I learned something in T that I thought I knew, but that has nuances I did not know that make it work like a charm. It's the Imago-style mirroring, but it follows up with validating and then goes to empathizing. Here’s an example from last week’s T:
Mirroring: J: When you do something nice for me, like [activity], I feel like you have to let me know that you didn’t enjoy doing it. I tried to appreciate you afterward and thank you for doing it, because it meant a lot to me, and you didn’t respond positively but let me know how exhausting it was and how much it interfered with what you would have been doing.
S: What I’m hearing you say is that you tried to thank me for doing something nice for you and I responded negatively. Am I on the right track?
J: Yes, and I felt deflated, like I could no longer share the experience with you anymore, because you would respond negatively, and I wanted to savor the experience.
S: So what you’re saying is that it took the joy out of your experience and prevented you from sharing it with me. Is that it?
J: Yes. I knew it was a pain, and that you sacrificed a lot to go with me. But I also felt like if you agreed to go, then you shouldn’t then punish me and resent me for it.
S: So you felt like I resented doing it, although I agreed to do it in the first place, and then punished you for it by not accepting your appreciation and grousing about having gone with you. And I shouldn’t have done that. Did I get that right?
J: Yes, that’s it.
Validating:
S: I can understand how you feel because it sucks to be grateful for something and have someone give you a negative response.
J: Right.
S: And that makes sense to me because you feel guilty for putting the person out, even though they agreed to do it and they seemed like they wanted to.
J: Yes.
Empathizing:
S: I know exactly how you feel because something like that has happened to me, too. You think you have a good experience, and then something at the end ruins it. And no matter how great the event was, the end experience casts a pall on the whole day.
My T emphasized that nothing in the mirroring, validating, or empathizing necessarily means that the person agrees with you, it just means that person is really listening and trying to come into your world to understand how you feel. And wow, did it work. S. got all excited at the end, explaining why it really sucked, and I was grinning like a banshee by the time he finished. I think I was even laughing, because he got so animated. And then I mirrored, v’d, and e’d him, and when I was done he gave me a high five. It was amazing. It took some coaching from the T, because both of us were stonefaced at the beginning and didn’t want to sound like we were agreeing with the other (because neither of us did), but with practice it can become a really useful tool. If I can feel that way half the time I want to tell S. something and he listens to me like that, we’ll be doing better than most.
Thank you, Ellie, for apologizing. Funny that your H’s perfectionism leads him to be motivated and productive. S’s and my brand of perfectionism causes us to be paralyzed. I recognize the procrastination because S. can’t bring himself to start the work – it’s too daunting with his enormously high expectations. I’m exactly the same way. Hmm, I sense some empathizing fodder here…
