Transcript
Hello everyone, welcome to another DailyJim. This is the episode for Thursday, March 7th, 2024. I am pretty much done coding, so I will try to do these on the actual date, not a few hours past.
Today I wanted to talk about what it would be like if instead of describing what the other people are doing, we describe how we are feeling.
So this comes from watching the State of the Union address today where Biden was talking. And then afterwards, there was a Republican rebuttal by a woman senator. I think her last name is Britt from Alabama.
And the thing that jumped out at me when she was speaking was that at one particular moment she talked about I think it was a brutal rape that happened. And I didn't catch the full beginning of it so I don't know who did it but there was something she was talking about with drug cartels and I think it was related to the immigration controversy and conversation that a lot of us are having, and what I noticed while listening to it I felt, while listening to the whole conversation the whole speech I felt quite frustrated, disgusted, anxious, there was a lot of kind of just like this ick feeling, and I realized afterwards it's not so much about, I think she was describing what the other people are doing and how other people are evil and not describing how she or other people were feeling as a result of receiving that evilness and receiving that pain.
And I see this as a pattern over and over again, that so many of us, and I'm sure I do it too, but it's sometimes easier to see it when other people do it. So many of us, when something happens to us, we describe what the other person did. Well, this person did this, and they did that, and they did not do this, and they did that. I'm like, uh- huh, okay, and how did you feel? because if we're just describing what the other person did, it doesn't help me better empathize with you.
It doesn't help other people better empathize with us if empathy is to feel with us. Why don't we talk about how we're feeling?
I'm not saying this to discount the violence or the crime or the rape or whatnot. that has happened. But how does it make us feel? What is the impact of these behaviors? Because somebody can punch me in the face and I feel fine, and somebody could touch me on the shoulder and I feel devastated.
There's a difference in the reaction, the response, the feeling that we get. And for me, that's often what matters so much. And can we talk about this? Because I think so much of the victim mentality is describing other people's actions, not describing how we're feeling in reaction to their actions.
I just wonder how our political conversation, how our day- to- day conversation with each other, how our conflict resolution skills would be if we started describing more about how we are feeling, in reaction to other people's actions and less about describing their actions in itself.
Because I think when we describe the actions we can get not only can it become this kind of who is more evil, debate this kind of existential judgment Olympics but I think, it takes us further and further away from ourselves. And I think some of the most challenging parts or the things that hurt us the most are the things that make us disconnect from ourselves. They make us disconnect from how we're feeling. They make us disconnect from how other people are feeling. They make us disconnect, or they don't make us, but rather we disconnect in response. Sometimes language is hard. But when we disconnect as a result of certain behaviors, I think that causes us so much pain.
It's hard for me to not use causal language on this, because I think it's so deeply embedded in culture and so deeply embedded in language.
So, I just wonder what it would be like if, you know, in the response, or even when Biden was speaking again, it didn't jump out at me so much when he was speaking. But what if we would describe more about how we're feeling and less about how other people are behaving? Or in other words, describing how bad we are feeling instead of how bad the other people are. Because then I'm going to really listen. So if someone's talking about how, oh, these immigrants are horrible and they come in and they do this, they take our money and then they don't pay any taxes and they go to the hospitals and stuff like this, it doesn't resonate as much with me as if they were to say, listen, I'm growing up in my hometown and I've seen a lot of the restaurants that I've known my whole life, they're closing down. And people are moving in and they're creating new restaurants, but they're new restaurants with different languages. I don't understand their language. And they're selling food that I've never tried before. And I'm scared to go in those places. I'm losing my sense of home. Say that and now you have me in the story. But if you just tell me that these people are evil, I'm not really listening that much. Tell me why it impacts you and how it impacts you you on a deep level and now I'm engaged I uh I just wish we would have more of these conversations and that's one of the reasons why I'm working so hard and I think quite honestly excited to have more of these conversations on the podcast I've looked at a podcast and part of me throughout the years has thought it's just a podcast I've treated it more like a hobby or some side thing but but it's a communication tool for us to come together and have different conversations.
And boy, do I wish we have different conversations.
Because I would love to actually hear what's going on with people, how they're feeling, not what other people are doing to them.
Okay, I mean, I still want to hear that, but not exclusively. Inclusively because the emotion and the context i don't just want context give me the emotion too, on that note speaking of emotions it's late i'm feeling tired um i have coded very hard the last couple weeks and i feel very relieved and somewhat proud somewhat no i'm proud look at me trying to to discount the pride because that's a whole different conversation we can get into but, yeah i feel relieved tired and proud and excited to go sleep so i will talk with you all on monday and take care. .
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