AwakenHer with Corissa Stepp
"AwakenHer" is your beacon of hope and strength, focusing on turning the pain of past relationships into the power of self-discovery and renewal.
Hosted by Corissa Stepp, this podcast serves as your guide through the complexities of healing and personal growth. Each episode unveils the stories of women who have triumphantly navigated their way through life's storms, alongside actionable advice from experts in the field. "AwakenHer" is not just a podcast; it's a movement towards self-love, resilience, and a joyful new beginning.
Join us on this transformative journey, and embrace the empowered woman you were always meant to be.
AwakenHer with Corissa Stepp
Exploring Empathy in Healthy, Unhealthy and Toxic Relationships with Laura Silverstein
What happens when we truly comprehend someone else's perspective, their heartache, joy, or fears, and emotionally connect with them, while setting aside our own biases and preconceptions? Join me and my distinguished guest, Laura Silverstein, a certified Gottman Couples Therapist, as we navigate the path less traveled to meaningful connections through empathy. Laura enlightens us on the subtle difference between empathy and sympathy, and offers a roadmap to cultivating more empathy, a necessary ingredient to create more intimacy in our relationships.
Venturing further into our conversation, we unravel the intricate dynamics of relationships, the power of vulnerability, and the hidden language of love. We tackle the art of navigating unintentional hurts and the challenge of self-acceptance in letting go of resentment. Striking a balance between finding the right time and ensuring both partners have the capacity to share and listen becomes part of our discourse, too. Embracing vulnerable conversations with intention and acknowledging the importance of self-empathy leads us to find a deeper meaning in our connections.
Lastly, we shine a light on the profound influence of inner child work and its potential to transform our understanding of ourselves and our relationships. We explore protective patterns and how trauma impacts our capacity for empathy. We underscore the importance of discerning between unhealthy relationship patterns and abusive, toxic relationships and how to seek appropriate support.
This episode is a journey towards understanding the intricacies of empathy in relationships and teaches us how to navigate the challenging yet rewarding path to meaningful connections. Join us on this enlightening ride!
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Corissa is a Holistic Trauma-Informed Coach & Narcissistic Abuse Specialist™ who empowers women after they’ve endured narcissist trauma to rediscover who they are, reclaim their power, and find the clarity and courage to move forward and live a life they love. Corissa is also a recovering people-pleaser and codependent who has endured way too many narcissistic relationships to count! She coaches not only from her knowledge and training but also from the wisdom she has gained from her own healing journey.
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Welcome to the Stepping Into Meaningful Relationships podcast. I'm your host, carissa Stepp. I'm a relationship and human design coach, and this podcast is designed to help you create a stronger connection to yourself so you can transform the relationships around you, whether that be with your partner, a friend, a parent, a child or your business. We'll be looking at relationships through the lens of human design, and my guests and I will bring you the tools, tips and tricks to create deeply meaningful connections with others. But first let's start with you. The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. Thank you for tuning in. Now let's get to today's episode.
Corissa Stepp:Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode. I am super excited to be chatting today with Laura Silverstein. We are going to be chatting about empathy and why empathy is a necessary ingredient to increase the deep connections we want to have in our meaningful relationships. Laura is a certified Gottman Couples Therapist and author of Love is an Action Verb. She has 30 years of clinical experience and is the founder and co-owner of Mainline Counseling Partners, based in Bryn Mawr, pennsylvania. Laura is a frequent contributor to the Gottman Relationship blog and has appeared as a relationship expert in media outlets such as the New York Times, abc and Today she helps couples find more happiness as a research clinician, speaker, trainer and writer with a positive, action-oriented style. Laura, welcome to the show.
Laura Silverstein:Thank you so much, Carissa. It's so wonderful to be here. I'm looking forward to chatting.
Corissa Stepp:Yes, me too. So we're going to be talking about empathy today and empathy training, so I thought it might be great just to start off with a basic foundation of what empathy is.
Laura Silverstein:So when we think about empathy, the main thing that we think about is understanding someone else's perspective and how we can really get into their world and understand what they're thinking and what they're feeling and put our own selves aside so that we're emotionally connecting with the other person.
Laura Silverstein:Sometimes people say empathy is about putting yourself in someone else's shoes, and I think that's more a definition of sympathy than empathy, because when empathy is going well, you forget you even have shoes. It's not about you, whereas sympathy is you're kind of looking from the outside of like, oh, that must be hard, whereas with empathy you're feeling it for yourself and really putting yourself in the other person's experience. So when somebody is deep in empathy, they're forgetting their own beliefs, thoughts, feelings about the situation because they are really attuned with the other person with whom they're speaking, and that's the core difference between sympathy and empathy. I think Renee Brown has a cute little video on YouTube where there's a little bear talking and sympathy is like oh my gosh, you know, I'm sorry you're in this ditch, and empathy is getting down into the ditch and being like hey, I'm here with you in your pain.
Corissa Stepp:Oh, I love that. That's such a great visual explanation. That can really be very helpful, even if you had to explain it to like a young child, right? Because I believe that empathy is one of those traits that we can model for our children so that they can learn how to be empathetic towards others. Yeah, yeah.
Laura Silverstein:And it's a crucial skill that will lead to success. You know non-traditional definitions of success, but success in terms of happiness, when you're able to be in the world with other people, understanding what they're going through, without letting go of what is important to you, how you feel and what you need and want, and so, with children, if you can start in that process, if your feelings are valid and so are the other people's feelings around you. You know the little kid that grabbed your crayon, like they wanted the crayon and you wanted the crayon, and you both were upset and both of you are valid and feeling what you felt.
Corissa Stepp:Yeah, and I think that when you connect with a child that way, or even another human being, it allows them to feel like they're understood, like you're seeing them for who they are and you're giving them words, especially for children, words to their emotions. That validation is so important, so that they feel connected, they feel understood and they feel like you know, I guess, respected in a certain way, that they're allowed to have those emotions, because I think so many of us go through life not feeling like we have the right to feel our emotions 100%.
Laura Silverstein:And sometimes I think we make the mistake with children that we teach them to be empathic towards others while not simultaneously teaching them that their feelings are valid as well. And it's a pendulum swing, right? Because, as people who are trying to help children learn who they are, we want them to learn how to be generous and thoughtful about other people, but we also don't want to teach them to be selfless and not pay attention to what they want and what they need. And it's not just children, right? I think adults work with that balance every single day. How can I be true to myself while also being kind and generous in the world?
Corissa Stepp:Yeah, that's so important. It's such an important reminder, especially for a lot of my listeners who have suffered from trauma or toxic relationships where they've found themselves caught up in these codependent patterns of overgiving right and appeasing as like a stress and trauma response, to give in to the needs of everyone else and always be outwardly focused on what everyone else needs and how everyone else is feeling and feeling responsible for their happiness, instead of looking at. Well, I also have needs and I also have desires and I also have wants and feelings and emotions that are important, right, right.
Laura Silverstein:And I'm so glad that you're bringing that up, because when we teach people how to be empathic, we're helping them focus on what they feel in connection with how do they feel when someone else is expressing their thoughts and emotions. So true empathy isn't ignoring your feelings, it's the opposite. It's like it's like going, you know, deep into your own experience of what you're noticing, you feel, as you're listening to your partner. And so if somebody has experienced trauma or their own feelings have not been validated, then we have to be very careful of honoring our own triggers and honoring, if there's some feeling that doesn't feel safe, that we don't just plow through it and focus on what the other person is thinking and feeling just because we're trying to be empathic. So it's a delicate balance, and Daniel Goldman is really considered the father of empathy. He's done so much research about it and he differentiates it into three different levels of empathy, right, and so the first one is cognitive empathy, and that's. You know, I get it, I can wrap my brain around why you feel what you feel, and the thing about the cognitive empathy is sometimes that's a little bit of a safer place to start, because you're just saying, okay, I'm gonna try to understand you in terms of my intellectual like perception of what you're explaining to me, right? And then the next level is then I'm feeling what you're feeling. So that's called emotional empathy and so that's sort of I feel your pain and we can all relate to that sort of if you are watching the news and you're hearing about a flood and you start to tear up, right, you're not experiencing a flood, but your emotions are authentically reacting because you have empathy for these people who are suffering from the flood. So that's sort of the next level down.
Laura Silverstein:And then the third is empathic concern, and that's where your own world stops and it's like your partner's in pain and your own world Really. You put aside whatever's going on for you and you're 100% really thinking about what does my partner need and willing to kind of attune with them and not think about what you would need in that situation, that you know your partner well enough that you're able to just say I'm here for you and I can figure out, knowing who you are and what your love languages are, what's gonna be supportive. But in order to have that happen, there has to be first, the intellectual understanding of why you're in pain. Secondly, to have the emotional attunement and then, thirdly, to be able to do that.
Laura Silverstein:So I would think that if somebody is experiencing trauma, or if they had a past toxic relationship, it might not be safe for them to go to that third deep level because they might put the other person above themselves and have their own suffering. So it's something to do in a slow, gradual process where you've tested the waters and you know that it's safe. So generally, I recommend that as you're getting to know someone and increasing your intimacy, you test out like how does this person respond when I'm being vulnerable? And if they are reacting with empathy, then that shows me I can share a little bit deeper. And that's how you're slowly kind of circling down to that level of depth so that nobody's doing a deep sea dive and risking emotional injury, in my opinion. I'd love to hear what your experience is or if you, you know, wanted to add to that or maybe, you know, tweak it a little bit.
Corissa Stepp:So I have, I guess I have.
Corissa Stepp:My first question would be in the instance where you know you are kind of like dipping a toe and showing a little bit of vulnerability to see how your partner kind of responds, right, so that it feels to test to see if it's safe enough right emotionally to kind of go out on a little bit of a limb, you know, what kind of response would we hope to get from our partner that would show us that they are empathetic or they're showing, you know, this empathic concern.
Corissa Stepp:Because here's the thing that I was thinking about A lot of the women that I speak to who have experienced trauma from relationships, right, and then their childhood, a lot of them actually have a high degree of empathic concern and what happens is they try to then rescue the person who's in pain, right, they try to go out of their way to alleviate the suffering of this other person because they feel it so deeply as if it's their own and they have a hard time. It's almost like an enmeshment right, which happens back from childhood. It's a pattern that's familiar where maybe there was an enmeshment with a parent or a caregiver, yes, so they tend to just take it on as if it's their own. On the flip side of that, they can also end up sitting in a victim hood state, where it's always someone else is doing it to me and I don't feel the empathy that this other person may be acting from a place of a wound that they hold.
Laura Silverstein:Yes.
Corissa Stepp:Yes and not be able to see that you know this person is not maliciously trying to hurt them potentially, right depending, it all depends, sure and they get stuck. They get stuck in that victim hood and they feel really stuck and they don't know how to get themselves out of it and then they look for someone else to rescue them from the situation as the victim, right, right.
Laura Silverstein:So this process and I'm so glad you're bringing this up because it's a question that often comes up when you're just looking at the skill development of this is how to be empathic right, validate, paraphrase, you know, emotionally empathize. All of those skills are things to do in a healthy relationship where there's a balance, and that way you're receiving the same thing back from the other person. If there's an imbalance, then it is not recommended to follow that course of empathy because you risk your own emotional injury. So this idea of like I can feel, if I can feel other someone else's pain so quickly and so easily, then the work is actually more about self empathy and self compassion so that you can eventually, you know, extend that off to somebody else. But if you don't, if you're not honoring your own emotions and feelings, then it's going to be very, very difficult to actually authentically emotionally honor someone else's feelings, because then sometimes it's coming from a place of fear, like I need to take care of you so that you don't leave me, and then my needs will be met, as opposed to really doing the work to understand I'm good enough, I have self worth and my feelings are just as important as your feelings. Yeah, definitely so. Ultimately, that's, you know, when we get to a place where we're empathizing but we're coming from being grounded in self compassion, then it's the true empathy, because if the empathic concern is, my world stops when you're in pain. That's coming from a place of I'm grounded in a secure relationship that has commitment and trust, so that I am not putting myself at risk for, like, letting go of my pain. So, you know, that makes sense.
Laura Silverstein:If my partner was, you know, had a trauma happen at work where somebody God forbid somebody got cancer or something and I had a really bad day because I had a lot of clients and I didn't get time to, you know, take my lunch break, then there's, then that's a balance right for me to like not be, you know, not worry about my own day and my own stress, but to be able to really be there for my partner and in that grief or that fear or whatever that experience was that they were having at work. But if I feel like I can't talk to my partner about my own stressful day because I'm like, oh, you know, it doesn't matter, I just saw a lot of clients where your pain was so much worse than mine, that's not what this is about. It's all about sequence and timing. So then you know I'm not going to choose that moment to talk about my stressful day If my partner is, you know, feeling intense pain.
Laura Silverstein:But I know that there's room for me to also just be like, oh my gosh, like I didn't even get my full, you know lunch hour, and just have my partner really empathize with that stinks Like I know you've been really working on this and it's hard for you to set your boundaries and you know whatever kind of compassion that partner would provide.
Laura Silverstein:So the warning sign is, if one starts to contain their own feelings, feel like they're not as valid or there's some kind of a hierarchy, ultimately, which is different than a day to day hierarchy, and sometimes I help clients with that because it feels like, well, you know, we want our partner to be there for us and sometimes they're distracted or sometimes they're having a hard day and that doesn't mean that they don't love or care about us. It also just means, okay, there's a time and place for things and and you know you want to make sure that you're having deep emotional conversations when everybody's in the space to do it. So I think I think capacity is different from timing, and sometimes it's really useful to remember like, okay, my partner can be empathic, but none of us can be empathic 100% of the time, and then we put a little less pressure on them.
Corissa Stepp:I love that.
Corissa Stepp:I love the idea that you're mentioning about capacity, because you're right, like we're not always going to have the capacity to hold space for somebody 24 seven Because sometimes when we do that, we are self abandoning, right, because maybe we need to be able to have the courage and the self love or self empathy, as you said, to speak up and ask for what we need in certain moments as well to get that balance, to keep that balance.
Corissa Stepp:So I love that you're talking about that. I think that that's super helpful and you did bring up a very good point that I wanted to just kind of highlight, which is, if you are finding that you are the one constantly basically giving and giving and giving in your relationship, right, and it's out of balance that, yes, take a look at what your underlying fears might be or your limiting beliefs might be, because you're right, it could come down to the sphere of abandonment, which, right in the instance of where I was talking about, you know, these clients who have these types of behaviors, their codependent behaviors and codependence, often have a fear of abandonment or fear of rejection which is basically the same thing Sure.
Corissa Stepp:So, yeah, and it's hard to overcome that. But obviously with doing the inner work and seeking out counseling with a therapist or a good coach, you know that can really be helpful to start looking at. You know how you can cultivate more of this self empathy.
Laura Silverstein:Yes, and sometimes it's so hard to to provide empathy when we're not getting empathy, and then, and then relationships can get into a place where we're both partners are feeling like they're not understood, and so that's, you know, that's hard too, because because it's not uncommon to feel like I'm giving and giving and giving and my partner might also feel like they're giving and giving and giving, which just makes you angry and feel, you know, misunderstood and resentful. What's that? And resentful and resentful, right, and the reality is both people deserve, you know, deserve that compassion if it's not an abusive relationship. And if it is an abusive relationship, then empathy is not recommended. Actually it's. It's, it's the boundary setting and the. That is where it would take, you know, going to an external coach or therapist to have that strength. Where you're not, you're working to empathize less with other and more with self. So it's, it's not always easy to discern the difference, especially if you've been in unhealthy relationships.
Laura Silverstein:Sometimes, when people give us empathy, it's hard to receive it, because maybe it feels risky or it feels like what, if I trust, you know, is this really authentic? Do you really truly care about me? And so sometimes you know, there is room for people to connect, even when it looks like this person might not be giving you what you need. Or maybe you you do feel like you're giving and giving and maybe you're missing the ways that your partner's also trying to give to you. And I realized that your listeners might find that controversial because that could feel dismissive to them. But it's also, you know, human beings, being with human beings and always trying to balance, like I'm an imperfect knucklehead and you're an imperfect knucklehead and like what are we going to do here? Because we're both hurting each other. You know, and that is part of a relationship is hurting each other sometimes and being hurt and feeling out, figuring out what to do when we inadvertently hurt each other.
Corissa Stepp:Yeah, and I think that sometimes, even in relationships, we might have different ways in which we give right and that kind of goes back to like the different love languages, I would say right and so that can cause sometimes a disconnect. It's almost like you're speaking different languages and so you're not seeing that your partner is giving in their way and it's hard to recognize and we're like, well, we always give the emotions, like we're always emotionally giving, but maybe they're like you know financially giving or you know physically giving in some way, and that could be a mismatch for people and it could be hard to kind of get everyone on the same page and to see it for what it is and hopefully do that before the resentment starts kicking in. Because to me I feel like once the resentment starts taking hold, if it sits long enough and it just continues to just brew and, you know, fester, it just poisons the relationship. Oh, and it's the worst.
Laura Silverstein:It's the worst for both people. You know, sometimes we feel justified in our resentment and it's such a it's, it's such a double edged sword right, because we might feel good in the justification but the resentment feels yucky. Like nobody likes to feel resent, resentment no it's like ironically hard to let it go because sort of something like oh, we feel like we deserve this and we're not being true to ourselves if we let go of this thing, which is hurting both of us. So, yeah, that's a. That is a tricky one.
Corissa Stepp:So one of the things that I have found is that oftentimes we can let go of the resentment once we do a little bit more work on our own self acceptance. Because once we learn to fully accept ourselves and stop denying the parts of us that we're trying to stuff down and hide away and shame away from the world, we're able to then look at somebody else and say, oh wait, I see this person.
Corissa Stepp:And I can now accept them for all of their different parts of who they are and realize that I love myself and I'm not perfect. I can love them and they're not perfect and it's all okay, because we're not supposed to be perfect, I know I know it's what you're saying, is so well said, and yet it's also like so hard right?
Laura Silverstein:It's just so hard to just accept ourselves in our, in our humanness.
Corissa Stepp:Yes, absolutely, and when you were talking about you know, sometimes it's hard for us to accept empathy from other people. For me, when I hear that the thing that it points to is a feeling of unworthiness or a feeling of having low self worth or value, right, yeah, and a lot of times I mean I believe, and maybe I'm wrong, and there's no scientific proof behind what I'm saying, although I'm sure there's research out there. But I feel like probably 98% of us feel unworthy in some way, right, and we all carry that worthiness wound. It's almost like, you know, if we were to get into like religion, like the original sin and the Christian religion Sure, we all carry that. And it can be really hard to feel worthy of someone else's empathy, especially if we have been in a lot of toxic relationships that have just reinforced the idea that we're not enough or worthy.
Laura Silverstein:Right, right. And then we have these sort of two different options we can get annoyed and resentful that we're not, we're not being treated the way we want to be treated, or we can over give and put our put ourselves aside so that we try to hold on to somebody who isn't treating us the way we deserve to be treated. And so, really, what you're talking about is what's in the middle? What is the in the middle between those two extremes and accepting the gifts that people are giving you, like the love language thing. I'm so glad that you talked about that, because I think that there's so much to you know, if somebody is giving you a gift and they're telling you you're worthy, right, I look at this.
Laura Silverstein:I like to use the example of you know, as a little kid, if your aunt Bessie got you a sweater that you hate, you know, you're like, I didn't want a sweater, I wanted, you know, an iPad, but you're like, no, like this gift was was something that that she thought of me.
Laura Silverstein:She gave me this sweater because she thought of me and she really thought I would like it, and the intention that it was given was out of generosity. And so when you're able to look, okay, who is this person. And oh, she made it this sweater for me, like that's amazing and that I think can really help with some of this self worth thing that you're that you're talking about. Because if somebody is giving us a gift and we said and we accept it, we're working on saying I'm worthy of your offering, and the annoyance pieces is like you don't know me, you don't care about me, you know you're not paying attention to who I am, or the over giving is like oh, you know, this is so wonderful, you're so amazing that you got me this thing. Or pretending that you like something that you don't like, which maybe is fine with Aunt Bess, but probably not a primary relationship.
Corissa Stepp:And your parents might approve of that reaction to you, right like you say thank you and even if you don't like it, you know for conditioned to right or conditioned to, you know, not say something that's going to hurt someone else's feelings, which, yeah, there's good and there's bad in that.
Laura Silverstein:Right and we can go on both sides of the pendulum, like I do believe there are times where where we were kindness is is the best course of action. It's not always 100% transparency. I probably, personally, are on the side of like this 100% transparency, you know, with my close relationships and especially in my primary relationship, where we both, you know, we're both therapists, we're both couples therapist, so we're constantly, you know, speaking 100% Honestly and we choke around those like sometimes you just just need to be like, you know, sit on something and not process it, and enjoy your day together without you know saying saying the 100% truth every single time.
Corissa Stepp:Yeah, but I think on the flip side of that, like Because I feel like we do this a lot and this is not necessarily in our primary relationships I'm just thinking about like Socially, you know, with friends people are like oh, how are you?
Corissa Stepp:And you're like I'm fine, I'm good, how are you?
Corissa Stepp:And we're always like saying I'm okay, I'm fine and everything's good, because we don't want to like unload on somebody else, because we don't want to burden them with what's actually going on in our lives.
Corissa Stepp:But on the flip side of that, like when you ask someone how they are and they tell you they're fine, but you know right, especially if you're very empathic, you know that something is wrong right in a primary relationship that can actually start to erode the trust, because then you're like wait a second, I know something is off, I know something is wrong, and now I feel like you're lying to me or I just you know, and then it just starts to you, start to question, like wait a second, they're not even comfortable telling me, and that leads obviously to then probably a deeper issue. I would say potentially this is happening in them More than just a how are you? Kind of conversation when you start to not feel emotionally safe in the relationship because you're like wait, they're not being vulnerable, sharing with me. Can I feel safe to vulnerably share with them if they're not sharing their struggles with me?
Laura Silverstein:100%. I mean, what you're talking about is intimacy and how vulnerability leads to intimacy and and that most of the time and this is how we've been In socialized especially women to be like I'm fine, I'm not gonna burden, I'm not gonna burden you with my truth about how are you actually, but the fact of the matter is is that it's it's honoring. You know, when somebody shares something that's vulnerable, that's hard to talk about, most people feel honored, like thank you for sharing that with me, like I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me you know what's going on for you, and Then you feel closer and then you feel like you could, like you just said, then you feel like you can talk to them about something real, and you know we don't. It's like there's a fear of rejection.
Laura Silverstein:When we're more vulnerable, what if they? What if they judge me or they think I'm complaining, or they think I'm ungrateful, and and when you test the water and the other person is like no, I'm glad you told me that, then you're, then you're co-creating the safety net of you are worthy and your pain matters to me and and your happiness matters to me too, like saying, saying I love you. It's not always the bad stuff, that that that's hard to say out loud. The good stuff is too. You know, yeah, I love you, or you know I'm scared of losing you. Ah, that's not easy to say out loud.
Corissa Stepp:No, and I think sometimes, when we are scared of potentially losing the person, when we share our struggles or this vulnerability, we can oftentimes dismiss ourselves at the same time by saying, oh, but it's not a big deal, it's fine, I'll be fine, it'll work out right. We automatically sort of like try to like dampen yeah how we're actually feeling, because we don't want to make the other person Feel burdened or feel bad for us in some way. Right, right. And it can be really hard, because Then we might get upset if they start dismissing us like oh, but you'll be fine, you know like it. And it goes in the other direction. Because I feel like that can happen a lot of times too, if we get into this pattern of constantly trying to minimize Right, we're sharing a little, but then we minimize it so that it doesn't feel like it's too big or overwhelming for the other person, because we're not sure if they can handle it, correct.
Laura Silverstein:And then it's it's reducing whatever positive thing just came from from that vulnerability and self-disclosure. Yeah, sorry to break that pattern. Yeah, it really is. And and I think that that the main thing to remember is that it's good when you are in the same headspace as the other person, so that you know I encourage my couples to have a conversation once a week, not every single day, and it's kind of a how are you actually conversation? And that's where both people have silenced their phones. They know that this is happening, that like we are now is our time where we're really connecting and talking in an honest way, and then you're less likely to be distracted by the world's external obligations. And so then you know I'm not burdening you. We're doing this because we know that this is what's gonna build a healthy relationship.
Laura Silverstein:And for some people, you know, it's harder to be the speaker. For some other people it's harder to be the listener, and and I really encourage the couples to make sure that they're both switching turns where they're saying you know how are you actually in asking probing, open-ended questions to learn more about how is your week, and so so one of the things that I think is very useful maybe for your listeners if they're finding some of this challenging is to realize this isn't all the time. Every day there's gonna be misattunements, just statistically right. If you think about, like, what's the likelihood that you're in a place where you're ready to be vulnerable and your partner is in the headspace to be, you know, put their own things aside to be with you, both of you have to be in the same place at the same time, so you're really looking at it 25% there, and so when you schedule those conversations, it's more likely that both people are ready and available, which will make it a more productive conversation in theory.
Corissa Stepp:Yeah, I like it because you just basically set an intention and to set aside that time, because when we don't like, when we don't schedule that time to connect with one another and be in that mindset to being open and being vulnerable and to be ready to listen as well as to share, then I think we can just get caught up in the distractions of life and the busyness of life 100% and I like to talk about it in terms of long term success.
Laura Silverstein:So sometimes couples come in and they say we're gonna do this every single day. You know we're gonna have a 10 minute conversation of you know, how is your day, how is it actually? And I kind of equate that to you know, if you want to run a marathon, you bet and you haven't run. Like, don't tell yourself you're gonna, you know, run every single day for 10 miles. You want to just start really, really slowly and think about what can you actually maintain for the next 30 years into your future, Because it's not gonna be every single day.
Laura Silverstein:And so when you think about that long term, it's sort of like crash dieting versus like healthy eating, that you have realistic expectations for yourself, for your partner and for honoring the other things. Right, it doesn't mean that your partner doesn't value you if they have to go, stay late at work. It doesn't mean that their work is more important than you. It means that we are all balancing all these million things and what's important is carving out time for your relationship, not putting it first and foremost. Every single you know moment. Yeah.
Corissa Stepp:So I wanted to kind of bring you back real quick because I think that this is important. How can we cultivate more self empathy and I know we talked a little bit about the self acceptance and all of that but what are some other things that people can do to begin cultivating that today?
Laura Silverstein:What a wonderful, wonderful question. And it's a slow process and to be patient with yourself and compassionate for yourself. Even in, ironically, this journey of trying to cultivate self empathy, it's like, oh, how do we, how do we cultivate empathy, you know, for ourselves, when it's hard for us to cultivate empathy for ourselves, right? So I am a huge belief and maybe this sounds kind of woo-woo to your listeners and hang in there with me for a minute but to really think about yourself as a young person, right, when we think about the little you know, the little girl in you, the little boy in you who was having a bad day and wanted a hug, you know, and then to be able to think there's an adult in you that has that compassion for the younger version of yourself, because the young version of yourself wants to be loved, wants to be accepted, wants to be told you're good enough just for sit in there. And adults are taught to be independent and strong, and you know, and sometimes it's just too hard to do that for yourself.
Laura Silverstein:But if you can picture, like, almost like, your little self, you know, sitting on a sofa and going out and thinking, you know, what would you say to that little person. Would you hug them Like? Would you? You know how? Would you see? Do they want to be hugged, like the kind of respect that you're, that you now, as an adult, understand that you can look at somebody and see what do they need? Do they need a hug? Do they need a kiss on the forehead?
Laura Silverstein:Are they the kind of young person that wants just to be told that they're wonderful or they're good enough, you know, and to really pay attention, because actually you know, right, like I, laura, might not know what you, carissa, needed as a little girl, but you know what you needed as a little girl and maybe you got it sometimes and maybe you didn't, and maybe you got it. You know the lower percentage than you wanted. It doesn't even matter right, it's just that you're worthy of that love and compassion. And so by listening to yourself and remembering what you needed back then, it might it might not, but for many people it's easier to have that self compassion for the child within themselves.
Laura Silverstein:So I don't know if that sounds too earthy crunchy or whatever but no, no, not at all.
Corissa Stepp:We talk about inner child work all the time. It's very important and it's funny because I know that, like when I first started hearing you know, when I was working with a therapist or I was talking with another coach, and they were like, yes, like we're going to do inner child work and I'm like I don't want to think of myself as different people. I'm one person, like I've integrated as one person. Why do I want to separate myself out into these different parts of me? But it is actually really, really important and you know, some of the, even the work that I do is we talk about from internal family systems, right? So we're talking about the different protector and guardian parts that show up right, to keep us safe and how we've developed these patterns of behavior and thought, patterns that have continually just tried to keep us safe but they're not really who we truly are, right, our true adult self. These are just ways in which we've learned to cope.
Laura Silverstein:Yeah, right, right, the protector, the, you know, the vulnerable person, the you know all of those different. I mean, that's what I love about IFS is that you know everything has a reason. There's a reason why we get defensive and there's a reason why our defenses show up in different ways at different points in time with different people, and it helps us all to kind of normalize a very universal human experience.
Corissa Stepp:Absolutely 100%, and we can you know thank those little parts when they come up and say thank you for showing up and keeping me safe, right.
Corissa Stepp:Because they're doing their job, and then you know, we can then point to okay, well, why is this showing up? Right, we can do that digger, that deeper work that we need to sometimes do to understand ourselves better in a different way, and I just love that. So this has been such an empowering conversation, I think, for everyone to understand why empathy is so important, how they can begin to cultivate more of it in their relationships, but, even more importantly as we talk about a lot on this podcast how they can create it for themselves, which is just to me.
Corissa Stepp:I feel like, if you're going to do any kind of work and I'm going to say this real quick If you're in a relationship and your partner is unwilling to do couples counseling with you, right to go to someone like Laura to do the work together. Well, you can still have an impact on your relationship by doing the work on yourself, right, do you agree with me, laura? Oh, yeah.
Laura Silverstein:Oh yeah, 100% I have. So I've written two books. One is exactly for that. Like what can you? I have one of the One chapter is kind of tongue-in-cheek named you know what to do while you're waiting for your partner to change.
Laura Silverstein:So it's like there are certain parts of couples therapy I believe that you really can't do on your own. There are certain things and I kind of outlined that but a lot of the stuff you can do on your own. You can improve your communication skills, you can work on yourself, love, you can work on understanding what kind of conflict style you prefer and how that might integrate with your partner's conflict style. And by increasing that insight then you enter the relationship as the best version of yourself. And the good thing about relationships is that they're systemic. So what that means is if I make a change, that's going to change the whole relationship, but that's not for trauma or abuse, right?
Laura Silverstein:So I really like to really emphasize that you don't want to go and kind of try to keep working, working, working on a relationship where you have somebody who's not treating you with dignity, with respect. Then find somebody to help you get out. So I always like to add that caveat. And then my other book is a workbook for people who you know. If you have a partner who maybe you're not in a place where you feel like you need couples therapy, therapy is expensive. It's hard to find somebody who's qualified that has availability right now. So the workbook is sort of a DIY version of how to have some of these conversations and work on empathy together by just it's mostly conversation prompts of you know say this to your partner and then ask these questions and listen to the answers and I kind of try to walk you through it as if I was kind of in the room and in the book.
Corissa Stepp:That's fantastic. I love that. That's amazing. I didn't know that you had a workbook. I think that that's really, really helpful. It kind of reminds me a little bit of and if you've ever seen there's I forget the name of it, but there's like a deck of conversation cards that you can use, like with your children or your family, like around the dinner table to just sort of like. Instead of just asking how was your day, you can ask like better questions, to kind of just connect with one another. I feel like this is this sounds very similar. I feel like you should make cards for people to use to pull out.
Laura Silverstein:There you go, there you go Right.
Corissa Stepp:Or if I had the.
Laura Silverstein:If my son comes along, he's 16, if he can help me figure out how to make it into an app, Right there you go Even better, even better.
Corissa Stepp:I love that, fantastic. Well, thank you so so much. I do just want to. So I just wanted to reemphasize something that you mentioned real quick, as we're kind of wrapping up our conversation, which is if you are in an abusive relationship. I usually tend to discourage people from even doing couples counseling in that instance, because your abusive partner it's all about control for them. So a lot of times they'll be using tactics that they're using in your relationship with the therapist, which would include manipulation. It'll include potentially not being truthful, it may include gaslighting and all of these things. That is just going to reinforce in the session, as opposed to having someone start to validate your own experience, because they're not going to really see your partner truly as who they are, because they're experiencing a version of them that they are portraying outwardly in the world to make themselves look better, as opposed to actually really doing the work on the relationship. Right?
Laura Silverstein:Yes, yes. So this is so important. Being in couples therapy if you are in an abusive relationship is actually dangerous that things could get worse because sometimes things that are said can be used against you. So the scary thing is sometimes people don't know right. They might be reading blog posts about like the five signs you're in an abusive relationship and some of those things are just very normal things that people do when they're angry, which is very, very different from an abusive relationship. So if you don't know, it's okay. It's important to get other people's advice.
Laura Silverstein:Go to licensed professionals who have been trained to screen for the symptoms of abuse. Don't do this online. Don't even read a book. That's where you don't want to mess around, and a qualified couples therapist is going to do a solid assessment before they begin working with you. So if you are not sure, if you're in an abusive relationship and you start couples therapy, then the process will be that in that assessment you can talk.
Laura Silverstein:Usually couples therapy at least the model that I use you meet together and you fill out a whole bunch of questionnaires and then those questionnaires are screening questions and then you have an individual session with your couples therapist and at that point, if you believe that you're in an abusive relationship or the therapist might bring it up and tell you the couples therapy is not indicated and here's why. And then you come up with a plan for what to do so that it doesn't escalate, and that usually the recommendation would be go to individual therapy and get some individual strategies for figuring out either how to dissolve it or how to move forward in a way that's safe.
Corissa Stepp:Yeah, that's so helpful. My concern there, though, would be what if people aren't being totally honest on the questionnaires? Right? Like what if someone is ashamed that this is happening in their relationship? Right? If there is, say, a physical, physically abusive relationship, right? A lot of times, women can hide that because they feel like it's their fault. Sure, right, and then also, the partner on the other side may not be as upfront about what's happening as well.
Laura Silverstein:Right, right, so there's no magic bullet for this.
Laura Silverstein:Unfortunately, sometimes people don't know that they're in an abusive relationship because they don't have that self worth that we talked about, and so, yeah, it might not come up in the assessment and that's sad and risky.
Laura Silverstein:But if that situation, it's like, I guess, for your listeners to think about this is like when, in doubt, you want to reach out to an individual person to discuss your situation, not necessarily move forward. I guess what I'm talking about is sometimes, you know, people are not even in that situation and they they're thinking I'm going to try to make things better, I'm going to try to make things better, and then they might hear this oh my gosh, like am I in that category where I'm, where I'm trying to make things better and maybe I'm in abusive relationship? And so so many people are really scared and don't necessarily, you know, they feel alone with trying to discern this and knowing who to trust, whether to trust themselves or you know which experts, and so I think that I think the take on message is there's help out there and to not be, and to be very courageous in asking for that help, if you can.
Corissa Stepp:Yes, I love that because, for sure, a lot of times, women have already, or when people in these situations sometimes have already lost, don't even have that self trust necessarily because it's been whittled away in the abusive relationship a lot of times.
Corissa Stepp:Right, if, especially, I'm speaking specifically to emotional and verbal abuse, where the power, the way they get power, is by demeaning, dismissing, belittling, right all these things that basically eventually erode yourself worth, and with gaslighting and things like that, it can start to erode yourself trust as to whether or not you have a good handle on reality of what's actually happening, and the tactics can be so subtle that we may not even be aware that this has been ongoing for a while, and so I just want to share what you want. I love what you said and I wanted you to speak to it because I want people to know that, like you said, that they're not alone, that there are resources, there are qualified experts out there that can help, so that they don't have to lose themselves in these situations. Yeah, I get the support that they need. Yeah, thank you.
Laura Silverstein:And that's why I just want to shout out to you for doing this kind of podcast, because it's such a great entree into this sort of self-discovery, because listening to a podcast is a way for you to do some of that like exploration internally where you're not really sure, and so sometimes this can be a first step to looking at some things that might make it a little bit easier for people to reach out for help. So I really just appreciate what you're doing with us. It's tremendously important for people to know they're not alone, and these kinds of venues is a way for people to be reminded of that.
Corissa Stepp:Thank you and thank you for your work that you're doing in the world. I appreciate it. I know that you have a tremendous background in helping others with again, with empathy, creating intimacy and connection in their relationships and maybe turning around a relationship. That is not all unhealthy relationships are toxic, right? So I just wanted to say that, too, not all unhealthy relationships are toxic. So if you find that you need support in your relationship and you want to get it back on track and it's not abusive and it's not toxic that you have an outlet right, you have a path forward. It's not. You're not doomed, yeah.
Laura Silverstein:So I think that it's really important that people recognize that if they're afraid that they're in an abusive relationship, right, that they take that very, very seriously, but also realize that being in a relationship means that sometimes you will get hurt, your feelings will get hurt and your partner's feelings will get hurt, and that doesn't mean that you have to leave immediately. There might be potential for repair and healing within that relationship. So not to feel pressured just because somebody does something that's hurtful is not the same as abuse.
Corissa Stepp:Yeah, I want to be like what's the formula? How are we supposed to know? When does it become? When is it unhealthy? When is unhealthy turn toxic? And of course, we could have a whole other podcast episode to discuss that dynamic, right?
Laura Silverstein:Well, I think that I know that it's not simple, but there is a sense of like. If you try, if you look to try to repair, is the person showing remorse and are they making changes? And that is something that if you give somebody a chance, you can still leave them right. You can't undo. If they fail a second time, you don't lose that much right. If you've given the opportunity, if your core needs are, you've been respected and treated with dignity and it's not this emotional abuse that you're talking about then that usually tends to be the criteria. If somebody's not expressing authentic remorse, that's a pretty big red flag. So we'll just leave that with a gross oversimplification of this.
Corissa Stepp:Perfect, and I would say that if they don't have remorse, then they most likely are lacking empathy in some way. Just to tie it all up in a bow oh, there you go, good job. Well, thank you so much, Laura. I'd love for you to share with listeners how they can connect with you, and I know you have a course that you have out that I would love for you to share more information about.
Laura Silverstein:So the easiest way to find out about me is laurasilversteinco is my website and it's cocom and on that there's a free resources tab and I have an empathy course on there and I try to give out lots and lots and lots of free stuff for people to learn and grow and improve their relationships, and I also am going to have some retreats. Coming up in person if people feel like flying out to Pennsylvania, I've got a great retreat center that I'm working on that with my husband. We're going to co-lead a retreat. So lots of good stuff happening.
Corissa Stepp:Will it be a couples retreat or will it be an individual? Like for individuals, it's a great couples retreat, okay, awesome, fantastic. And also your books, so make sure that you check those out. Can they find those on Amazon? Yep, they're on.
Laura Silverstein:Amazon and yeah, I hope you find them useful.
Corissa Stepp:Fantastic, and we will include all of the links in the show notes to make it easier for the listeners to reach out to you and connect with you and grab a copy of that book and workbook, because I think those will be really helpful too. So, laura, thank you again so much. It's been such a pleasure. This has been a wonderful conversation. I hope you got something out of it. Until next time, be well. If you're hearing this message, that means you've listened all the way to the end, and for that I am truly grateful. If you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable, would you mind leaving us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and sharing it with others? If you'd like to connect with me for one-on-one coaching or human design reading, you can find me on my website or on social media. Also, if you have a topic you'd like me to discuss on a future episode, please DM me. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Stepping into Meaningful Relationships.
