These recent end-of-summer, back-to-school days have been grueling, with a lot of BIG feelings in our household. I’ve finally managed to sit down and wrangle my recent learnings into a learning-poem, to help me learn them better.
When my loved ones have big feelings, I'm trying to learn the knack of speaking like a mirror to reflect their feelings back. "You're stressing, babe," I say to him; "You're just so mad!" to her. This helps them see their feelings and helps me not be the mirror-- joining in their feelings and suppressing all my own, the way I learned to, growing up. For now I'm truly grown: a separate person, strong enough to hold both them and me by loving with a mirror that I speak instead of be.
This is an extraordinary concept. We've had some big feelings around here lately, too, and usually when I think of empathy I try to put myself into the other's feelings. But you're right, that actually can be overwhelming and unhelpful!