The Pre-Amends Process

I have a friend who owes a ton of money in back child support. The number seems so big that he feels hopeless; in frustration he stopped paying any child support at all. He is eager to make amends to his ex-wife, but his sponsor has cautioned him to slow his roll.

In fact, he strongly encouraged him to address the issue of child support before making the amends. My friend thinks this is crazy talk, but nonetheless, he listened. His salary is meager but he figured out how he could give $5.00 per week to his ex. He owes thousands of dollars, so from my friend’s perspective this seems like spitting into the wind. But he does it.

He made these payments for a solid year and soon, very soon, his sponsor thinks he might just be ready to make an amends.

The amends itself is deceptively easy:

1. I was wrong when_______________________ (be specific) and I know this harmed you.

2. What can I do to make this right?

But we must proceed with caution. Here are the concerns that we also need to address:

We need the follow up question - Did I miss anything? Perhaps we remember 4 harming things we have done. The other person may reply, “Are you nuts? Those four things are no big deal to me, but THIS. THIS thing right here that you did when you ______. THAT DEVASTATED ME.”

Back to listening we go.

We do not always know what harm we have caused or we may be confused about the other’s perspective on harm.

When this happens, we do not get into an argument (a big listening fail), instead, we thank them for the feedback and go back to our support system to help us sort out this new information.

But in all things the rule is this: do not harm.

Amends Making

How do we make a decent amends? The formula is pretty simple; the execution is usually complicated. This is why several steps and lots of conversations are usually required to prepare for the amends itself. We think about our expectations. We learn the difference between making a wrong right and expecting something in return. We distinguish between an amends and a restored relationship. We learn that we can ask for forgiveness, but our responsibility is to right the wrong without expecting it. More factors will also be discussed and worked through. But there will come a day when you are ready to make the amends, and you want to do it in such a way that no additional harm is created.

A decent amends goes something like this:

“Hey, I want to make an amends to you for the harm I caused, if you are willing to meet with me and hear it. Is that ok?”

If the person agrees you reply, “Thanks.” Set up a time and place to meet.

Then you get back to work making sure you are prepared for the meeting. On the meeting day, you come with your expectations in check and your willingness to fix what is broken on full display.

To be continued…

Vigorous Human Interest

Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer.

-Alice Duer Miller

How are we going to understand our harming ways if we do not listen to the lessons the world is teaching us? Often these lessons show up in conflict.

Sit quietly. Consider the possibility that we would misunderstand each other less if we learned how to listen more.

Maybe pick up a copy of the book Listening Well - The Art of Empathic Understanding and get started on acquiring new and awesome listening skills.

Sympathy

When we listen well enough that we understand someone and can let them know that we have not only heard them but we GET what they mean, we have practiced this skill called accurate empathy. (For more information, read a small but mighty book called “Listening Well” by William R. Miller. We have copies at NSC if you want to grab one when social distancing is no longer a THING.)

Empathy and sympathy are not the same beast. Sympathy is when we feel bad FOR someone, empathy is when we lean in and understand them. This in no way is meant to imply that we should not have any feelings (apathy) about others, empathy includes connecting with others and that is always a rich emotional experience.

But we have to be careful; it is not the same thing as identifying with another person. This is good news. We do not need to have a shared experience in order to understand someone else’s experience. In fact, two people can share an experience (loss of a spouse for example) and have very very different thoughts, feelings, and needs for support around that experience.

Here’s the thing: sympathy and identifying actually create distance, not closeness.

Empathy, that ability to GET EACH OTHER, creates a strong connection, and that’s what we all long for.

Have you ever sympathized without empathy? Over-identified because you think a shared experience should give you the inside scoop on understanding?

We can do differently and achieve better connectivity.

Made For Connection

You never really understand another person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it.

-Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

It’s possible to learn from other people’s experiences without repeating the mistakes they made to learn the things they can teach us. This doesn’t happen automatically. And each of us carries around unique vulnerabilities that might limit our capacity to learn.

My husband has taught me that some people who struggle with tons of self-criticism are very sensitive to feedback or implied criticism. The speaker does not need to intend to be critical for someone else to hear them as critical. And, he has also taught me that just because a person is vulnerable to feeling attacked does not mean that they themselves are good at not attacking - unintentionally of course.

Figuring out how people tick is tricky. For example, if, hypothetically speaking, my husband is so self-critical that what he really needs is support and affirmation, why does he not particularly like words of affirmation? Makes no sense to me.

That’s the point. We do not naturally make sense to one another, even when we really really care.

So how do we get around all the confusion and complexity we each bring to relationships?

We start by developing the skill set of listening for the purpose of understanding AND the capacity to let others know we understand. This is super hard and let me be frank - you may not be great at this skill.

Oftentimes we think we are empathic, when we are not.

Try this. Ask someone you really love if they think you are a good listener. If they say yes, push further. Ask for an example. (This is a test to see if they think you are safe to be vulnerable with! Remember - it is possible to be a decent listener in a relationship where another has trouble hearing your good listening! It is possible to be a poor listener in relationships with folks who do not want to hurt your feelings. Summary: feedback is tricky.) If they say no, thank them and then go eat a candy bar, because none of us like to think that we have work to do when it comes to listening.