Beasts of Empathy
Why did I say that? What happened? Why did I get so upset?
Have you ever left an argument wondering how you were pulled into the passion of the situation? Have you thought, “I was fine when I started talking to this person who was upset, but now I am angry as well,” and wondered how that happened?
Most of the time we function as beasts of empathy. We are geared to take on the emotions of those around us. If you are with someone who is angry, you will tend to take on that anger. If you are around someone who is sad, you will tend to share in their sadness. In the same way, we tend to share in happiness.
This is how empathy is supposed to work and, most of the time, empathy can be a great trait! This trait allows us to share in another's sadness even though it is not our own. This allows us to share in joys that are not our experience. We smile when others smile.
Empathy can be problematic as well. When we are engaging with someone who is angry, we will tend to become angry ourselves. One example of this is road rage. Another driver communicates that they are upset about the choice that you have made as a driver. What happens next for a good portion of people is they respond in kind. Anger is met with anger. Escalation is met with escalation.
Another term to describe this is counteraggression. This is basically an aggressive response to aggression. It’s saying, “You are angry, so I will be angry back. You raised your voice, so I will raise mine louder.” In this back and forth of one upmanship, there are no winners. The only way to really win when met with aggression is to not engage, and to instead. make the choice to remain calm even in the face of the anger and possible angry behaviors, such as screaming.
You can choose to engage the world differently. This is easy to say and harder to do. Staying calm when someone else is angry is not our default behavior. The first step in changing this is recognizing when it has happened, and taking an honest assessment about why this loss of control has occurred. Upon reflection, themes and patterns can be recognized. Knowing these patterns allows us to change the way we tend to react when the pattern shows itself, and to make a choice to do something different.