The famous photo “Earthrise,” captured by Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve, 1968, changed the way we thought about our planet. Nature photographer Galen Rowell called it “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken,” and British naturalist Michael McCarthy took the time to write about why this is so:
“At this moment, for the first time, we saw ourselves from a distance, and the earth in its surrounding dark emptiness not only seemed impossibly beautiful but also impossibly fragile. Most of all, we could see clearly that it was finite. This does not appear to us on the earth’s surface; the land or the sea stretches to the horizon, but there is always something beyond. However many horizons we cross, there’s always another one waiting. Yet on glimpsing the planet from deep space, we saw not only the true wonder of its shimmering blue beauty, but also the true nature of its limits.”
The end result of empathy is to bring us closer to an “other”: another person, a different culture, a part of ourselves we haven’t fully acknowledged. But intimacy can’t be forced. Instead, paradoxically, we have to first allow distance… to make enough space for the other to emerge and be seen in its own wholeness.
Space for bodies, space for ideas
Space — both physical and conceptual — is at the heart of empact work. As with “Earthrise,” sometimes this space is literal. Architect Christopher Alexander and his team published a brilliant and absorbing work called A Pattern Language, about how different types and “patterns” of physical spaces, from room-size to cityscape, can either cause or solve human psychological needs.
I had a great therapist once who invited me to see if different parts of myself felt more comfortable in different parts of the room. When I sat on the couch, I was one “self”; standing with my back against the door with my arms folded over my chest, I was (to my surprise) a quite different version of me. I had a very interesting conversation with myselves that day, moving back and forth between the couch and the door.
Aural and visual space are just as important. Any jazz musician will tell you the space around the notes is what makes the phrase work. Graphic designers use whitespace to let a page breathe and flow.
The skills and attitudes of empathy
I am indebted to my colleague Ryan Quinn for the observation that, in many ways, the practice of empathy is the giving or making of space so that new insights, ideas, and connection may emerge. We can make many different kinds of space:
Listening
Listening is a matter of making space for the person across the table, not filling the silence yourself. This is easy to do in theory and can be very, very hard to carry out in practice. Get comfortable with pauses. Allow space for the other person to process. Remember, you already know what you think; it’s what they think that will bring you to a new place. See also patience.
Curiosity
Curiosity is space in your mind you fill by reaching outward. Plays well with the practice of listening. “I want to know more!” “What happened next?” “Tell me about that!”
Humility
Humility allows there to be space above you — not having to be the most important person in the room, the person who’s always right, the person who gets the last word. The more we can recognize and acknowledge the legitimacy of another person’s experiences, feelings, and knowledge, the more we can learn from the interaction.
Willingness
The willingness to move into an unknown space is a precursor to empact work. If you go in already “knowing” what you’re going to find... well, you’re not going to find anything else. Of course, it’s fine to have assumptions, ideas, and beliefs — but it’s when you become willing to have your assumptions invalidated, your ideas upset, your beliefs challenged, and your mind changed, that you greatly expand the possibilities open to you.
Vulnerability
Vulnerability is, in a sense, the inverse of listening. When you’re vulnerable, you allow someone else to enter your space. Vulnerability is a proactive and profound way to bridge the distance between two people, because you’re not requiring the other person to do anything scary; you’re the one taking the risk. Even unwilling or hostile partners often find themselves disarmed by vulnerability. It feels good to be trusted. It helps you let your own guard down.
Self-Awareness
Empathy isn’t only an outward vector. Until you can practice self-empathy, putting enough space around yourself so that you can look clearly at the reality of your own needs, beliefs, assumptions, fears, and blind spots, your empathy practice is going to be only half as powerful as it might be.
Non-judgment
There will be plenty of time, later, to distill and assess and evaluate the information you gather through empathy. In the moment itself, what’s important is to be present with whatever arises, without automatically filtering it as “good” or “bad.” If you feel yourself resisting something you’re hearing, that’s a particularly good time to say, “Tell me more about that.” People use language differently; your partner in conversation may not even mean what you think you’re hearing. Non-judgment is the keeping of an open mind.
Patience
Patience is giving an insight or solution the space to emerge in its own time. You can’t rush discovery, and almost everything worth doing takes longer than we think it will. Furthermore, sometimes what we label “procrastination” is actually essential processing time for the unconscious. If you’re having trouble “making a decision,” consider waiting for a decision to “arrive at you.” If you absolutely don’t have time for that, at least try to briefly examine how the time crunch is affecting the way you think and feel about the issue at hand.
Further exploration
If you’d like to play with space a bit more, pay a visit to the Emergent Game, a game I designed to help people connect their unconscious and conscious minds, attuning and responding to find their way forward.