I haven't done clinical work in almost 4 years, and I have found that I am losing the skill of listening actively. Listening actively means actually being present with the client, not planning my grocery list or how I have to pee. It is (for me) listening with my "eagle ear" so that as the client continues, I begin to get an idea of where they are at in the world. Not completely. Whoever could?
Yet everyone has a story and wants very much to be heard. And there is the explicit content of our conversation and then there is the implicit "story within the story", which is usually a powerful emotion.
It is usually sadness, and if they begin to pool up in their eyes or start to weep, it is all over. I am weeping with them. I weep with everyone because their suffering touches my suffering, and in that moment, we are kinfolk.
That is compassion, I believe. More than empathy, it takes some sort of action on the part of the practitioner to express compassion to the client. You can't just say "I am feeling compassionate for you right now." That ain't gonna cut it. Yet, if you meet their eyes and allow your suffering to touch theirs, if you touch their hand, if you offer them a kleenex (which many find disrupting yet please, boogers are rolling down their noses and they are so grateful for the kleenex!)
I am still so nosy to see how compassion plays out in MI as if it can be introduced as a core principle of the Spirit score, folks will actually have to act or speak in compassionate ways.
Going to go do my sitting meditation, which I forget today and I am working on compassion for myself and all of you.
Love to you all,
XXOO
Jacque
Yet everyone has a story and wants very much to be heard. And there is the explicit content of our conversation and then there is the implicit "story within the story", which is usually a powerful emotion.
It is usually sadness, and if they begin to pool up in their eyes or start to weep, it is all over. I am weeping with them. I weep with everyone because their suffering touches my suffering, and in that moment, we are kinfolk.
That is compassion, I believe. More than empathy, it takes some sort of action on the part of the practitioner to express compassion to the client. You can't just say "I am feeling compassionate for you right now." That ain't gonna cut it. Yet, if you meet their eyes and allow your suffering to touch theirs, if you touch their hand, if you offer them a kleenex (which many find disrupting yet please, boogers are rolling down their noses and they are so grateful for the kleenex!)
I am still so nosy to see how compassion plays out in MI as if it can be introduced as a core principle of the Spirit score, folks will actually have to act or speak in compassionate ways.
Going to go do my sitting meditation, which I forget today and I am working on compassion for myself and all of you.
Love to you all,
XXOO
Jacque
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