A Death Worth Sharing

Psycho-technology #1

While reading ‘Feeling Great’, David D. Burn’s updated approach to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT),  I was overwhelmingly and pleasantly surprised to find articulated an invaluable lesson I struggled to receive without any prior guidance or awareness. This is perhaps one of the hardest and most expensive lessons in my almost 40 years of life. Tears well up as I start to write this. In my observations of the world, many of us are ignorant of a very valuable ‘truth’ or at least a very useful perspective:“The other person in a relationship is not a separate and malignant intently doing something to you, but is the manifestation of the interpersonal reality that you create every time you interact with him or her.” “We are almost always creating the very problem we are complaining about. We are almost forcing the other to treat us badly, then pointing a finger at him or her”. David calls the event of realization of this perspective: “The Third Death of Ego, the Death of the Separate Self”.

Clear and convincing?  For me it took something like 10 years of couples therapy, a psychedelic retreat, divorce and a couple years of intensive interpersonal meditation to begin to get it.  Most of us don’t know how to communicate effectively and our culture, including the big branded icons and deities, don’t really spell it out.  If you are like me, you confuse a monologue of “It seems rational to me” with communication skills and techniques that will allow you and an interlocutor to connect and listen to one another.  In my journey to this realization, I began learning how to embody many of these skills by practicing communicating at events for Authentic Relating and Circling. While I still love those approaches and suggest everyone try them, David’s approach is even more direct. He has crafted a beautiful and simple empathy ‘cheat sheet’ with the acronym EAR (Empathy, Assertiveness, Respect) to keep us all on track: 

Empathy (E) - Understand the other

1. Disarming - find some truth in what the other person is saying even if it seems totally unreasonable or unfair

2. Empathy (Cognitive and Emotional) - paraphrase what the other person says and acknowledge how they are probably feeling

3. Inquiry - ask probing questions to learn more about how they are thinking and feeling

Assertiveness (A) - Express how you feel

1. Use “I feel” statements, but take care not to express a felt judgement about the other masked by “I feel”

Respect (R) - Convey an attitude of respect

1. Maintain a respectful attitude and find something genuine to appreciate and share about the other 

Those are five basic aspects, which he called ‘secrets’ of effective communication.I believe we would do well to learn them at the level of embodiment. A pdf for printing the summary is here.  

David uses these five ‘secrets’ in combination with relationship journals; two examples of which are here and here. Hopefully you read this while relatively relaxed and can give it some space to be considered.  

Many of you might already know that you struggle to communicate, so great! This tool is for you. Others of you might be completely confident you are empathetic and good communicators, also great! This is for you as well. 

In either case, you can test yourself, and learn from each test by simply taking a communication experience that you found frustrating and write down specifically the most impactful comments and your replies in the dialogue, then review while attending or selecting the emotions they felt and you felt (2 examples are linked below).  

The sheets also include practicing what you might have said and practicing until you get it.  

This probably sounds simple enough to be unremarkable, but don’t let the simplicity of articulation be confused with its impact. This is a superpower of a psycho-technology critical to having better relationships. 

Importantly, this is a unilateral exercise, which means you get your feedback from your experience communicating with whomever you try it with. No explicit input from the other is required.  You grade yourself, and you must avoid the temptation to give the summary sheet to a partner so that they can improve because you know, you’ve got it handled and we all know who the problem is. 

It’s amazing and simple, if you are using it effectively it will engender behavioral imitation, and a new better interpersonal experience...immediately.  These five steps are simple conceptually but can be difficult to really embody. Yet from my vantage, it is worth a great deal to figure out this powerful psycho-technology for a more fruitful life.