Christian Communication Skills Episode 8

Pastor Spell begins to explore the importance of expanding our empathy vocabulary. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, welcome to Know Your Bible Institute Classes. Today we discuss communicating with the heart of Christ how to speak the words that please and glorify God. Compassion is the center of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And we want to learn and develop how we can practice compassion with our words. The things that we say carry incredible weight. Because Christ has said to us, everything you say, you will give an account for on the day of judgment. So in today's session, we jump in and spend time discussing and understanding the language of empathy. Words have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they would be used. This was a quote from David Lehman. Consider this story. When she asked how his day was, he mumbled, Fine, and closed his door. Sarah's first instinct was to respect his privacy, but something fell off. Instead of accepting fine at face value, she paid attention to his slump shoulders, the way he avoided eye contact, his unusually quiet demeanor, the fact that he skipped his favorite after school snack. And later that evening, she gently knocked on his door. Jake, I noticed you seem pretty down when you got home. I'm here if you want to talk. I said I was fine, Mom. I know that's what you said, but I care about you, and something seemed different today. You don't have to talk about it, but I want you to know I'm here. After a few minutes, Jake opened up about being excluded from a group project at school. By listening beyond his words, Sarah was able to offer the support he needed. Consider this story. During a team meeting, when asked about the status of her project, Lisa replied, Everything's under control. I've got it handled, no problems here. But her colleague David noticed, number one, Lisa's hands were clenched in her lap. She spoke faster than usual. Her eye was twitching slightly, and she had dark circles growing under her eyes. After the meeting, David approached her privately. Lisa, I know you said everything was under control, but I'm wondering if you might be feeling overwhelmed with everything on your plate. Lisa's shoulders sagged with relief. Actually, yes. I've been working until midnight every night this week, and I'm not sure I can maintain this pace. David's empathetic response opened the door for Lisa to get the support she needed rather than her continuing to struggle alone. One of the biggest barriers to empathy is our limited emotional vocabulary. Many of us learned only basic feeling words like happy, sad, mad, or scared. But emotions are far more nuanced than these four categories. So we want to expand our feeling words. Beyond the word happy, we might consider joyful, content, peaceful, excited, proud, grateful, hopeful, inspired, amused, satisfied, delighted, or elated. All of these words are connected to the feeling of being happy. Beyond sad, we might say disappointed, discouraged, lonely, grief stricken, melancholy, despairing, heartbroken, dejected, sorrowful. These words are connected to the feeling of being sad. Beyond the word mad, we could say frustrated, irritated, annoyed, furious, resentful, indignant, outraged, exacerbated, or even livid. Beyond scared, we could say anxious or worried, nervous, or terrified, apprehensive, panic, uneasy, alarmed, or startled. There's a power when we become more precise with our emotional language. When we can name emotions more precisely, we can respond more empathetically. There's a difference between someone who is disappointed and someone who is devastated, even though both might initially be described as sad. Consider this story. Two friends, Amy and Beth, both had their job applications rejected on the same day. Amy said, I'm so upset about not getting that job. Beth said, I'm so upset about not getting that job. Their friend Carlos could have responded the same way to both. I'm sorry, that sucks. But Carlos listened more carefully. Amy had been excited about the opportunity, but had several other applications out. When she said upset, her tone suggested disappointment, mixed with mild frustration. Carlos responded, that's really disappointing, especially when you were excited about that opportunity. How are you feeling about your other applications? Beth had been unemployed for six months, and this was her dream job. When she said upset, her voice cracked, and she looked devastated. Carlos responded, Beth, I can see how crushing this is for you. This job meant so much to you, and I know how hard you've been searching. Same words were used now. I'm upset. But Carlos recognized the different emotional realities, and he responded accordingly. We want to build our empathy vocabulary. Building our empathy vocabulary will help us deal with the issues people are having more directly. To respond empathetically, we need words that accurately reflect what others are experiencing. It's like surgery. A surgeon doesn't use just a saw. Many times he will use also a scapel. The surgeon needs heavy tools to cut, but he also needs very small precision tools as well. As we build our empathy vocabulary, we add precision tools that can be used to help others dealing with their pain. There are consequences when we miss. When you do not accurately identify with a person's feeling, the opportunity for connection can be missed. And too many failed attempts can result in shutting down. A person may shut down because as you are not precise identifying how they feel, you begin to unfortunately make them feel worse, as if no one can even understand them. So it's important that we build our empathy vocabulary and not simply respond to everything, oh, sad, happy, mad, or scared when there are so many other words and layers, nuances and meanings that more accurately address our situations. So when it comes to our empathy vocabulary, we've got mild words, moderate words, and intense words. Letdown is mild, disappointed, moderate, devastated, intense. So if I have a disappointment in the family, it's a letdown. It could be greater if it's a disappointment, but it's even worse if it's devastation. Weary family. That's mild, I'm concerned. Anxious, that's moderate. But panic, that's intense. When I'm concerned, it's not as bad as I'm feeling anxious. And feeling anxious, even though worse than concerned, is not as bad as feeling panic. Frustration, family. I can be annoyed, that's mild, that's annoying. I'm frustrated, it's getting worse, that's moderate. But then it's intense when I feel enraged. And the same thing can be said about positive feelings. It's not always negative. If I feel joy, then the joy family of words, content, that's mild, I'm content. But then there is more than I'm content, I'm happy. And then beyond happy, there's ecstatic, overjoyed, and the sadness family of words. I'm down, that's mild. I'm sad, that's moderate. But if I say I'm in complete despair or I'm despairing, you know that is intense. And so one of the things that will help us is building our emotional vocabulary. And I want you to begin to practice building your emotional vocabulary. This will help you identify more correctly with how people are feeling. And as you correctly identify with their feeling, you will unleash the power of empathy on that individual. They will feel the overwhelming sense of satisfaction of being understood. And you, my sister or brother, will be the one that provides that experience to them. God will use you to help others see themselves. So your emotional vocabulary. Begin to understand where your current emotional vocabulary is. You don't want to continuously say the same thing. You want to look for more detail, more definite, more accurate and aligned words. When someone shares feelings with you, how do you guess at the intensity correctly? When you say to someone, it sounds like you're mad, most times people, it depends. It may be they're mad or they might be just annoyed. It may not always be on a level 10. And you being able to identify the levels of their feelings is a huge part of how you listen, and of course, how we offer empathy. Which emotion family do you have the most words for? Some emotional families of words, like we've discussed: disappointment, worry, frustration, sadness, joy, these families of words can have more words added to them. We want to just constantly expand our use of words. And so at this time, I'm going to pause and open up the line if there be any questions from you all today as we've discussed the language of empathy and how it helps us to expand our vocabulary.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

All participants are unmuted.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Any comments on expanding our emotional vocabulary and how being accurate, more accurate, helps facilitate empathy better. Any questions or experiences with this? How do you feel when someone guesses correctly how you're feeling versus guessing incorrectly how you're feeling? No questions, conference line.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Right. And this is their teenage years and stuff like that. And it was after a um after a baseball game, and then all of a sudden, I guess it was a bad game, I guess. And one of my sons is a little bit more emotional and uh out of control than the level. Yes, yes, trying to encourage him. I can't even remember exactly what I was trying to say. You know, we try to encourage him, you know, when I was having this stuff like that. And I'm apparently he just can't, he just was so right, and you know, in disrespectful, somebody just had to stop the people. And we're gonna be able to make a home and stuff like that. I just want to get in. Get in, and we just bring him home. And like just know. You know what I mean? You say, okay, my mama be with him, I'm gonna go now. And this somebody is a little bit more emotional than another. And I'm not gonna take a person, and I'm emotional thing like that. And it's thinking about you know, taking a person, but needless thing, you know, we get it. I'm gonna be apologizing everything, you know, for him to come on here. And he apologized on this, it's a dumb apologetic for the way he behaving is you. But needless thing, it's under your character. Um, so like the spiritual gifts, they get the spiritual gifts of the interpretation, you know. Some people know how to experience women, they know how to eat people, they don't know what they're born, so the women say you don't want to. But if you make that kind of person, how do you get that none of us? You know, make it things. I never say, I am so sad. I'm so sad. I'm thinking, you know, just when you be raised, you never say you're making like the pressure. That was one of the words that never, I'm depressed, man. You never say that. You suppress them type of things. And now you tell me, we have to get in the open and use these words. It's such a to me is a hard training for some woman that has been born in 50 years, you know, with them expressing themselves, suppressing feelings and things like that. You know, we try to come tiny to like a young child and stuff like that. But when it comes to grown-ups and other ones and things like that, you don't, you don't soften your words, in other words. And I know that tone has a lot to do with when you're expressing empathy, and people got to feel that you are sincere when you were saying it. You just not saying that they feel the love. But sometimes it's a gift for some people, but for myself, it's it could be a struggle. And that's what I just had to, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

No, I appreciate it, and I thank you, Evangelist Louise, for the the honesty.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

May I say something about that, please?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Yes, go ahead, Ray.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

One of the things that I see for me, one of the things I want to do is to continue my vocabulary and give it a chance to people, not just the not just the the the cell phones, they can understand because it's all it's all about coming from the children in the beginning before they even know how how am I going to use the change of the world? How am I going to use the right tribulation? How am I going to use the right? We don't think before we think. We don't think about the thing that we don't want to talk about because it's a political school. I mean, we don't have anyone to train us in the world instead of the same people. We we teach our children to sometimes not do that we do, sometimes we don't know what we don't know what we need to do as far as work with our children. And that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Amen, Reverse. And I and I bless God for you and Rev, I can I can just celebrate and pat you on the back and how conversations, how we all even have conversations, and there are the evidence of the of growth, you know. Reverend Smith's like, uh-oh, wait a minute, I should probably say this. And realizing we've got to think before we speak. And no, we were not, we were not raised with this. We were not trained with this. Our parents didn't know. But guess what? It's in the Bible. It's in the word of God. Go ahead. Someone's got a comment. Sister Juanita.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

I got on late. And but anyway, I understand. See, the young younger people today is totally different. And I had this conversation with my son. He was all upset of something that happened. And then when you're talking to him with that tone, and I said, listen, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. How do you bring this about? You can't I I'm trying, and now I'm trying to say something to you. What happened? We saw that we each morning, you had morning sign, but you didn't pay attention. Oh, he had an attitude because he's telling me, oh, you coming to me with that, I told you so. No, I didn't say that. I I that's not what I'm saying. Let me explain. You know, and I thank God that he too helped me with how to speak to people. Because if we both go back to back, yelling back to back, we're not gonna understand anything, and we just gonna keep doing that higher, higher, and higher. But I have to tone it down, but no, my baby. And I have a habit of saying it, it's not what you say is how you say. Take a deep breath, calm down, and figure out what you're gonna do next. Because what's already done is done, and it's gonna wrong.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah, and that's a good and sister Juanita, that's a great effort, that's a great start, that's a great, you know, attempt, especially focusing on tone. One of the things we say and teach is it's what you say and it's how you say it. That both are important. Uh uh speaking with uh a good tone is helpful, but the words we say are important. Knowing what not to say is so important. We spent some time and we'll go back through it again, but knowing what not to say is so much easier to learn than learning what to say. You won't you can't learn what to say because every situation is different. But you can learn what not to say as you go into every situation. And that is that takes many times training. Now, truthfully, there are some who have that natural empathic ability. They naturally are good listeners. That's what that's the skill we're developing. How to be good listeners. Because as we listen well, we will then it's really hard to listen. And you may have to go back and listen to some of our sessions before on listening. But the goal of being a listener is not to be thinking about what you're about to say next. It's so hard. In one of our previous sessions on a Thursday, we looked at listening, active listening, not listening to respond, not listening to fix, not listening to solve, but listening just to understand. And if you're listening to understand, then what you're going to say is going to be what you understand and not how you think it can be solved. We have said this before. Empathy requires great faith in God. You must believe God is going to take care of your child. You must believe God is going to lead them in the way He wants them to go. So therefore, if you believe that, then it doesn't require you to give them any instructions. I'm talking to parents with adult children, right? They they grown now. Your time to train them, your time to raise them, your time to nurture and instill in them, that time has now what? It's gone. They are they're adults now. They they are they are making their own decisions now. And so how you engage and even speak to and deal with, you know, your adult children, uh, it behooves uh it behooves you. It's in your best interest to learn real true uh empathy because uh that is the practice that uh keeps relationships going. You are trying to give your wisdom, your experience basically it's you looking for acceptance. Your need for acceptance, appreciation, and respect are more at play. You still want to be mama, you still want to be the one your child looks to for the answers. You got to have greater faith. They don't need your answers and you don't need to provide them with the answers. What you want and what they need is for God to answer, for God to speak, for God to provide. So if we can stay in the box of empathy, if we can stay in the response box of empathy, we will help them, our children, our family, our loved ones, we will help them hear God better. But when we move outside of the empathy box, when we move into our opinion, when we move into our ideas, what we do is we we get in the way of them hearing from the Lord because we want them to hear us. But hearing us is not gonna save them. Hearing God is. So the work of empathy is a is a great work. And it's the work that as children of God, we of course are called to do because it's the work of compassion. It's not the work of solving problems, you're not there to solve problems, it's not the work of having answers or solutions, you're not there to give them the right idea, the right way to think about it, how to handle it. I'm trying to tell you the best thing and the greatest feeling. You want them to feel better, just sit there and empathize. Baby, it sounds like you're wear it. Or baby, it sounds like you're scared. Or let's go with some of this what we've been talking about today, building your emotional vocabulary. Does it sound like you're a bit apprehensive? Are you feeling uneasy? Are you feeling alarmed?

unknown 29:31

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

It sounds like you're a little annoyed with this situation. Are you feeling resentment? You know, strengthening your vocabulary will give you better things to say such that you don't say what you shouldn't say, and go off into those thought processes in your mind that really will not help strengthen the relationship with your family, your friends, your loved one, your children. And so we wanted to, we definitely had to just deal with that because I I agree, Evangelist Louise, it is it's a culture shock, it's a change. This is brand new. There will be rejection. You will reject at some point these processes because that's natural. It's natural to reject it because it is brand new. This ain't how we do stuff. We black people, we don't talk like this and all of that kind of thinking. We have to grow out of that because it's not a black or white thing, it's a Christ thing. And the goal for us is how do I speak the truth in love? How do I honor Christ with my words? How do I control my tongue in a God-pleasing, God-loving way? That's my objective. I'm not trying to be black, white, brown, yellow, purple, green, blue, turquoise, teal. I'm not trying to be any color of the rainbow. What I'm trying to be is like Jesus. And to be like him, I've learned and we see compassion in our language is essential. Now, don't get carried away because, you know, Jesus said things because he was the Son of God. He was God in the flesh. That's not us. So there's some things that Christ, just because I don't want you to think you can say and do everything Jesus did because we're not at that place. But as it relates to what he taught us, we want to practice what he taught us and trust him to handle the rest. And so, amen, brothers and sisters, we're gonna get ready. Any other final thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

May I say something?

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yes, go ahead, Reverend Smith.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Before you hang on, I forgive, I'm gonna tell y'all some things that happened with my son, Laura, before he before he got married. He was ready to still alone. He said, I had leaves. He's not religion, baby. It's not religious, police officer. He had a fight one day, not the this was it, with miscarriage him in the wrong way. He said he took all his tape. So he had leave because he said, Mama was a bad man, he's gonna kill me one or two. He came home to express his name to me. Believe it or not, it's like God put things in my place in place. My father's gonna give my hand. God put some things in my place to let me know that I had to have some things that he gave me a hand. So when I did, I said, No, I said, I gotta go. And when this man talked to me, he was so upset that he left the job. Came home. He said, because he was he was a killer man. And and Margaret is very angry.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine Mark being angry.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yes, yes, very angry. That's what I'm saying. I couldn't imagine.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

I couldn't imagine Mark being upset.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Oh yes, sir. Oh yes, oh, yes, we came on home. But I'm just telling you, when you when you put your life in God's hand, he's able to take it up and all of us. So this is what we just want to say.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

And praise God for you.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Give me the chance looking at the pen. So he can look at it. He can hold this in. Give me the channel information. Even even though even looking at the same family, he still has to do in my life. But give your children something to do. And that will help them to realize it's all about serving each other, but not not serving not serving the bad things in their life, but serving the good things in their life. And that's that's what I know is everything in my life with my children.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Praise God. Thank you, Reverend Smith. And thank God that Mark had a mother that could sit there and listen to his anger and help him to vent his frustration. We are called to be those people for our family members. And think how tragic it would be if Mark did not feel like he could come talk to you. I mean, imagine how tragic it is when people are in moments of despair and crisis and have a family full of people. Mama living, daddy living, all kinds of family members still living, but they don't feel as though they can talk to anyone. And why do they feel that way? They feel that way because no one in their family has been trained on how to communicate. We're shooting from the hip. We're just using and doing the thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

So Pastor, thank you for helping us to understand a lot about what we give to God, He's blessed us because he's willing to weight. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Amen. And God bless you. Amen. And at the new 18, Reverend Smith, she at a new 18, amen. Yes. Still increasing her vocabulary. And that's what we want to. What do you say? When you stop learning, you die. When you stop learning, you stop growing. And when you stop growing, then you've you've died. And so we want to live, and we thank God for his word that we can constantly learn and grow, keeping us sharp, keeping us vibrant, keeping us alive. So praise God, beloved. We're going to close with a word of prayer on today. Eternal God, our Father, we just come back before your throne of grace, thanking you for this day, this privilege of time to study and grow in knowledge and understanding. And Lord, we just pray that you continue to teach us how to talk, teach us how to express ourselves, but moreover, teach us how to connect and to empathize, to show compassion with thy words, to Lord God hear and understand our loved ones and family members around us. Father, bless these, thy children, all who will listen, all who will learn, all who will grow and desire to grow in thy study, in the service of thy kingdom. We love you, God. We thank you, and we ask these and all blessings in Jesus' name and for his sake we pray. Amen. Amen.