Listening Effectively to Strong Emotions

Listening effectively is hard. Especially when the other person has strong negative emotions. We usually and intuitively do the wrong things.

Let me give you a quick test.

Which of the following is a better response?

Speaker: I’m so depressed about being passed over for a promotion at work. I’m worried that I’m going to be fired, or just that I’ll never get another promotion.

Listener:

  1. Cheer up, it’s not that bad. You still have a job and I’m sure eventually you’ll get promoted.
  2. Wow, that sounds really upsetting. It makes sense that you’re feeling down. Being passed over is a huge disappointment. And it also sounds like you’re worried about the future and your job. Tell me more.

Which do you think is a better response? If you picked a) then you are in good company. Most people think that that’s a better response. It’s a response that attempts to change the person’s emotion to a positive one. What’s wrong with this?

What’s wrong with it is that it is based on what I call the switch-on-the-forehead model of human emotion. In this model, we imagine that there’s a switch panel on our forehead that controls all of our negative emotions. If you feel depressed,  just reach up and flip the depressed switch to the off position. If you feel anxious, do the same with the anxiety switch. I’ve written quite a bit about depression and anxiety in previous posts, and this model of negative emotion doesn’t really work. 

Emotional Toggle Switches

Too bad we don’t have one of these on our forehead! Instead, we need to listen effectively to strong emotions.

Unfortunately, human beings don’t actually have an emotional switch panel. In reality, we are really bad at changing our feelings quickly. When someone we are talking to implies we should be able to switch off our negative emotion we end up feeling the original painful negative emotion as well as an additional layer of shame that we can’t control.

We say things like “I feel so weak that I can’t overcome my depression.” “I’m such a loser to get so anxious about a job interview.” “I should not get so angry.” Notice that all of these statements are trying to negate a strong emotion and shame comes with failing to do so.

It gets worse. There’s actually quite a bit of research on thought suppression and what this research has found is what I call the pink elephant effect. The more you try not to think or feel something the stronger those thoughts and feelings become. Try not to think of a pink elephant and if you try hard enough that will be all you can think about. This is also true of anxiety, anger, sadness, and virtually all negative emotions. Thus when we try to “cheer up” someone who is upset, it usually backfires.

Why do people use invalidating listening responses instead of listening effectively? It’s not out of malevolence. We all want to help. But these attempts to “cheer up” people are usually doomed to failure. People typically push back against the “cheer up” message. If you tell a depressed person to look at the positives in their life, they will push back and tell you about all the negatives, or they will negate the positives. Tell an anxious person that their fears are overblown and they will tell you why their fears are realistic. As they push back, they feel more depressed and more anxious.

What Not to Do When Listening to Emotions

What are the most common “try not to think of the pink elephant” invalidating listening responses?  Why are they unhelpful?

1. Simple negation statements: “Don’t feel sad, don’t feel anxious, don’t feel angry.” These are statements that simply instruct the person to stop feeling the negative emotion. Another version of a negation statement is “cheer up”, “don’t worry”, or “chill out.” Or perhaps the worst of all, “Get over it!”

These are unhelpful because we don’t have that switch panel on her forehead that allows us to simply turn off negative emotions. In fact, because throughout human history negative emotions had more survival value than positive emotions, the brain overweighs negative emotions. On the ancient savanna, fear of being eaten by a lion when you hear rustling in the brush is a survival mechanism. Dismissing this fear could lead to disaster.

2. Problem-solving suggestions: “Maybe you should look for a different job.” “Have you considered ending your marriage or relationship?”

The problem with these kinds of suggestions is that they implicitly dismiss the person’s right to have negative emotions. They suggest a simple solution that will remove the negative emotions. But they are disrespectful because most people have already thought through all of these simple solutions and either they’re not simple, or they’re not solutions that they are willing to take.

Sometimes problem-solving is reasonable, but is best done after lengthy supportive listening. And usually, it’s best to avoid problem-solving and advice-giving entirely. 

3. Look-on-the-bright-side statements: “It’s not that bad, at least you have your health (money, relationship, kids, etc.)” or my favorite one, “At least it’s not cancer.”

These kinds of statements are not helpful because typically they are experienced as dismissive of our right to have these negative feelings. And we often push back and point out that there is no bright side, which can end up in a struggle between ourselves and the listener. This struggle is frustrating for both.

4. Changing the topic entirely: “Let’s not talk about your depression, what are you doing the rest of the week?”

Again, this is usually experienced as dismissive and unsupportive. It’s like saying to the person, “Shut up and stop talking about your suffering.”

5. Get therapy or go on medication suggestions. This is when your friend or family member suggests you may need therapy or medication to deal with your negative emotions. Again, this comes from a helpful place but is often experienced as dismissive. It’s like saying, “I can’t deal with your negative vibe, so please talk to somebody else.”

There are certainly times when it’s appropriate to recommend therapy, but this is best done after using positive listening approaches. Doing it at the front end is another way of invalidating the person’s feelings.

How to Listen Effectively to Strong Emotions

If these are all examples of what not to do, what should we do when someone expresses strong emotions to us?  How should we respond? What skills can we use to listen effectively? 

1. The first step is to listen empathically. What that means is to reflect back to the person what you hear them saying particularly the emotion. This skill is called a reflection of feelings. You basically just paraphrase their emotions, making an effort to be accurate as to the intensity. If someone says I am massively depressed, you don’t reflect back “You’re feeling a little bit down.” Instead, you reflect, “You’re really feeling overwhelmingly down.”

If you accurately reflect feelings,  then the person will elaborate on what they are feeling and you reflect again. Or you ask open-ended questions like, “How did that make you feel?” or “What did you feel then?” This will also expand the responses to their emotions.

Another good option is to reflect back the emotion and then ask the person to tell you more. “Sounds like you’re really mad at your wife about her spending. Tell me more.”

Of course, basic listening guidelines apply. Make good eye contact, use head nodding and nonverbal encouragers like “mmmm”, and “go on.” And of course, turn off your phone or mute it so you can listen fully.

2. Try to avoid the temptation to problem-solve or give advice. Especially try to avoid what I call the narcissistic shift. The narcissistic shift is when you shift to your own experience instead of staying with the other person’s experience. Many people mistakenly believe that these kinds of shifts are actually empathic but they are not. Here’s an example of the narcissistic shift:

Speaker: “Ever since I went off my antidepressants I’m feeling very depressed.”

Listener: “Yes, that happened to me a few years ago. I ended up having to go back on them. That’s probably what you should do.”

Even though it may be true that the listener had a similar experience it is invalidating because typically the exact experience was quite different. Also, the message becomes, “Let’s  not talk about you, let’s talk about me.”

It is like my favorite narcissist joke. The narcissist says, “Let’s not talk about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?”

3. Normalize the speaker’s emotions. Statements like, “Of course you are feeling overwhelmed, so much has been going on lately.” Or, “Of course you are feeling depressed, you lost a job you loved. It makes perfect sense.”

The benefit of normalizing emotions is that it takes away the shame. Just try not to do the narcissistic shift as part of this. Avoid saying, “when I lost my job I got depressed also.” Just remember good listening is not about you, it’s about the other person.

4. Ask questions. Open-ended questions or encouragement to talk more are the best. Examples of open-ended questions are: “What are you feeling?” “How did that affect you?” Try to avoid asking why questions as they often come across as attacking. Example: “Why are you so sad?”

John Gottman, the well-known marriage therapist, suggests some of these questions:

  • Tell me what happened.
  • Tell me everything that’s bothering/worrying you.
  • Tell me all of your concerns.
  • Tell me everything that’s led up to this.
  • Help me understand more about what you’re feeling.
  • What set off these feelings?
  • What’s the thing that’s worrying you the most?
  • What’s the worst that could happen?

Notice that all of these encourage the person to feel safe venting and talking about their most painful emotions.

Some final thoughts on Listening Effectively  

Listening effectively is simple but very hard. Most of us will have a strong temptation to do all of the wrong things when confronted with strong emotion in another person. Fundamentally, we are all uncomfortable with strong negative emotions both in ourselves and in other people. It is a hard practice to learn to accept and tolerate negative emotions in others and in ourselves.

Now you’re probably thinking about a friend or family member who tends to ruminate about things and wondering if this approach would actually be counterproductive with them. I tend to think that much rumination is actually an interpersonal phenomenon that is based on unsupportive listening. A good analogy, although somewhat gross, is training an abscess or boil. When it’s fully drained, a painful process, healing begins. If you just put a Band-Aid over it, it only worsens. Unsupportive listening forces the speaker into pushing back by staying stuck with their emotions rather than fully expressing them.

If you really believe that someone you care about is stuck in rumination, then do an experiment. Listen effectively and fully for an hour. Let them cry, scream, quiver, whatever they need. In most cases, they will feel better and be less stuck in rumination. And you will have given them an amazing gift of love and kindness. Try it sometime, you will be amazed at the results.

Deep Work: How to Become More Productive using Deep Work Concepts

Over the weekend I read a fascinating book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World* by Cal Newport.

I’ve written before about the dangers of distraction that come from our smartphones and even published a poem about it by a good friend. This book further explains why our smartphones are making us dumb and dumber.

I should preface this review by saying that this is not a fun book. The writer is a college professor and as such writes like one. I have read other nonfiction books such as Stumbling On Happiness* by Daniel Gilbert which are both profound and fun to read. This book is a bit too dry to be fun to read. Another criticism of the book is that the author uses himself as a case study of one, tying his impressive academic output to deep work. I’d have preferred more people included in the case study.

That being said this is still an important book and even more so an important concept. In this article I will explain the concept, and suggest some ways to implement it.

What is Deep Work?

What is deep work? Deep work is work that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their max and which is performed without distraction. It typically results in some sort of productive product or output, although it can also result in some new learning or new skills. Deep work takes place during long sessions of uninterrupted high intensity, focused work.

How does this compare with shallow work? Shallow work is typically logistical in nature, is not particularly cognitively challenging, and often produces little or no real output. Email is a great example of shallow work. Reshuffling your to do list is another example.

Although the author doesn’t make this distinction, I would add two more categories which would be shallow play and deep play. Shallow play is all of those things we do which are basically mindless. Checking Facebook, surfing channels on TV, reading a thriller novel — all are examples of shallow play.

Deep play, in contrast, requires us to use our full set of abilities. Learning a new language, playing a musical instrument, practicing tai chi, improving one’s golf game — these are all examples of deep play.

Why is Deep Work Important?

Why is deep work important? Deep work allows you to reach your maximum cognitive capacity. It also allows you to produce extremely high-quality outputs, and to learn important and significant new skills.

The author talks about types of work and those who will thrive in the future economy. He makes the point that three types of workers will do well. One type is those people who control and own capital, such as venture capitalists. Another type is those who can work with machine learning and intelligent machines. The final type is the superstars in almost any field. It is this third group who will most benefit from learning how to do deep work. The capability for doing deep work is what distinguishes the superstar from the merely average worker.

Learning How to Do Deep Work

How can you train yourself to do more deep work?

This is a challenge. Deep work is hard! Shallow work is easy. The biggest challenge to doing deep work is that so many of the forces in our current environment push us in the direction of shallow activities. All the apps on our smartphones push us into the shallows. (With the exception of reading apps.) Email pushes us towards the shallow. Surfing the internet, looking at YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, — all of these push us towards rapidly shifting attention and shallow focus.

And since most of us work on an internet connected computer, even if we try to do deep work it’s all too easy to get distracted or to avoid by jumping to something shallow.

Worse yet, we have zero tolerance for even a few moments of boredom. What do you observe when you see people waiting in line? You see everyone looking at their phones. Nobody just stands there thinking. We have trained our brains to instantly shift to mindless activities whenever we are bored or restless, instead of thinking about the deeper issues in our lives.

Even while writing this article, there were several moments when I remembered something that I forgot to do and checked my email to see about taking care of it. Looking back on these episodes I realized that I had run into a difficult point in writing this article. Instead of staying focused, I avoided the difficulty by switching to something shallow and meaningless.

Deep Work in Action
Deep Work in Action

Avoiding Crashing in the Shallows

It is so easy to go into the shallows. Our days disappear into a haze of shallow activities. Even when we are productive, it is still all too easy to be productive in a shallow way. I will answer 10 emails — shallow. Let me check the headlines — shallow. Time to update my to-do list — shallow. Now let’s straighten up my desk — shallow. We check off to-do items with great joy even when they are completely shallow and unimportant. We forget to ask ourselves if each productive activity can really alter our world or the world at large.

The biggest challenge of deep work is training yourself and your brain to be able to achieve long periods of focused concentration. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes feel like the internet has broken my brain. It is all too easy for me to jump from website to website.

My only saving grace is that in my work as a psychologist, I have extended periods each day during which I am completely off the Internet and off my phone while working with clients. I automatically fall into a deep work mode while doing therapy. It is one of the reasons I cherish doing therapy. It is like a forced meditation into deep work.

Here is my prescription for how you can learn to do more deep work. First of all, just like any other muscle, you will have to build up your ability to do deep work. If you’re currently doing little or no deep work, then it’s probably best to aim at only doing one hour a day of deep work. Once you get used to doing that level, you can gradually increase it. Newport says that the maximum amount of deep work that anyone can really do is four hours per day. I think this is too much for most people, and a goal of two hours a day of deep work would be more reasonable.

Next you need to set up an environment which minimizes distractions.

You will need to make sure that your smart phone is muted or on airplane mode so that there are no vibrations or sounds. Even better, put your smart phone in a different room. That way you won’t be tempted to look at it. Also turn off any notifications on your computer.

Go someplace which is un-distracting. If you are at the workplace go find a conference room or other quiet space where you won’t be distracted or interrupted. If you are at home you will also need to set up or identify the least distracting space. If your deep work requires using the computer you might even want to disable the Internet temporarily.

Another trick is to have a separate computer for deep work. I have a friend who has two identical laptop computers. One has the normal complement of apps, web browsers, etc., the other laptop is his writing laptop. That one has virtually no apps, except for Microsoft Word. It doesn’t even have a web browser. On the writing laptop he has disabled the network card so that even if there is Wi-Fi, he can’t access it. Basically, that laptop is only good for one thing, writing.

(Another way to accomplish the same thing with only one laptop would be to have two separate Windows or Mac users. Your Writing User would only have the basic tools for writing, while your other user would have all your regular apps. When you are ready to write, you shift to the Writing User.)

Or just go old school. Many years ago, I got several speeding tickets in a row and had to attend two days of traffic school, back in the ancient days where you actually went to a classroom and sat there for eight hours a day. I had 16 hours of listening to a boring instructor drone on about the dangers of speeding. I sat in the back of the classroom with a large yellow pad, and I wrote about 40 pages of a book I was working on. I never could have been so focused in a normal environment. Even now, I sometimes take a pad and pen to a café or library, put on some noise blocking headphones, and handwrite something I am working on. I usually leave my phone behind or at least I power it off.

Time-Structuring Deep Work

There are several different time-structuring strategies for doing deep work.

There is the Thoreau method, where you go to a cabin in the country (preferably with no Internet), and spend several weeks to work on a project. You work, take walks, work some more.

There is the Thoreau-lite method, where you block off a day or two per week and isolate yourself someplace relatively un-distracting and work on a project.

And finally, there is the daily approach, where you set yourself a daily period of doing deep work for an hour or two. Ideally, you would do this first thing in the morning, but some people have also been successful working late at night after their families are asleep.

Mastering Your Gadgets

Some other tips that may be helpful for avoiding distractions.

Turn off all notifications on your phone. All those beeps and vibrations from multiple apps are very distracting. I recommend you turn all of them off, even text messages. If you’re worried about missing important messages, tell people that if they want to reach you urgently they should call you. You can batch your text messages just like email. Look at it before lunch and before dinner and respond accordingly.

Uninstall all of the so-called endless page apps on your phone. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all the other apps that require you to pull in order to refresh. You may also want to install reading apps such as Flipboard, Feedly, New York Times, etc.  On your computer, you may want to sign out of similar apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and even email. This requires you to sign in to use them which creates a small speedbump which makes you more mindful.

The key to engaging in deep work activities is spending less time doing shallow activities. We all have a finite amount of time in our days, weeks, months and years. The more time we spend shallow the less time we spend deep. Realize that the shallow is tempting, fun, and easy — but ultimately relatively unsatisfying. If you can learn to do several hours of deep work per day you will be better at whatever you do. And you’ll be better than most people who spend almost no time doing deep work.

Now that I’ve done some deep work in writing this article it’s time for a walk.

[*Affiliate link: The blog may receive a small commision if you purchase through this link, these commissions help defray the cost of hosting this blog.]

Weight Training Avoided Because You Think It Takes Too Much Time? New Study Shows You Can Be Stronger In 13 Minutes

There is so much mythology around exercise and especially around weight training. I’ve recently resumed weight training after a back injury a few months ago spurred me to get stronger. Because I am a major nerd, I read about six books on weight training.Sets of weights in a rack

What I learned was that to get stronger you needed to do multiple sets of each exercise. Let me explain for those of you that are not savvy about weight training. Let’s say you decide to work out your bicep muscle. You pick up a dumbbell that weighs 10 pounds, and you curl it 12 times. Those are called repetitions. Then you rest for a minute or two, and you do 12 more repetitions. So far you’ve done two sets.

Conventional Wisdom on Weight Training

Most of the books I read suggested that it was necessary to do at least three sets, but often five sets in order to develop true strength. Many of the books differentiated between lifting heavy weights fewer times and lighter weights more times. When you lift heavy weights fewer times supposedly you develop more strength and less size, and when you lift lighter weights more times you develop strength but also bigger muscles.

It turns out that there is almost no science about any of this! Thanks to a group of researchers from Australia and from New York, we now have some good research. There is a good article about this research in the New York Times. 

The researchers took 34 fit young men who had some experience with weight training. They randomly assigned them to three groups; one group did one set of each exercise per training session, the second group did three sets of each exercise per session, and the third group performed five sets per exercise each training session. A set was 8 to 12 repetitions performed to failure, meaning the person could no longer lift the weight any further.

All groups did three weekly sessions, every other day, for eight weeks. The researchers then evaluated muscle strength by determining the maximum weight that each person could lift using a squat and a bench press exercise. They also measured the size of the participants’ muscles in the arms and the legs.

The one-set group took about 13 minutes to do each workout, the three-set group took about 40 minutes, and the five-set group took about 70 minutes to do one full workout.

Research Study Results:

So what happened? Surely the men who did five sets of each exercise got stronger than the ones who only did one set, right?

Not me, sadly…

Actually, there was no difference in the strength increase between the three groups. All three groups got stronger. The only differences were found in muscle size. The group that did three sets had slightly bigger muscles at the end of the study than the group that did one set. In the group that did five sets had even bigger muscles. But these were muscles that were bigger but not stronger.

This is great news for those of you who want to do weight training but who want to use the minimum effective dose of weight training. Since most of us would like to feel stronger and fitter, and not everyone cares about muscle size, this streamlined workout is equally effective. And one could get significantly stronger spending 45 minutes per week spread over three workouts. (I suspect that two workouts per week would also improve strength.)

If you are interested in taking up weight training, be sure to consult books on weight training, videos on YouTube, and perhaps pay a weight trainer to teach you how to do each exercise with good form. You don’t need a trainer on an ongoing basis, but it’s useful to learn from an expert so that your form doesn’t lead to injuries. Also a trainer can assess your current strength and figure out what weights you should be lifting at first.

I’m off to do my 13-minute weight training session…