Maturing, Experiential and Qualitative ‘Heart’ Empathy ~ taking the power out of labels: conflict, bullying

There are only experiences of met needs and unmet needs in any moment. Feelings are stimulated by these met and unmet needs and it is from these feelings that there is a reaction or action, a behavior. This behavior becomes the focus and is labeled with evaluative experiences words such as; *conflict, bullying, pushed around and betrayed. These are judgment or ego labels describing an experience versus digging deeper and understanding what is causing the behavior.

The person labeling the experience may have unmet needs themselves with the behavior and trying to meet their own needs for safety and support. Their own automatic reaction habits may be to label the experience or person and go into solutions of fixing what they perceive as being wrong – the outcome of the experience versus why it happened.

Empathetic listening skills can replace punitive actions with learning to focus on the source of the behavior versus coming up with solutions and trying to fix the behavior. The outcome is the behavior changes while the person who is reacting is seen and heard with acceptance versus being identified as a problem and someone who needs fixing!