we become unable to truly serve or assist them. Misery, in reality, does
NOT love company.
So what precisely is empathy and how can we use it to not only further our understanding of the people in
our lives, but to also continue forward into our purpose and achievement of our pusuits?
Copyright © Cameron Gray
A L IGN YOUR PUR POSE P ROGRAM - S T E P S I X : EMPATHY
Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
5
The primary reason empathy is highlighted as a key characteristic of leaders and successful people is
because it presents the flip side of good listening: beyond fully listening to those around you, empathy allows
you to discern what those around you most want to listen to.
Empathy helps us craft our conversations, presentations and proposals in ways that communicate in another
person’s language. Through empathy we can determine what another person wants or desires so that we
can explain “what’s in it for them” to participate with us.
These are very rarely logical positions, though logic is a factor. What comes first however is the emotional
need the other person wants fulfilled... and once we’ve communicated that we (or our venture) can meet
that need, it becomes an easy journey to justify that emotional position with logical support.
In his book on Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman discusses the five crucial skills to perceive, command
and evaluate emotions. Rather than repeat his valuable work here, we’d like to build on the power of
emotions to also establish a rarely-discussed form of empathy that can take your own communications
and ventures to additional heights: Needs Intelligence.
EMPATHY AS EMOT IONAL INTE L L IGENCE
A L IGN YOUR PUR POSE P ROGRAM - S T E P S I X : EMPATHY
Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
6
As you’ll notice if you read Goleman’s work on
Emotional Intelligence, you can learn a great deal
and exponentially increase your effectiveness when
you understand the emotional drivers at play in the
people you serve, the people you collaborate with,
and of course even the people you love.
However emotion in itself, though useful, is tied to a
deeper driver: a person’s core need.
As I have often taught in my own practice, and as
we understand it here at Choice Point, there are 7
Human Needs that underlie core emotional
response and drive. Knowing which one or two
needs are paramount for a particular person, or for
your overall audience, dramatically increases your
ability to communicate your position in a language
they can hear... as well as your ability to serve and
heal the greater essence of any person’s desire or
pain.
We all possess some degree of all 7 needs, however
in relation to you or your venture, you will find the
person or people you’re dealing with will often have
one or two primary needs you can address. As you
will see, some of these needs are complementary
and others are contradictory. Knowing which needs
are paramount will keep you from presenting a
message that violates that person’s true driving
need (such as communicating a sense of certainty
when your audience seeks uncertainty in the form
of variety!).
This is because while defining an emotion is useful,
such as whether someone primarily identifies with
grief or if it presents itself more as anger... you can
glean massive amounts of additional information if
you know the underlying needs those emotions are
attached to. Because almost always an emotional
reaction is triggered because a need has just been
met, or clearly not met.
Armed with such information, in addition to echoing
back their emotional experience for rapport and
relationship, you can now go a step further to speak
to their primary need and how you can help them
meet it. Such information is priceless in all forms of
communication!
I F NOTH ING E L S E , KNOW THE NEED
A L IGN YOUR PUR POSE P ROGRAM - S T E P S I X : EMPATHY
Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
7
The Seven Human Needs Are:
1. Safety & Certainty
This need is often expressed as a need to control as
much as one can, to know how something will turn
out before it actually happens, or to only want to
make safe decisions or participate in safe
relationships. The unknown or uncertain is incredibly
stressful and often such a need is closely tied to our
survival instincts and fears.
2. Variety & Adventure
Variety is basically uncertainty. This need is
expressed as a desire for adventure, for what is
different and new, and for things to not always be
the same. Such a person desires novel experiences
and is often bored if things always appear the
same.
3. Significance
The need for significance is directly tied to our
human need to feel valued and to know that we
matter; that we are worthy. At its worst, this can
manifest as egotistical pride at any cost, however
for most people this is a healthy desire to be
appreciated and to know that somehow, by the
time we leave this planet, we will have left a
meaningful imprint on it that only we could uniquely
provide.
4. Love
Our need for love naturally goes beyond romantic
love. Some people find that beneath their desire to
“save the world” and their big visions for change...
the driving need is simply a desire to be loved by
those they would save. Sometimes religious or
spiritual fervor is tied to a need to know we are
loved by a divine parental or universal figure.
5. Growth & Evolution
As human beings we are predispositioned toward
evolution. This need is often expressed as a desire
for more wisdom or knowledge, improving skills or
evolving one’s station in life. It can also manifest as
a desire to evolve oneself physically into peak
condition, or to evolve spiritually toward awakening
or enlightenment.
6. Contribution
We are designed as social creatures, and as such
we desire to contribute to our communities—
whether the local tribe of our village, our personal
family, or to a greater collective. This need often
manifests in charity, giving, volunteering, or seeking
a social station that tells us our place in the larger
collective.
7. Oneness/God
Our final need is also our first. However not everyone
identifies with this need consciously quite the way
each of us will at times identify with the previous six
needs. That said, we will often see this need express
itself in religion, spiritual seeking, philosophy and our
desire to know the unknowable and answer the
unanswerable. In many ways our fascination with
the Mysteries of life—even in our most logical and
practical pursuits, such as in science—is a need to
know one way or another: are we One? Is there a
God?
Awake In A Silver Land
Copyright © Cameron Gray
A L IGN YOUR PUR POSE P ROGRAM - S T E P S I X : EMPATHY
Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
9
You can likely see here the obvious benefit to
identifying one of the above needs as a primary
driver in someone you need to persuade,
collaborate with, or speak to.
However, consider also the way two needs can
interrelate. This is exceedingly informative because
it helps us understand what can often be
contradictory behavior or drivers in another person
or in a larger audience.
For example, consider that someone’s top two
needs are Love and Certainty. This means that in
their approach to all things: whether their career,
social contribution, or their own personal
relationships... there is an underlying and perhaps
unconscious need to feel loved. Ask yourself how a
person with such a primary need would feel loved
in a particular situation? If you’re in a business
presentation with a CEO who has this as her primary
need... how can you communicate with that? Likely
she will respond to language such as “feel” and
“your employees will be inspired to loyalty and a
deep appreciation for your leadership, not just as
their CEO, but as an individual they enjoy working
with and for.”
Add to her desire for love a desire for certainty, and
you see the waters get a bit muddier. Now not only
does she need to know that she’ll feel a sense of
love if your project is approved... she also needs to
feel an immense amount of certainty that the
project will succeed, particularly in that specific
way.
On the other hand, let’s say that her second primary
need was Variety rather than Certainty. In this case,
you’d want to communicate how she can be a
pioneer in approaching her employees in the way
you propose. How it will add so many new elements
to her experience as a leader, as well as to the
experience of her employees. Communicate to her
as a trailblazer that is heart-centered.
You can do this quite easily with all the 7 human
needs in any of their pairings.
But how to determine a person’s one or two top
needs?
ASK QUESTIONS!
You won’t necessarily ask outright, “Is your top need
one for significance?” Instead, make a note of
words, traits and ideas commonly associated with
each need. Then to determine a person’s top
needs, ask him to describe his vision. What are his
desires and fears? What problems does he see
himself facing in this particular area of his life that
you’re focused on? How does he imagine it can be
solved?
Don’t just pay attention to the information in his
answers, but also the words he chooses in explaining
himself. There is a language to love. A language to
significance. A language to contribution and to
Oneness.
Don’t analyze it too hard... know that you have
each of these same needs in you, and with your
natural ability for empathy you can instinctively or
intuitively identify another person’s top needs
because they will echo the needs within you.
And finally, I just want to touch on one other key
aspect of empathy: it’s downside that we can
sidestep with our awareness...
Awake In A Silver Land
Copyright © Cameron Gray
A L IGN YOUR PUR POSE P ROGRAM - S T E P S I X : EMPATHY
Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
11
To fully understand the downside of empathy, it may
serve to first be clear what empathy is. By formal
definition, empathy is the ability to understand and
share the feelings of another. Yet most of us have
learned that to empathize properly with someone is
to actually match another person’s emotional state
or energetic vibration, and this can harm us as well
as prevent us from doing the good we sought to do
by empathizing in the first place.
Although matching another person’s emotional
state allows us to more easily feel and relate to what
they are feeling, when we do this their suffering
becomes our suffering. Their anger gets stuck in our
body as anger. Their grief seeps into and lowers our
energy and depletes us as it has depleted them.
The challenge with empathy is we’ve been taught
that there’s no middle ground: either we’re cut off
from another’s experience and we remain aloof or
uncaring... or we fully match them in their feelings
and take on the other person’s suffering, anger or
pain.
These are both no-win options if we wish to both a)
understand the world of another person and their
lived experience, and b) have the personal power
and energy necessary to assist them and give them
love or caring that can elevate and lift them up.
This is why we recommend that you focus more on
identifying a person’s need rather than just their
emotional state. It helps provide some neutral
distance so that you can fully relate to their
emotional reality without adopting that reality as
your own and ‘taking it on.’ Also identifying a need
provides you information that can be actionable. It
seems that often the downside of empathy gets
triggered when you don’t know how else to help or
be there for them. Focusing on action or insight
helps you maintain neutral and healthy empathy.
Because you’re never meant to heal or fix another
person, or their situation. Instead, you can give your
gifts: your love, your caring, your insights and your
support. Only they can truly heal their own
emotional state.
THE DOWNS IDE OF EMPATHY
www.choicepointmovement.com