Every Man’s Battle Podcast

JJ West: Hey guys, welcome back to the Every Man's Battle Podcast. We're so glad that you're listening. Today we're going to continue our conversation on the role of empathy in recovery. We had a great discussion last week. We're looking forward to continuing that discussion today. So, Doug, welcome!

Doug Barnes: Hey JJ, happy podcast day!

JJ West: Happy podcast day to you! Yes, and there's still so much left on the table that we need to unpack. This is such a weighty topic. It's such an important topic. So, we need to dive right in.

Doug Barnes: Let's do it.

JJ West: We need to create spaces, safe spaces—we talk about this all the time—we need to create safe spaces for recovery, and empathy does that for us.

Doug-Barnes: It is a huge connection, not an outcome but a process. It helps us relate heart-wise, relationally, rather than just fix it. We don't want to fix it. We don't want to shut down. Again, you and I both have heard sometimes emotions have intensity behind them.

If I grew up in a household, as you were talking about with Tom, whose dad raged, he's going to be comfortable with intense emotions, but there's only going to be two: anger or everybody's telling jokes and happy. So he's missing the gamut in between. Or someone who was raised in a home where emotions were not valued. They were ignored.

So when someone gets an intense emotion, there's going to be a reaction to that either by shutting down or by running away—our fight-flight-or-freeze mechanism—or judgment. You shouldn't be feeling that. You shouldn't have been expressing that. Shame, yes, the "shoulds" start coming out. So it's being able to provide that space of, number one—this is what we talked about—identification of the emotion. Can I identify what they're struggling with, and then can I go there with them?

JJ West: Yes indeed. That's so crucial in relational recovery. There's a question I think that comes up when we start talking about empathy and the role of empathy in recovery, especially when we're talking about expressing empathy to others in recovery or expressing empathy to someone who is struggling.

I think there's a question that pops up in people's minds: "Well, am I just enabling their bad behavior? I'm just giving them a pass to continue to behave poorly, make bad decisions." So, can you speak to that? Is empathy just enabling bad behavior?

Doug-Barnes: No. Empathy is a connection of my heart to your heart. Behavior is something separate. Behavior is where my body gets engaged in it. There are bad behaviors, so I'm not being heretical here, but we do have bad behaviors. But when I'm trying to connect to someone's heart, just like you said with Tom, there's an internal identification that doesn't happen when I can say, "Yeah, he shouldn't have thrown that plate or punched that wall or drove off the road," whatever. Or slept with the mistress or gone to the strip club or looked at porn.

We're misusing our sexuality, so we're misusing a behavior in those instances. What can I do? I can stop, and now I need to go inward in myself, just like you said. Because I've received that vertically, I know that God has been that example. How can I then now translate that to being in the same space?

There's been an analogy. Sympathy is like someone's down in a 20-foot hole, and you're way up at the top and you're yelling down at them saying, "Dude, it sucks. I'm sorry you're in there." That's sympathy. Empathy, on the other hand, is I go get a 20-foot ladder, I come and I get down into that hole with that person, sit knee-to-knee, toe-to-toe, arm-to-arm, and I say, "I'm not going anywhere because I know where you're at and I'm going to stay here until we can get there together."

JJ West: Exactly. I'm going to feel this with you—this pain, this disgust, this terror, this fear, whatever it is. I'm going to be here with you in this and then create that sacred space for that. So good.

Let's talk a little bit about the need to express self-empathy—to be able to see ourselves through God's eyes. Because that's hard. Let's be honest, that's hard. Sometimes the hardest person to have empathy for is ourselves. But I need to because sexual addiction is fueled by, it feeds on self-hatred and guilt and shame. That's what keeps it going.

So when I'm not empathetic with myself, I am practicing self-hatred, guilt, shame. I'm living there and it's just continuing to spin inside of us. So let's talk about some practical ways that we can have self-empathy. One of the things that comes to mind is we need to read Scripture. We need to read the truths of Scripture that help us have empathy for ourselves and have compassion for ourselves.

Romans 8:1. What does it say? There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Doesn't say there's less. It's mostly gone, but there's still a little bit. No, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I need to repeat that to myself. I have to keep telling myself that because I've got short-term memory issues and long-term memory issues when it comes to my recovery. I start to believe the lies of the enemy and I have to combat those lies with truth. So I've got to be reading Scripture.

Doug Barnes: I need to be looking for those in Scripture. I need to be looking for and having a list, coming up with a top ten list so that I can just read through them over and over and over and let that sink in. Not just read through like a DIY to-do list.

JJ West: Yes, meditate on them, marinate. I love that idea. Have a running list. Write your own Psalm of compassion by pulling verses from Scripture that remind you to be empathetic. So when you're struggling, when you're feeling low, when you're feeling defeated, pull out your self-empathy Psalm and read it to yourself again and again as many times as you need to in order to recognize, "Oh, there is really no condemnation for me because I'm in Christ Jesus." I have to keep doing that.

Sometimes I need to journal about all of the things that are inviting me to engage in self-hatred instead of compassion and empathy. Sometimes I need to journal about the decisions that I'm being tempted to make that are going to lead to further shame and guilt and self-condemnation. But I want to be doing that. I want to be engaging in that exercise.

I want to be engaging in healthy conversations with others about my feelings of self-hatred and guilt and shame so they can remind me of what's true.

Doug Barnes: There's that herd mentality coming back. It's like I know that there are men who can speak truth into me. I just need to find them and keep them in close proximity to me.

JJ West: And sometimes that other person is going to be a counselor, a therapist, could be a pastor, coach, or mentor. Sometimes I may need that level of care and truth in my life. But I'm looking to others to remind me of what's true instead of the lies that I'm tempted to believe.

Okay, so if our pattern is correct, it starts with the divine. I'm experiencing empathy and compassion from God over and over, and that teaches me what it looks like. Hopefully I'm experiencing it from others—my herd, my community. They're teaching me and that allows me then to learn and reinforce self-empathy, that I don't belong on the Island of Misfit Toys. I am infinitely valued, infinitely loved, dearly valued. That's true.

When I get there, that helps me then have compassion for others. Yes, it's going to help me have compassion for others who are struggling in addiction. But I want to spend the bulk of our time talking about how it helps me have compassion for those that I've hurt in my addiction, those that I've harmed in my addiction. For most of us, that's going to be a spouse, a fiancé, a long-term girlfriend, that sort of thing. Why is it important for me to have empathy for my spouse? Why is that an important part of recovery?

Doug-Barnes: Because it helps me do a few things. One is validate what she is experiencing in this moment, whatever this moment is. It helps me validate what she's experiencing. So often it will be pain, but it doesn't have to be. It's a validation of, "I see you. I hear you."

And I'm not just talking about I see with my eyes and hear with my ears. It's my heart recognizing the pain that's in front of me and it's affecting me. It impacts me. Why? Because my behaviors—now we're going separation—the decision of my behaviors has affected you in the way that you're expressing that pain to me now.

So let's take this a step further. As I am watching you experience this painful moment, for example, where do I go with that? What have we learned already today that we need to go with that? I need to tap into where God has taken me, how others have spoken that with me, and where I identify that inside of myself to now meet her in that emotional place.

So that now I'm coming alongside her and saying, "I can hear the pain of not being seen and not being heard, not being protected, the danger I put you in with my decision-making and how scary that is." I want to sit in this with you and I want to hear all that you have to say about that.

JJ West: And I can come alongside and grieve with you rather than run away because what you're sharing is hurtful and I don't want to be judged, I don't want to feel this pain, so I run away. No, I'm going to climb down in the hole with you and sit with you.

Doug-Barnes: In brain terms, it's keeping my connection brain on and not my safety brain. My safety brain is fight, flight, or freeze. It wants to run away. That's my kid coming out and protecting myself, saying, "No, no, no, I've got to protect myself. That's too much."

We need to keep my connection brain, which is my groundedness, because that's what she needs from me in that moment. She needs me to grieve with her in the moment, experiencing those emotions and then being quick to listen. We don't want to fix it. We do want to fix it, but that's not what would be helpful and what she needs.

We need to be listening to her heart even though some of the words may not sound good or feel good. We need to listen to the pain and take the "at me" off the end of my thought. She's mad at me. No, she's upset, period. And that's the part I need to be invested in. She's just upset. Can I hear it and not in my head automatically go, "Well, that's about me"? No, wait. We're missing the empathetic point right there.

JJ West: Oh, so good. And I would add to that: the way I'm able to sit in that pain with her is reminding myself God is my shield, God is my defender, He's the lifter of my head. So I don't have to defend myself. I don't have to run away here. I don't have to shrink in shame because God is my shield and defender and the lifter of my head. I can stay present with you. I can sit in this pain with you. I can feel what you feel and I don't have to be protective.

Doug Barnes: That's awesome. As our good friend Laura McDonald says, she says "words, eyes, touch." Can I have eye contact? Can I be careful with my words because they need to be that compassion of "I'm here with you," and then just some kind of light touch if it's permissible and if it's appropriate as a connection point? Because I'm trying to connect heart-to-heart with that pain and inside that pain.

JJ West: To that point about words, sometimes you don't know what to say. Say that. "I don't know what to say here, but I want to be here with you." Sometimes I might say the wrong thing. We talked about this with Laura. It's better to say the wrong thing than to say nothing.

We don't want to just say nothing. It's 30 minutes later and she's just going and going. That's not good for her. That means I'm not even there. So what I need to do is interact with her. If I'm making eye contact, soft face, kind eyes, and being involved in and actively listening to the expression of her pain, remembering that when I'm connecting with her, it's not attacking me. I'm connecting with her. That's a hard distinction.

This has been so good. Okay, so you might be out there saying, "Okay, this is helpful. This is good. I want to be someone who is empathetic. I want to be someone who receives empathy and offers empathy. I feel stuck." Okay, so start practicing. This is a new thing. Start practicing.

Start doing some of the things we talked about. Start looking up verses that remind you of what's true about God's empathy and compassion to you. Start journaling. Start practicing empathy with others. You could do that in your recovery group. Say, "Hey, I really need to practice empathy. Would you help me? We could do some role plays just so I can learn how to do this so that I grow in this."

It's going to be really important to not just go, "Oh, that was interesting information. Check the box. Listened to that episode. Moving on. What's for dinner?" No, I want to put this into practice in order to be a man of integrity and empathy, not just someone who offers sympathy for those who are hurting around me.

Doug Barnes: Let me make one more statement. We need to be looking for opportunities to practice, realizing that in the beginning, it's not going to go as well as I think it might in my head. And that's okay. We give ourselves grace for that. It's okay. We're practicing. I can teach you how to throw a curveball, but you've got to practice.

So it's practicing every opportunity and looking for those opportunities, knowing that I'm not going to get it right sometimes. She may not like it sometimes. All of that is okay, but I can't give up. I need to keep practicing, keep practicing, keep looking. And if it doesn't work out this time, okay. Take my journal out. I'm writing, recounting that situation. Where did I miss the mark at that point? And then look to correct that the next time.

JJ West: Absolutely. Okay, so great segue, because a great place to practice empathy is at the Every Man's Battle Intensive. And so if you've never been to the Every Man's Battle Intensive, I'm inviting you to call 1-800-NEW-LIFE or to go to the website newlife.com and get the information about registering for the next workshop that's going to be in your area.

We do them about every six weeks, so there's one coming up near you at some point in the near future. Take advantage of that. And also, by the way, take advantage of, as a listener of the podcast, if you just put in EMBPOD into the coupon code, you'll get $100 off your registration.

We want you to take advantage of that because going to the intensive is a great place to learn about and practice empathy. Doug, this has been great. Thank you so much.

Doug Barnes: It has been awesome. Thank you.

JJ West: Really, really good. Guys, thanks for listening. Hey, next week, we're going to invite Mark Cameron back to the show. We're so excited to have Mark back. He's going to be talking about these different attachment styles and specifically the sexual propensities of each attachment style. I can't wait to dive into that topic. Can't wait for you to experience Mark again. Until next time, let's keep walking in integrity.