• - Intro 00:00 - 03:32
• - Karen's TEDx Talk 03:32 - 05:34
• - What is unconditional welcome 05:34 - 10:00
• - The difference between compassion, sympathy, and empathy 10:00 - 11:10
• - How Karen started doing training in empathy 11:10 - 18:00
• - Empathy is a practice, not a feeling 18:00 - 31:48
• - Exercises to improve empathy 31:48 - 43:00
• - What people do that are not helpful 43:00 - 47:55
• - The IPS Academy 47:55 - 49:00
• - The difference between how men and women show empathy 49:00 - 54:05
• - Karen's list of resources to learn more about empathy 54:05 - 55:55
• - C-PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) and self-empathy 55:55 - 1:12:54
• - The final question 1:12:54 - 1:14:43
• - Outro 1:14:43 - 1:15:49

The transcription is, for the most part, AI-transcribed and is currently 85% accurate. We are still weeding out some minor errors.

Karen Faith
Compassion is for people who are suffering. Sympathy is for people who are suffering. Empathy is just stepping out of my point of view and stepping into your point of view, and I can do that with you. If you're happy, if you're confused, if you're suffering, if you're not suffering.

Jellis Vaes
This is episode 033 with Karen Faith. What's going on, everyone? Jellis here, founder of The IPS Project and your host on the show. I'm really glad to welcome you to another episode here on The IPS Podcast, where you get the chance to learn lessons about life from a variety of different experts. Life lessons on the topics we learned little to nothing about growing up. Topics in the categories of mental health, the mind, the body and brain, relationships and money. Now, in this episode, I had the pleasure of welcoming empathy trainer Karen Faith, founder of Others Unlimited. And yes, you heard that right, empathy trainer. There is often this myth that empathy is something that you either have or don't have. And while some people are naturally better at feeling empathy, it is, however, something that everyone can learn and become better at. And that is exactly what Karen Faith states and something that I personally agree with as well. Empathy is a practice, not just a feeling. You can get better at it by learning a set of skills and practicing them, which, in truth, is, well, that's very exciting, right? Because if you feel you're not so good at empathy, well, this might open a door that you thought was never even possible to enter.

Jellis Vaes
Now, before Karen started Others Unlimited, a professional training and coaching firm that provides empathy training to brands, teams, and individuals, she worked for more than 20 years as an ethnographer, where she conducted observational research for other companies. In the interview, Karen will talk a lot more about her work as an ethnographer and how she eventually started Others Unlimited to focus on empathy training. Now, some of the other things we will talk about are what unconditional welcome is small and big things that people may think are helpful but are actually standing in a way of creating a true connection with someone. A couple of exercises you can use to strengthen empathy, various other resources to help you learn more about empathy, the different kinds of empathy, and so much more. In the show notes located in the description of this episode, you can find all the resources mentioned by Karen in our conversation. Also, she recently did a TEDx talk titled how to Talk to the Worst Parts of Yourself, which received half a million views in just a period of time. It's worth checking out. I truly thought it was an incredible talk. You can find the link to Karen's TEDx Talk in the show Notes together with ways to connect with her.

Jellis Vaes
If for whatever reason, you can't find the show notes in the description, then you could also find them by going directly to TheIPSProject.com/podcast and searching for Karen. With that, please enjoy this interview about a topic we could all learn more about with Karen Faith, empathy trainer and founder of Others Unlimited. Karen, a warm welcome here to The IPS Podcast. It's so good to finally talk to you.

Karen Faith
Thanks for having me.

Jellis Vaes
I've spent the last few days.... I've spent a lot of time with you, actually, these last few days, and that will sound very weird, but I've listened to quite some interviews of you. I've also watched your TEDx Talk, which I can highly recommend everyone listening to check out. And I will also put it in the show notes. And just under like, I don't know, two months, it has got like half a million views, which is just that's insane. That's incredible. How was it actually to do the TEDx Talk?

Karen Faith
It was a really big night, for sure. The live event itself was really beautiful and in Kansas City, which is a place that I love and have a lot of friends, but also the other speakers were really wonderful. It was just a kind of beautiful moment of getting to share with a lot of other people who were also really excited to be there. So it felt good.

Jellis Vaes
But what about the half million views that watched your video? Were you surprised? How does that feel?

Karen Faith
Yeah, it is surprising because it's not been viral in that way, where it's like, suddenly a lot. It's just been steadily shared. So that's really special too. It's extremely heartening that my story was valuable to people and that they're sharing it with people and messaging me, which always feels really I'm honored that I've been able to be helpful.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah, again, everyone listening it's a really incredible TEDx Talk, which yeah, you can find in the show notes. Now in some of the interviews and also in the TEDx Talk, you use the word unconditional welcome. For those listening who might have no idea what it means, what is unconditional welcome? And what role does empathy play in being able to feel this unconditional welcome for someone?

Karen Faith
Yeah, great questions. So to answer about unconditional welcome, I may have to tell you a little bit about the early part of my career when I was working as an ethnographic researcher. And so I was an observational researcher. My job was to observe people in their lives and to get to know them as deeply as I could. And so in order to do that, as a researcher, anything that I'm unwilling to see or accept in somebody is going to be a blind spot to me. It's going to be something that I don't understand or I can't glean insight from. So from a very basic, just rational point of view, I had to be willing to learn from somebody in order to actually research them. In order to get to know someone, I had to be willing to see them for all that they are and accept everything that I was seeing so that I could understand it and digest it and process it. And that practice. Someone once asked me if that was the same thing as radical acceptance, which is another similar practice. But I don't think there's anything radical about it. In fact, I think it's pretty radical not to do it, because unconditional welcome is just about being aware of the moment and accepting the moment for what it is.

Karen Faith
And for me, it's weirder to refuse to do that, but we all do it all the time. There are lots of us that are kind of in our lives. There are either things about myself that I might not want to accept or things that I don't want to see in someone else. So this experience is really special to just receive someone unconditionally. It's not quite as warm and cuddly as compassion, and it's also not quite as cold and distant as neutrality. It's something in between where I just acknowledge and accept what is. I don't necessarily get involved or feel a lot of emotions about it, and I don't stay too distant that it doesn't impact me at all. It's a kind of in between those in between those two.

Jellis Vaes
It sounds like mindfulness, in a way, just accepting the moment how it is then towards the person.

Karen Faith
Yeah. One thing that's been really funny about the Ted Talk is that a lot of people have recognized other systems of thought within the things that I've said. For example, internal family systems, which is a therapeutic approach which involves dialogue with all the parts of yourself. And it's extremely similar to some of the things that I was talking about. However, my approach didn't come from there, that it came from another place. And I think that's really interesting because the insight that we all contain multiple pieces, multiple parts of ourselves is a very old insight. Poets were talking about it thousands of years ago. This therapy system, ifs is extremely useful and valuable. But what I'm talking about is not limited to psychiatry, and it doesn't really have to do with therapy as much as it has to do with, I think for me, just being more comfortable in my own mind and body and heart. Because what this did, practicing this with other people, kind of helped me to practice it with myself as well.

Jellis Vaes
Right. Is this like the unconditional welcome? Did you hear it from someone, or is this something that you came up with?

Karen Faith
Two words I wrote to describe it. When I started to train young ethnographers in the practice of observation, I was trying to describe this thing that was not as cold as neutrality and not as warm as compassion. And so I called it unconditional welcome in order to describe it to my students.

Jellis Vaes
I love it. So you mentioned compassion. You have these words like empathy, compassion, sympathy. They're throwing out very often intertwined or they're the same thing. What is the difference though between empathy, sympathy and compassion? And why choose empathy over these other ones?

Karen Faith
Well, I'll tell you. In short, empathy is the only one that doesn't require someone to be suffering. Compassion is for people who are suffering. Sympathy is for people who are suffering. Empathy is just stepping out of my point of view and stepping into your point of view and I can do that with you if you're happy, if you're confused, if you're suffering, if you're not suffering. Empathy is a cognitive practice of understanding. Now there are actually a couple of different kinds of empathy, but the kind that I teach and practice is a cognitive practice. It's a perspective taking skill that allows me to understand where you're coming from and what your point of view is and nobody has to be in pain for that to happen. And so that's, I think for me, the primary difference.

Jellis Vaes
You already talked a little bit about it, or you mentioned a little bit about it that you started as an ethnographer in ethnography. Right. But I'm very curious to just ask how did you move from that to ultimately doing what you do today, starting Others Unlimited, where you give them this empathy training for brands, teams and individuals. How did you move from that area to this area? Yeah, how did this started?

Karen Faith
Well, it started when I started to train young ethnographers, my first intern, whom I love, because he kind of forced me to develop this curriculum. My first intern, funny enough, he struggled with ADHD, an attention deficit issue. And as you can imagine, a person with ADHD is particularly challenged to practice something like quiet observation. Quietly observing someone else was not very intuitive for him. He was very chatty and very kind of active and getting him to slow down and just see what I had to give him really specific steps for how to listen to someone carefully and how to observe their body language. And so I developed a kind of training program for him over the course of his internship, which was just an eight week summer session. And I started to use it. The tools that we developed together, I started to use to share with other people. So it was actually when I was working in an advertising agency some years later that I offered a course on deep listening for employees inside of the company and that was received really well. And folks started to tell me this isn't just useful for listening to customers or listening to my colleagues, this is also useful in my marriage or this is useful in my family.

Karen Faith
And so it began to take shape as really an empathy training course rather than an ethnographic research training course. It was a very smooth transition.

Jellis Vaes
I should have actually asked this maybe before that question that I asked, but could you maybe also explain what an ethnography is and the profession, what it actually is about, because I, for example, never heard of it, but I don't speak English. My native language is not English. So yeah, probably translated. I might have heard about it, but yes.

Karen Faith
Well, ethnography, I mean, the roots, ethno and graphi, it just means a study of culture. And so some, when they hear the word, they kind of think of more of a sociology kind of perspective or even and many people would even imagine conducting research in a foreign country or outside of your own world. The ethnography that I practiced was very much inside of the world that I live in. However, the cultures were specific usually to brands. So my first job as an ethnographer I was working for the client was a furniture designer who wanted to know what kinds of furniture that office workers needed to do their different kinds of jobs. So the culture that I was studying was office culture, and I was observing the way that people moved through spaces and people used objects and how their office environment impacted their communication and their culture and their collaboration. And so that was a very specific culture study. Of course, I've done other work with other brands, even with fast food brands, where the culture that I'm studying is even like teenagers eating chicken wings or whatever it might be. When I was doing this work for advertising, it was a study of culture.

Karen Faith
Now, what's different about ethnography versus other kinds of market research is that ethnography is a fully immersive, qualitative style of research that I'm not sending people surveys or bringing people into a research facility and doing focus groups or this kind of thing. I'm actually going into their homes. I'm following them to work. I'm riding on the bus or the train with them and really shadowing them in their lives as they do the things that they do in order to kind of see it and feel it as closely as I can.

Jellis Vaes
Right.

Karen Faith
And that's a super special thing about ethnography. It also means that it can't be done quickly. It's very difficult to do at scale. I'm usually working with a very small number of research subjects, but I'm spending a lot of time with them to understand them very, very well. So that's the difference between ethnography and other market research.

Jellis Vaes
Very interesting job, actually.

Karen Faith
Yeah, it's cool.

Jellis Vaes
And then because of this intern and the curriculum that you created for him, that's been sort of the bridge to go towards doing his trainings in empathy.

Karen Faith
Yeah, darren is his name, and he's the best, but I tell him all the time he's responsible for the for the foundation of my company. That's all he yeah, it was really, really wonderful to do that with him.

Jellis Vaes
When you tell people that this is what you do professionally, that you professionally train people on empathy, what are actually some of the responses that you get.

Karen Faith
From people, everyone I have ever told tells me immediately that they need it and the world needs it. I have never heard from anyone that they don't think it's valuable. Everyone says, oh wow, we need more of that. We need more people teaching empathy. But yeah, it's a conversation starter for sure.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah, you don't have a lot of people with that kind of job title or description, right?

Karen Faith
Yeah, I believe we just got our trademark and so I believe we are actually the first trademarked empathy training organization.

Jellis Vaes
That's amazing. Congrats. That's amazing.

Karen Faith
Thank you.

Jellis Vaes
Well, I read on the website of Others Unlimited that empathy is a practice, not a feeling. And personally I agree with that. But I could assume that some people listening when I just say that might not agree with it or might not be sure, like how you even practice it. How if you come to the realization that empathy indeed is a practice and not a feeling. And then another question attached to this one, and how have you seen people who took such a training with you also come to realize this?

Karen Faith
Yeah, well, I should clarify first of all that there are three different kinds of empathy. Effective empathy, somatic empathy and cognitive empathy. Effective empathy is that feeling, emotional kind of empathy, that's caring about someone. It's kind of the way that most of us were taught this sort of golden rule, kind of emotional caring about your experience and trying to understand you. That's a kind of emotional kind of empathy. Effective empathy. Somatic empathy is a physically embodied experience of actually physically feeling your pain. And I like to call that one Sci-Fi empathy because you often see it in the X Files or whatever, that someone would be able to feel the pain of other people. And right, that does exist. It's rare, but maybe you've heard about spouses who have sympathy pains when their spouse is in labor or even other people who are kind of taking on the experience or the energy of others. So this is a real thing. It is hard to teach and I don't know how useful it is for most of the work that I am teaching people to do. If I were feeling everything that my research subjects were feeling, I may in many cases be debilitated.

Karen Faith
And so it's important for me to have some kind of distance from their experience. Now, cognitive empathy is the kind that I practice and teach. And cognitive empathy is a mental practice of research and learning and being curious about another person's point of view and trying it on, intellectually trying it on, examining it, exploring how this idea works or how that feeling works, or where does this point of view come from, really understanding that other person's point of view. In debate skills, there's a kind of principle that you should be able to articulate your opponent's argument as well or better than they can. This is an empathy practice, right? So it's like cognitive empathy is about am I able to articulate your point of view as well or better than you can? And that practice, when we do it well, when we practice unconditional welcome, it does usually have the side effect of caring, of really feeling for someone else. It doesn't always. I will say that I got hooked on some Netflix series a couple of years ago about the serial killer Ted Bundy, who was just a monster, absolute monster, right? But when I watched this series, I did start to understand him more.

Karen Faith
I started to understand kind of how his mind worked a little bit more and what his life was like or what his experiences were like. It did not make me any more compassionate toward him. Understanding him in that case did not result in my feeling compassion or sympathy or any desire for an empathic resonance. But I did do the practice of shifting my perspective and imagining what this other, this very, very different kind of mind was like. And it was pretty horrifying.

Jellis Vaes
Right? But trying to understand someone doesn't mean that you have to agree with what they did. Right. But at least it can help you see why they did those things. And even with someone like that, which is horrible, what that person has done, but there are reasons why that person has done this, right? For that person, those were good reasons. But just trying to understand it again doesn't mean that you agree with it.

Karen Faith
Just removing the judgment from it so that you can understand it. Because there's a lot that, especially in the case of him, there is a lot about his story which I would like to reject. There are lots of parts of it that I don't want to know about and that are hard to imagine, really painful to imagine. So I have to kind of practice some kind of objectivity or non judgment in order to even begin to understand. And of course, that's much easier with people who are not serial killers, like most people, right? Yes, most of us aren't. So it's really doable.

Jellis Vaes
So if we would actually go practical. Well, first of all, I actually do want to ask what would be like the fundamental ingredients that make empathy, that allow you to feel like you're talking to an empathic person? And I could assume that actively listening, feeling that someone is actively listening will be one of those main ingredients. But what are the other ones?

Karen Faith
Yes. So there are three, and it's intention, attention, and non judgment. So I need to intend to understand you. This is not something that happens automatically for anyone. I mean, someone may argue with me about that. I would be happy to argue with them about that. All of us, everything that I see is coming through my eyes. Everything that I hear is coming through my ears. Everything is processed through my mind and my body. So my default mode is always going to be self centered. And I don't judge. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's a normal state of being. It's a common state of being that everything that I'm experiencing and everything that I'm expressing is centered. I am the center of it, and that's okay. But in order for me to understand you, I have to intentionally step outside of that. I have to intend to, or it will not happen. If I assume that I'm just an empathetic person, I'm probably lying to myself because you have to really intend to practice. The second is attention and intention and attention go together. But attention is about being very present with someone, and it's about actively listening.

Karen Faith
Yeah, I mean, actively listening, but also just noticing, being curious. When you're observing, you're kind of investigating in a way that has your attention, and that attention is really important. And then non judgment is really the practice of unconditional welcome. Non judgment is about and non judgment is actually sometimes pretty difficult because most of us believe in some kind of idea of good and bad, right? Most of us do. Some people don't. And I think I probably do too. But it's not helpful. It's not helpful when I'm trying to empathize with someone instead of thinking of their behavior or their mannerisms or their personality in terms of good qualities and bad qualities. I have to let go of that and receive everything. And so without having favorites, without having favorite characteristics, non judgment is about seeing things as they are, without placing any kind of moral or ethical or even value based judgment on not evaluating them. You're just allowing them to be there.

Jellis Vaes

The unconditional welcome.

Karen Faith

Say that again?

Jellis Vaes
The unconditional welcome.

Karen Faith
Yeah, unconditional welcome. It's fun when people challenge it because it's and everybody challenges it a lot. It's so easy to just encounter someone who seems to be in the wrong or being very rude or something like this and to imagine, oh, that person is the asshole in this situation. Well, you don't know. You don't know what's going on entirely inside or outside of that person. And so it's stepping aside, stepping away from the judgment and just letting yourself be curious about another experience. Funny, I'll share kind of vulnerably. About 15 years ago, I stopped taking a psychiatric medicine, a medication that I'd been taking for some years. And I weaned off of it, as the doctor told me to. But still, when I stopped taking it completely, I had an extreme withdrawal symptom, which was that I was very extremely emotionally reactive in a way that I'd never seen in myself before. I had a super short temper. I got really angry or I would cry super suddenly. I mean, I'm normally kind of a crier, but it was very pronounced. And I remember this time that for a couple of weeks. It was like this.

Karen Faith
I had some other symptoms too, but it was it was really, really strange for me. And then something happened. I don't remember what it was, but I snapped at someone on a public bus and I immediately cried because I couldn't believe I had done that. It was just so unlike me. And I felt out of control of myself. And I found myself saying to this person, I'm so sorry, that's not really me. And then I thought, well, who is really me? Because I definitely did that. And then I realized that my brain chemistry had changed so much that I didn't recognize myself. But then I also recognized that I'm like, what if it's possible that everyone in the whole world who has snapped at me or who thought who I thought was rude just has different brain chemistry than I do? And I think it's rude, but maybe they don't have the ability to control this chemical response. And it gave me this like I had this mesmerizing moment of empathy and realizing that the people who I was most sure were jerks might just have different brains. And that was like that opened a whole new kind of area of questioning for me and recognizing neurodiversity and recognizing that a lot of people have different brain chemistry.

Karen Faith
Some people have a very difficult time accessing emotions at all. That's another reason why I practice cognitive empathy, because a lot of people who don't necessarily feel very open emotionally sometimes feel like they don't have empathy or they're not capable of empathy, or people have told them that they aren't empathetic. And I like to encourage those people because you don't have to feel emotions to practice empathy. You can be curious and you can examine and explore the perspective of someone else without having any feelings about it at all.

Jellis Vaes
That's so amazing.

Karen Faith
Yeah.

Jellis Vaes
Sorry, continue... I didn't want to interrupt you.

Karen Faith
Nah go on.

Jellis Vaes
But that's amazing, right, for some people to hear right now, because they're like, people have told me that I just am not good at it. I will never be good at it. But just knowing that it is truly a practice and not a feeling, as stated on Others Unlimited that you said, that opens this whole door to actually connect more with someone.

Karen Faith
Yeah.

Jellis Vaes
And thank you for sharing, of course, your experience and being vulnerable. It is really good to always check in, right, because you never know what someone is going through. You can't see what someone is dealing with inside and why they might react in the way that they did react. But there's always reasons. So it was non judgment, intention and attention, right? I got the order probably wrong, but those were three. What would be an exercise that listeners right now could do at home to practice one of those three things or all three of them that you teach during such trainings on empathy.

Karen Faith
Well, I think you called it earlier, which is mindfulness practice. So one really simple exercise that we could even do right now is that I like to practice listening just to the room and see how many sounds you can identify. For example, I can hear cars going by my house, and there's been a little bit of rain, so there's that really like, sweepy sound of the wheels on the shallow water, and I can hear my heater and more traffic. So can you identify any sounds from where you are?

Jellis Vaes
I can also hear cars, and I hear something in my microphone, like some kind of like a nose cancellation thing going. There mainly those two, I would say, at the moment.

Karen Faith
This is actually a really wonderful exercise to do in a public place because there are very often many, many different layers of sound. And you can see how many you can follow at the same time because you might hear people, you might hear traffic, you might hear air conditioning or noises, birds or pet sounds or whatever they are. And so that is an intentional practice of attention. And then the third layer is that we want to notice which of the sounds we like and which sounds we don't like and then remove the judgment. It's like, do I prefer some of these sounds? Some of it sounds like noise to me. Some of it sounds beautiful to me. What is that? Why what's that? Judgment. And so I was actually taught this in music school when a teacher of mine when we were in ear training, a teacher of mine would take us into a public space and we would sit and see how many sounds. We could track and practice zooming in with our attention and intention and then removing the judgment and just receiving and trying to have the same relationship to any of those sounds, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they are.

Jellis Vaes
That's a beautiful practice, actually. And funny enough. Well, I came back recently from a monastery where I was like, ten days, and during the meditation, this was also something that they asked us to focus on during meditation. Just notice all the sounds and don't judge them. Just let them be there. And I don't know, I like it a lot. I like it a lot to just pay attention to so many more. There's so many more sounds around you that you just don't notice if you don't try to pay attention to them.

Karen Faith
And non judgment is really fun and funny and deep too, because when you find yourself judging some of the sounds or preferring them, you shouldn't judge that either. So you can notice that you're judging it and let it be without kind of forcing yourself to, because that's one part of it, too, is to say, oh shit, I'm judging it. I'm not supposed to be judging it. I'm doing a bad job of this. And then. You're judging yourself. You know what I mean? All right, I was judging. That sound interesting? And it's one of the tools that I teach when we're encountering someone else, that instead of meeting someone with a no, you meet with an oh to just be curious and to say, that's something I didn't know before. Thanks for that new piece of information instead of rejecting or reacting to it.

Jellis Vaes
Okay. That's a very cool practice, actually. Is there another one that you would like to share? If there's another one that comes to your mind, then it is actually doable right now to teach rights.

Karen Faith
Well, I can tell you one of them that I do, and this has to do with intention and attention, but because we can do it right now, you do do it with yourself. I'm going to sit differently, so I can do it, but I like to sit and let my arms hang by my sides. This is a meditation technique that I learned many years ago, but I find it very accessible, so I often teach this in workshops. And just bring your awareness to the tip of the index finger of your right hand. Just focus all your awareness on just that point and see if you can feel your heartbeat there. Got it?

Jellis Vaes
Yeah.

Karen Faith
And now move to the tip of the middle finger of the right hand until you can feel your heartbeat there.

Jellis Vaes
Sure.

Karen Faith
And now the ring finger. It goes faster now, right? And now you're pinky.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah.

Karen Faith
And now the thumb. So now all five fingertips, you can feel the heartbeat.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah.

Karen Faith
And now you'll notice if you go to the left, it's going to be even faster. Now you can imagine the sensation in the toes. It's harder to feel in the toes, but you can imagine it. There the same heartbeat. It's getting all the way down there. You may not be able to feel it as physically, but you can imagine it.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah.

Karen Faith
And the face. And now you just kind of imagine every square inch of your skin with this same pulse. This is physically coming from your heart, but it's also energetically. This is the vibration of your life force. Right. And so you can take it as deep as you want to take it. It could just be a physical practice, but you can also really imagine yourself filled with this life. How do you feel now?

Jellis Vaes
I feel peaceful.

Karen Faith
I feel like when I do this practice, I feel like I'm totally inhabiting my body.

Jellis Vaes
Sure. I can definitely feel myself being very aware of many parts of my body, actually. Yes.

Karen Faith
Yeah. Much more so. Before we did this, I was sitting with my legs crossed, and I was kind of detached from the rest of my body. Now I feel my whole body. Now I feel like I'm in my whole body. And when you practice this, you can do it very quickly. And so this is the practice that I do right before I have an interview or right before if I'm going in to observe someone and I forgot, I'll do it real quick on the elevator before I get there. Because you can really just bring yourself all the way into your body and be aware. So it's an intention and attention practice of just being fully in this human container.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah. And how does this translate to empathy with people?

Karen Faith
Yeah, well, it's part of being attentive of the moment.

Jellis Vaes
Yes.

Karen Faith
When I practice noticing myself, it's also another part of empathy practice, which is super important, is something that I call self witnessing. And that is just it's self awareness, self knowledge. It's knowing because as a researcher, we, for science reasons, try to be neutral. But there's no neutrality because I'm impacting everyone that I'm observing because they can see me and I look like this and I sound like this and I act like this. And so I need to know how I impact other people so that I can kind of make some adjustment for that. When I was working as a researcher, for example, if I was going to observe someone in an office or in their home, I would always make sure that I was wearing quiet shoes. I would never wear heels or hard sold shoes because I don't want them to notice me very much. And I would try to just dress whatever way they dress in that office or in that place. So I would try to blend in. But still there are many places that I just don't blend in and there are many cultures that I'm still going to stick out like a sore thumb or some people are going to respond to me with a strong response.

Karen Faith
More could be said about that in terms of research. But it's important for me to know. I know that I love to talk. I mean, it's hilarious because I teach listening, but I will talk all day long if you let me. I love to talk. And so it's something I know about myself and it's something that I know about myself, so I can kind of adjust for that. And I can restrain myself sometimes. And I know that my nature is to be really chatty. So I need to make sure that I let other people talk sometimes. I need to make sure to ask questions instead of just sharing my thoughts. And that's a self awareness practice. But getting to know myself and my body. For example, when I do this exercise of checking in with my heartbeat, I also notice right away if it's really difficult for me. I might become aware that I'm feeling disconnected from my body or I might be very anxious, or if it's really hard for me to ground myself that way, then I might know that I'm a little imbalanced in one way or another. And that's good information for me.

Karen Faith
So when I encounter someone else who is stressed or angry or having some strong experience, and I'm reacting to that experience, I can be aware. Remember, you were stressed out before you even got here. This doesn't have to do with them. It has to do with you. And so that's helped in relationships, knowing how I'm doing before I'm engaging with someone else and before I'm kind of projecting my experience onto them is helpful.

Jellis Vaes
That makes a lot of sense, actually. Yes, but thank you for sharing those practices. There is a very beautiful video on YouTube from Brene Brown called Empathy. If you watched I don't know if you've watched it.

Karen Faith
Yeah, of course.

Jellis Vaes
I will also link it up in the show notes for people to check out because it's a short video with beautiful animations, and the message is just a beautiful message. To quote Brady Brown from out of that video, rarely does an empathic response begin with at least. And this is very true, right? And she gave a couple of examples of, like, oh, well, Sophie is struggling in school. Well, at least John is doing good. Oh, I just got divorced. Well, at least you still have a house. I've experienced this, actually, in the last two years, a lot that people used, at least. So I survived a sudden cardiac arrest two years ago, and I've heard so many people tell me, well, at least you're still alive, while I was trying to talk about because there's a cost to surviving it. There's been some complications with my heart because of this. And when I was trying to share that, people were always going like, oh, but at least you're still alive. And that is true, and I'm grateful for that. But when you do that, when you say that, you fail to connect with that person, right, because you're not listening to what they're actually trying to say.

Jellis Vaes
The question that I have is, what are some other small or big things that you noticed people do that they think is helpful, but in reality are actually rather standing in a way to create a true empathic conversation.

Karen Faith
Well, the first one, which I kind of touched on earlier, is to say, I know, or, me too.

Jellis Vaes
Right.

Karen Faith
People think that it means I'm empathizing. I'm telling you, oh, I know. I know how that feels. I've been there. That happened to me. Me too. It's not that that's a bad thing to say, but before you say that, ask more questions. Be more curious. So I have a tool where first you zoom in, give me more detail. Can you be specific? Then you zoom out, tell me more what else is going on? So get more detail, then get more context, and then echo what you've heard, like, oh, it sounds like what you're feeling is this, and then appreciate it. Thank you so much for telling me that. And then you respond whether maybe there's an action that's necessary. Or you can just say, I'm going to give this some thought or ask, how can I help? Or what needs to happen now? And this is a way of engaging with someone empathically with curiosity and maybe, if necessary, with compassion. But even if what you're getting from that person is something really negative, this is like this framework that I just shared with you is actually a way to respond to people giving you feedback.

Karen Faith
Like, if someone comes to me and says, I got to tell you, you hurt my feelings, and I say, okay, tell me specifically what happened, and then tell me more what else was going on. Okay, it sounds like you're saying this, thank you for telling me, I'm going to give this some thought. And instead of just reacting emotionally like, no, I didn't, or yes, I did, or oh yeah, well, you also just first get some more information, take it in, thank the person for giving it to you. And the thing is, I do this with myself when I have I still have this part of myself that'll tell me, like, even right now, I've had this on the call that someone up here is telling me I'm not doing a good job of being interviewed by you. And this is not an interesting podcast and I'm not saying anything interesting. And so I'm just like, okay, can you be specific? Okay, you didn't like that I said that? It's like, all right, well, in the grand scheme of things, do you think, really, I'm doing a terrible job? Then we have a dialogue and I'm like, all right, well, it sounds like you're feeling, like, unprepared and overwhelmed about some other things.

Karen Faith
Thanks for letting me know. I am going to give you some attention later, but I need you to let me be on the podcast right now. So this is like an internal thing that's happening in the background of my mind while I'm talking to you. So it's just a framework for just engaging with other people and other parts of yourself.

The IPS Academy
Before we continue with the interview, I just like to take a moment to mention if you feel that you've gained some insights and lessons from this interview, and you're curious to see what else we offer at The IPS Project, I recommend that you check out The IPS Academy, where we offer online courses taught by guests here on The IPS Podcast. Learn more about essential life topics such as mental health, relationships, the minds, and the body and brain through fun and interactive courses. Simply go to TheIPSProject.com/academy or check the description of this episode to find the link. Each course has a few lessons to try for free so you can get a taste of what the course is like. We have countless reviews from other students so you can see what others think. And there is a 30 day money back guarantee if you end up not liking the course. Having said that, let's return back to the interview.

Jellis Vaes
When you do these trainings on empathy, do you actually notice, like, a difference between men and women on how they show empathy and maybe also what they might struggle with, but also what they might learn from each other?

Karen Faith
It's a very interesting question. Well, I'll have to say that I have consistently been very surprised at how open men are to it. I think that I have often assumed, particularly when I've done these workshops in a room full of executives that are mostly male, I have assumed that they may not be that interested in it. Like, my inner critic is telling me they don't give a shit about this. Talk about something that's more practical. Well, first of all, empathy is very practical. But yeah, I've often been surprised at how open they are and how grateful they are to have an experience of connection with someone and to be to be allowed to talk about how they're feeling and what they're struggling with. Because especially in the case of executives, they often don't have people that they can really share their challenges with because everyone's looking to them for leadership. I've often been surprised at how much men have really craved that experience of connection and feeling with each other. I think that women I just want to say women and men are women are not all the same. And men are not all the same.

Karen Faith
Sure. I hate making generalizations like that.

Jellis Vaes
I didn't wanted to ask this, to make exactly like... Every man or women is like that. Right. But just like something that you might have noticed more.

Karen Faith
Absolutely, yeah. What I've noticed is my biases were wrong. When I assumed that men would not be interested or open, I was wrong. And I think women sometimes I hate saying things about all women. I'm not saying it all women, but I've noticed that sometimes I think women struggle to maintain curiosity before jumping immediately into sympathy. So it's like some people, they're going to hear what's going on with you, and they immediately want to give you sympathy and compassion instead of like, wait, be curious, ask more questions first, make sure that you understand what this is before you immediately go into compassion mode and let compassion be the result of true understanding. Instead of just like I think that there's a very kind impulse to take care of someone else that not all women have.

Jellis Vaes
No, no. And again, for everyone listening, we are certainly not talking about all women, all men. Right, we are. But again, about your experiencing, your experience of what you've noticed. Is there also something coming to your mind? When I asked what could they learn from each other about empathy?

Karen Faith
Well, I always encourage people to I think what they could learn from each other is to learn from each other, because just like I was surprised by what I saw in the men that I worked with. I think that men and women, I think men and women too often assume things about one another, and when we really practice empathy, we get to break those things apart. Yeah, I would say that when men and women are practicing empathy for one another, to practice that non judgment, which also means refraining from positive judgment. Don't assume that person is naturally empathetic or that person is in a better place than you think they are, or is a good leader or is a good mother or whatever it is that's also a judgment. So it's like, just maintain the curiosity. Let yourself be surprised by someone. Expect to be amazed. I think it's a quote by Bill Nye, actually. Bill Nye says, everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don't.

Jellis Vaes
Great quote.

Karen Faith
It's so good. Men and women, we're all so different. If we can maintain that curiosity, I don't think we got to give them any more direction than that.

Jellis Vaes
I agree. Yeah. Karen, I just have a few last questions left for you. For those listening who want to dive even deeper into empathy and learn even more about it, what are some of the best resources that you have discovered? Any books or any podcast episodes or any videos like the one that I shared from Brennan Brown, for example, that you often recommend to people and where you also learned a lot from the topic, again, of empty.

Karen Faith
Yeah, I have a really good one. And... Folkstreams.net/films, this is a collection of ethnographic documentaries of cultures all over the world, and you can just dig in. I mean, some of them are really short, some of them are super low budget, some of them are really old. But it's just really specific, beautiful cultures that you can just learn about people that are completely different from you. And it's so interesting to just browse all these different people all over the world and get to know people different from yourself. I love it. It's a great place to just go and watch. So another one is ANTH101.com. So this is anthropology for civilians. I just sent you a link to ANTH101.com ten challenges. And this is like ten little homework assignments that regular people can do to just learn more about other people. And it's really fun.

Jellis Vaes
Thank you for sharing. And I will link it up in the show notes for everyone listening. I will also take a look, actually at both of them after the interview. Of course. I want to end the interview by asking you, actually a very personal question and let me know if it's too personal. Ah, so, yeah, if it's too personal, just tell me and we we don't have to dig into it. But I heard you mention in another interview that you struggle with complex post traumatic stress disorder. And is it something that you still struggle with or something that you struggled with?

Karen Faith
Well, I struggle differently than I struggled in the past, but sure. Yeah. It's a diagnosis that I have complex post traumatic stress. It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but it's often the result of sustained trauma over a long period of time, and it's been something that I've lived with for most of my life.

Jellis Vaes
Okay. I don't know what you went through, of course. Right. But it must have been very a bunch of traumatic experiences. Right. So I'm very sorry, of course, for what you went through.

Karen Faith
I'm not sorry. Let me tell you something. This is very interesting. I don't want to tell you what I went through, not because it's too horrible to tell you, but because one thing that's helped me very much is not to regard those things as bad things about my life, and that that's good. Everything that I went through in my early life gave me so many incredible gifts and made me curious and allowed me to have this kind of to create this kind of investigation of what it means to be a person and what it means to feel and what it means to be in pain. And I'm not sorry about any of it. And I also feel like that compassionate kind of response to diagnosis, I receive that compassion, and I'm grateful for it, but I also really don't I don't feel sad about it at all. You know, it's it's it's a and I'm grateful for that, but I've also worked very hard for it. I've worked very hard to not be sad about it anymore.

Jellis Vaes
But that's I mean, the best approach, in a way, to look at it right. To not be the victim, but actually try to see the lessons in it and try to be a better version of yourself. Right. Which does not mean that the things that you went through were not terrible. Right.

Karen Faith
Yeah.

Jellis Vaes
But I mean, the way that you look at it is really positive, actually. Yeah.

Karen Faith
It's yeah, I think that it's well, it's difficult to talk about without seeming like I'm dismissing it. And I and I don't want to dismiss it, but I also, because of this practice of non judgment, I do try to refrain from calling it terrible. I think it was a very intense experience. It was a really unusual experience. Not as unusual as people think, but it's actually pretty common. But it was a very painful experience, and in many ways an unjust experience. But I just wouldn't call it terrible because I also feel like it's very deeply for me, very deeply connected to my reason for being in the world. And I think that I do kind of personally believe that I came here with a purpose and that I got to work right away, which involved going through some painful things. But I'm so glad. I'm so glad.

Jellis Vaes
Well, if you can get a meaning out of it, the story can become very different. Right.

Karen Faith
Yeah.

Jellis Vaes
From "Ahh, this has befallen on me.", to, okay, this is something that I can better the world and myself actually with.

Karen Faith
Yeah.

Jellis Vaes
I was curious and can I ask actually, a question about your experience?

Karen Faith
Sure.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah. Is there, like, a moment that you can recall when you shared parts of what happened in your past to someone where you hoped that you hoped to get an empathic response from, but actually that person okay. Yeah. And a person actually didn't. And I was curious to ask, what could have that person done that would have made you feel understood?

Karen Faith
Well, I know what you're getting at, and I'm not sure the response that I have for you is what you want, but I'm going to tell you anyway because I think it's really interesting. When I was a teenager in music school, I had a music teacher, a Russian man who was very much a Russian man, and he was really hard on me. He was very strict. And one time I was really going through a lot. I thought, oh, I'll tell him what I'm going through, and then he'll understand. And he'll have compassion for me if I tell him this horrible story. And I told him what was going on, and I told him what I thought was a story of something terrible that happened to me. And he said, do you think you're the only one who has pain? And he was just like, what do you think this only happened to you? It's like, look around. Everyone in the world is suffering. And I was, at the time, really devastated because it seemed so cold to me what he said. But I want to tell you that he was right. Not that he was right to respond that way, but when I've I've thought of that moment so many times, and it is so helpful for me to recognize that everyone in the world goes through really painful stuff.

Karen Faith
Some stuff some of the stories are more dramatic and cinematic than others, but everyone experiences pain. Everyone experiences loss. Everyone is devastated. Sooner or later. It's the experience of being a person. And he was just like, if you're in pain, use it. I want to hear it in the music. I don't want to hear it in your story. He made me play, and he taught me to transform that pain into creating something beautiful. Now, he did it in a way that felt cold and mean, but that was just because I was a kid and I didn't have that deep of an understanding of things yet. But now that I do, I think that that was an extraordinary lesson, to be able to transform my pain into the music instead of using it as an excuse not to practice.

Jellis Vaes
Right.

Karen Faith
Yeah. Do I think that that's how you should talk to a 15 year old who's suffering? No, absolutely not. But yeah, I think that the fact is that when horrible things happen, there is no right way to respond to them. There's nothing you can say. And there's so many things that seem like the right things that could still hurt that person anyway. And so I think that in those moments we just need to remain curious and open and soft. It's funny because I wanted to tell you this earlier and I think it wasn't sure it was quite right, but another tool that I often share with people is how to receive imperfect communications because we are all imperfect with one another. Because I could give you here are the three tips for how to respond to someone who's going through a hard time in an empathic way. But it's bullshit because there's no formula that works for everyone all the time when really tragic, really awful, abusive, horrible things happen. There isn't a kind of, oh, just do this and then this and then this and then like you did it, you were empathic, so your job is done.

Karen Faith
It's not like that. So the fact is that we all experience imperfect communications. A couple of years ago, my father died really suddenly and a lot of people around me responded and they all responded very, very differently. They all meant to be kind and supportive to me. But sometimes the things that they said made me angry and sometimes the thing they said made me hurt more and sometimes I felt ignored and it's like I just wasn't getting what I wanted. And the thing is that's just the experience of grief. That wasn't the fault of any one of my friends who all love me. That's the experience of grief. My analogy is that it's very much like a game of catch where my job is to catch this ball. But if the pitcher throws it way over there, am I going to stand there and tell them that they did it wrong? Or do I run for the ball? Just run for the ball, go get it. And this is like when someone gives me an imperfect communication. Instead of saying, oh, I'm going to give you feedback on this communication because you didn't do this and you didn't do this and you should have said this or you should have said that.

Karen Faith
Just assume that they intend well, assume that they mean well and meet them halfway. There is a time to give the pitcher feedback, but it's after the game, right? Not during the game. During the game, you run for the ball. After the game, you can say, hey, listen, here's what happened and we can talk about how to get better at this. But I just think like, this kind of how do I respond to people who are suffering? There is no answer that works for everyone. There's no answer that works all the time. But I think what's more helpful is to say, how can I do a better job receiving imperfect love, imperfect empathy, imperfect communication? And another teaching that I like very much that comes from Buddhism is that if you can't cover the earth in leather, then wear shoes. Right. I can't make a rule that works for everything, but I can put my own shoes on and I can say, look, people are going to come at me with they're going to say words that feel sideways or hurt me a little bit. I can do the work of assuming the best and knowing myself, taking care of myself, making boundaries, doing whatever it is I need to do to take care of me.

Karen Faith
Because we can't make rules and expect everyone to know them.

Jellis Vaes
That's true. Yeah. Would you say there's something like self empathy?

Karen Faith
Yeah, I used to not think so. My thinking on this has changed in the last couple of years because I was like, how can you have empathy? Empathy is about taking your perspective out of your own perspective and going into someone else's. And how could you do that with yourself? Yeah, but when I started to understand more deeply that within myself I have many, many points of view, then I know that I can practice this with myself because I don't have only one perspective. There are parts of me that have different perspectives. There's a wounded part of me that feels one way. There's a really strong hyper performing part of me that feels another way, and there's a distant one that feels this way. And so having empathy for myself means trying on all of those different points of view and having dialogue with all those parts of myself. And that's my self knowledge work. That's the self witnessing part.

Jellis Vaes
How has self empathy helped you, if at all, with the CPSD, the things that you went through? Has it in some way helped you?

Karen Faith
Yeah, it's everything. Look, I was for years absolutely crippled by depression and anxiety and self loathing and shame and all of these, like, really, really heavy dark experiences, emotional experiences that caused me to do all kinds of self destructive behaviors. And I wasn't able to. I was doing therapy, I was doing all kinds of things to try to get through it, but I was still encountering it. But every time I was meeting that part of myself with anger and shame and resistance and rejection, because I was saying, no, I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to be angry. I don't want to be sad. I don't want to be ashamed. I don't want to hate myself. And so I would say no to that. No. And I understand why a lot of people do this, because a lot of us have been taught to silence your inner critic or silence the shame voices. When I learned that all of those voices, all of those parts of myself, all of those. Feelings. They were not external invaders. They are me. They're part of me. And instead of saying, no, I don't want you here, get out of here, I said, hey, it seems like you're upset.

Karen Faith
What do you need from me? And then eventually, hey, it seems like you're upset. I need to tell you what I need from you. I need you to give me a break or to give them love, to give them compassion, to give them gratitude, to give them boundaries. Now we're like a harmonious team. It's not that I don't have shame anymore. It's not that I don't have that inner critic. It's that we are friends. And I can learn from her, and I can ask her for a break sometimes, or I can listen to, oh, yeah, you're right, I did make a mistake, or whatever it is. But we're not fighting with each other. And what that means is that I am far less self destructive, and I have tools to manage my inner world so that I don't get into states of desperation. Because it used to be that my emotional life was so intense and painful that I would come to moments where I felt I couldn't bear it anymore. And this was a moment of desperation where I felt like I even needed intervention or I need someone to help me because I think I'm falling apart or losing my mind.

Karen Faith
I don't have that anymore. I still have all those feelings. But now, before I get to this, I'm talking to them, I'm dialoguing with them. I'm letting them have a moment of anger. I'm letting them have a moment of sadness. I'm also, you know, we're all in this together, and so it has absolutely transformed the way that I move through the world, because I'm not fighting with myself.

Jellis Vaes
Yeah. You're being a team player with yourself. Yes. Karen, thank you so much for doing this interview, for being vulnerable, for the tools and the insights that you shared here in this interview, and for doing the work that you're doing, because it's true there should be more people doing these trainings on empathy. There is one final end question that I have for you that I like to ask all my guests. But before I ask that question, Karen, what is the best place for listeners to check out you or your work and to connect with you?

Karen Faith
Sure. Well, Othersunlimited.com is where you can find out more about my work as an empathy trainer and an ethnographer and where you can connect. There are places to connect with me there, and, of course, I'd love for you to share. The TEDx Talk that I gave, which I think will do, explains what I consider to be the most valuable thing that I have to offer, is just sharing with people the experience of unconditional welcome for the self and others, which has helped me so much.

Jellis Vaes
All those things can be found in the show notes. The last question that I have for you, Karen, and you can take your time with this, it can be very short or well, you can make it as long as you want. From everything that you have seen, experienced, lived and learned in your life, what is the one thing you know to be true?

Karen Faith
That this isn't all there is. I think that what I know to be true is that everything in this world is it's just one part of it. It's just one tiny part, but that there is much more and we can contact that much more when we get in there.

Jellis Vaes
That's beautiful, Karen. Thank you so much for doing this interview.

Karen Faith
You're welcome.

Jellis Vaes
And that's it for this episode, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Empathy trainer Karen Faith, and that you learned something new about the importance of empathy and how to practice it in your life. Remember, empathy is not just a feeling, it's a skill that can be developed and nurtured. Now, if you want to practice empathy even more, then check out the resources Karen mentioned, which can be found in the show notes of this episode. Simply go to the description of this episode to find them. There you can also find a link to Karen's TEDx Talk, how to talk to worst parts of yourself, her website, Others Unlimited, and ways to connect with her with that. Thank you for tuning in and spending this time with me and Karen, I hope to welcome you again soon on another episode, another journey here on The IPS Podcast. This is your host, Jellis Vaes signing off.

If you feel that you’ve gained some insights and lessons from this interview, and you are curious to see what else we offer at The IPS Project, check out The IPS Academy, where we offer online courses taught by guests here on The IPS Podcast.

Learn more about essential life topics, such as mental health, relationships, the mind, and the body and the brain, through fun and interactive courses. Simply go to TheIPSProject.com/academy.

What is also interesting to note is that all the courses are quite affordable, as we at The IPS Project do not want money to stand in the way of bettering one's life. Each course has a few lessons to try for free, so you get a taste of what the course is like.

We have countless reviews from other students so you can see what others think, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee if you end up not liking the course. Again, check them out at TheIPSProject.com/academy.