Emotionally illiterate Humans

and how often 'Empathy Missteps' happen

I am listening to Dr. Brene Brown’s book, on Imperfections. Here she talks about what she calls ‘empathy missteps’ and I relate to so many of these, thinking about it conjunction with what my cousin recently called “emotional illiteracy.”

In other words, in colloquial terms, I think of emotional illiteracy as the very dumb shit most people reply with, when they are met with discomfort, another’s grief or pain, and can’t relate or critically imagine what another’s experience is…

Too often, we come up short in this regard.

Humans often (usually) plain suck at what I call holding space for one another’s pain, grief and trauma. Just letting another’s experience…be…

By this, I mean just sitting with them in silence, holding concern and care for them, listening and taking a millisecond to feel another’s pain— without jumping in to say some completely dumb shit in response.

More often than not, people overly relate it back to their own grief.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gotten this in response to my own string of losses and grief—even if it’s really NOT similar.

When it’s not an immediate family member who has died, even if it is not from suicide, even if it wasn’t a string of losses, but they have had just one.

But in the way/how the person responds, you would think we had identical stories.

Eye roll.

It’s annoying AF, to be honest.

And I get that this is tricky because we don’t, we can’t, know the intentions of the person. They can come from a good place, of trying to (overly) relate and trying to comfort, but simply in just really immature and emotionally illiterate ways.

Sometimes it feels that this is *most* people.

We don’t do this well. We don’t “human” and listen well. We don’t do well at just shutting the fuck up and listening to others without agenda. Without looking to overlap or interject with a response. We don’t listen to understand; we listen to respond.

This is what I call “holding space” for another’s unique experience and suffering.

Instead, many people immediately jump in and say things that do more harm than good.

Native American author, Thomas King, while emphasizing the importance of stories, also cautions us:

“We have to be careful with the stories that we tell.”

I think about that truth in conjunction with Dr. Brene Brown’s quote:

“If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can become one more piece of flying debris in a dangerous storm.”

Ohhh, yes.

I have learned a lot in this regard, sharing with people who later weaponize it, and I will exercise a hell of a lot more caution in moving forward with whom I share and with what I share.

Not everyone is privy to our stories.

Some will use them against us. Some are insecure enough about themselves to use them against us, in shoddy attempts to elevate themselves. Some will pack it away and use it later for ammunition.

Not everyone is trustworthy, pure in intentions; not everyone deserves our stories of shame and vulnerability.

When we do entrust our stories to others, especially if/when they involve our shame stories, when we have made errors, or when there is something about our family’s story that we cannot change—we make ourselves vulnerable.

There is indeed great potential in these moments, for connection and authenticity—

And I believe Brown’s claim that when we do this, we may connect and join in collective humanity through our communal stories of vulnerability, but not everyone will see this as an opportunity to connect. Otherwise will jump on this, as an opportunity to further kick you when you are down, or use this as an opportunity to brag or engage in the ol’ one-up-man-ship game.

Be careful.

Be careful with the stories you tell and who you allow into your corner with your stories of vulnerability and insecurities and moments of shame.

Be careful who you allow in your corner; you may think that just because they are beside you, it means that they are rooting for you.

But the caveat to that is this—

To go to the other extreme, to not trust or let anyone in, also harms us.

We must be judicious in who we share relationships with, who gets to see our humanity and hear our stories. But, we must look for those we can trust and establish relationships with, because they are out there. And because we need others; we are hardwired for connection and belonging.

So, a final word:

Proceed with caution, friends. Proceed slowly, with the yellow light of caution.

But be open to the possibility, that trustworthy and authentic people do exist and w will benefit from those genuine relationships. But if we think they are not there, we will not find them. Instead, we’ll only see reasons to discount their validity.

It’s tricky and that’s the total mindfuck of it all.