Reaching For Your Tools – Empathy, Hope, Vulnerability, and Respect

This is the fifth in a series of six statements about the values and objectives of Someone To Tell It To’s listening, training, and educational programs. Living these values is how we are helping the world to listen.

The conversation in the restaurant that afternoon was going well. The man we were listening to was Someone we had been supporting off and on for several years. 

But suddenly and unexpectedly, he said something that jarred us both:

The problem with this country is all the immigrants coming across our borders. They are ruining life here, threatening our way of life and our society. 

This statement, out-of-the blue, had nothing to do with the reason we were meeting. It had no apparent relationship to the issues at hand that the man had been talking about. 

We don’t remember our exact response. It came as the conversation was winding down and we were beginning our goodbyes.  

But we didn’t argue with him, nor did we say we agreed with him. Engaging with his statement would have taken more time than we were able to give that day. And to be honest, we just didn’t know how to respond without undoing the trust and goodwill the conversations had engendered up to that point. He said nothing more to follow up on his statement, and then went on to say goodbye.

In the car together after we left, we asked the questions:

The end of that conversation sure took a hard turn, didn’t it? Where did that come from?

Honestly, we both were troubled by his statement. It’s our belief – and it’s a core value of Someone To Tell It To that every person has value – no matter where they come from, no matter what their status in life is, no matter their situation. Everyone’s story has meaning and deserves to be heard. We don’t believe in making blanket statements about immigrants, especially negative and judgmental ones. We don’t believe in making blanket statements about any one or any group of people. Human lives and circumstances are more complicated and nuanced than stereotypes. For us, that value applies to everyone. Including immigrants and including the man who made that blanket statement.  

We went on to have several subsequent conversations with the man in the months after that. They were positive and good; no inflammatory comments such as that were ever made. We continued listening to the man because he was hurting deeply and emotionally about broken relationships in his life.  

It didn’t matter that we were uncomfortable with his opinion about immigrants. It didn’t matter that his statement made us feel awkward. It didn’t matter that we did not like his opinion that went against our values. Because, we respected him as a human being who was carrying a pain and a burden that weighed him down and kept him imprisoned in regret and fear. We were accompanying as he tried to work through his regret and fear.

That’s all that mattered.

Our empathy for his broken heart and spirit kept us coming back to listen to him, and to walk with him on his path toward relational forgiveness and hoped-for reconciliation in his life. That’s why we were there. To listen and to help in his search for healing. We knew that his core wound wasn’t caused by immigrants. We knew that at his core, broken relationships with some in his life whom he deeply loved, were at the heart of the matter. We knew that by getting to the heart of it all, his opinions about others beyond his closest circle, might be changed for the positive and for the better because his heart was being mended and his pain – that caused the judgment and fear – was being taken away.

Sometimes, having empathy when listening to others is hard. Sometimes, we’re not going to agree with those to whom we’re listening. Sometimes, an opinion or action they render may be offensive to us, a challenge to our values. But if we hold the value that everyone matters and that everyone deserves to be heard, we can still hold respect for a person even when we disagree or don’t understand their beliefs. We also knew that for him to make such a strong and vulnerable statement, cutting him down or cutting him off at that moment would have most likely destroyed his trust in us and shut him down from ever being vulnerable and open again.

We believe it is part of our mission to model respectful and empathetic relationships with everyone, even when there may be some things on which we differ. None of us will ever hold the exact same opinions or have the exact same feelings or respond in the exact same way to any given circumstance. Not even with those to whom we are closest and love most dearly. That’s okay. And at the right times, it’s also okay to express our differing reactions and feelings in respectful, non-inflammatory ways. Sometimes those ways are with words. Most times, and most effectively, those ways are with our actions. It is by modeling respect, and by living in relationships despite any differences (and there will always be differences), that sows the strongest seeds of increased empathy, hope, vulnerability, and respect in one another’s lives. 

It’s not always easy. But it is always right. 

Photo by Fleur on Unsplash