PODCAST_2011_12_16_melissa-zwanger-empathic-communication-consultant (1)

Progressive Direct offers auto insurance rates alongside competitors for customers to compare and choose the lowest rate. Wild Woman Network is a radio show hosted by Sandra Lee Schubert, who was waiting for Karen McCall to join as a guest. Melissa stepped in to discuss empathy as a transformational empathic consultant. Empathy involves being present and understanding another person's feelings and needs without judgment or trying to fix their problems. Sandra and Melissa also discussed the importance of empathy for those experiencing under-earning and financial hardships. Progressive presents Mind Flowness with Flow. Before you lies a beautiful meadow. In that meadow, Progressive Direct has placed its auto insurance rates alongside those of competitors. You select the lowest rate and feel a great sense of calm. A great sense of calm. Compare Progressive Direct rates with competitors' rates, so you can rest easy. Visit Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Comparison rates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Welcome to Wild Woman Network, radio for creative vagabonds, thinkers, and innovators. I am Sandra Lee Schubert, your host and consultant for artists, writers, and small business owners who want their message to be heard online or in person. Let me show you how at wildwomannetwork.com. Well, good day. This is Sandra Lee Schubert, your host on this show. And we are waiting, or I am waiting, for Karen McCall, who is our scheduled guest for today, to come on board. I haven't yet heard from her, so there may have been some glitch in the system. And I am just going to see what happens. So in the meantime, let me just tell you a little bit about Karen so that you have an idea of what she's up to. And hopefully she'll log in shortly. But if not, we have somebody else online that we can talk to for a few minutes about under-earning and empathy. So if Karen doesn't show up, we have somebody else sort of stepping in in the wings. So let me tell you a bit about Karen. Karen McCall developed the financial recovery process during her 20 years. The Financial Recovery Institute teaches its counselors how to help clients identify, understand, and eliminate self-defeating money patterns once and for all. It also provides specific money planning tools that empower people to create spending and saving plans that meet their unique needs and fully support individual dreams and goals. Karen is the author of Financial Recovery, Developing a Healthy Relationship with Money. And you can find out more about her and her book at financialrecovery.com. So I am going to bring on Melissa. Hi, Melissa, are you there? I'm here, Sandra. Good to be on the call. Well, thank you for kind of stepping in at the last moment when I was having this sort of little glitch in the system. My Internet was being really kind of funky and wasn't working, and I wasn't getting a response back from Karen, which sometimes happens. Emails go out, and then you're trying to get in touch with people. So I just hope all is well with her. And we will talk a little bit about empathy and under-earning. Now, why don't you tell us a little bit about empathy and what you do with empathy for our listeners, since clearly we haven't had a chance to sort of introduce you properly. Well, I call myself a transformational empathic consultant, because what I do is I help people connect with their heart's desires through the power of empathy and fulfill their life purpose through collaborative personal and professional partnerships. And it's such a joy for me to help people discover the power of empathy, because many people don't know what it really is. And once they actually experience empathy, their lives change dramatically. And that certainly was the case for me, because they're much more connected to their feelings and needs and wants. And that level of self-connection is life-transforming. And I think it's really interesting, because you have introduced me to this concept of empathy. And I'm not that, you know, obviously empathy as a word has been out there, and we've talked about feeling, you know, empathy for someone and getting empathy. But sort of the structure of how empathy is laid out in the program that you're talking about, it to me seems a little bit different than sort of kind of just listening. It's sort of more – it goes deeper. It really is a very deep, deep practice of being able to give empathy or even give empathy to yourself or to another person. Yes, that's true. And many people confuse sympathy with empathy. When they hear the word empathy, they immediately associate it with having sympathy for someone, which is very, very different actually. And they're both valid forms of connection, but they are quite different. And the difference is that empathy is really about just being present to what is going on for another person. It's not diving into the experience with them and having to feel what they feel or have the same experience that they're having. It's simply having a full, heart-expanded presence in witnessing what is going on for that person. And with self-empathy, it is actually about witnessing what's going on for oneself. So it's not a pity party, as many people think. It's not about having pity or saying, oh, you know, poor them. It is really about holding that heart-expanded open space to sense and guess what that person might be feeling and wanting at that time. You know, it's really very fascinating. The whole structure of it and the needs and wants piece is so valuable. And one of the reasons I had asked Melissa to come on, just in the advent that Karen was not able to get on the show, was because I really wanted to talk about empathy and under-earning. And really the reason I wanted Karen on was because of the issue around financial recovery and having empathy for people who are really in sort of financial straits. I mean, you see just across the board, I know for myself and for many other people, we're in this kind of financial strangeness where, you know, the needs and wants that we thought we were going to have met are not being met in the way that we thought they were going to be. And people are really experiencing lots of shame and deprivation and, you know, just upset about losing their homes and losing their apartments or losing savings. And they're feeling really bad about themselves. And it kind of just creates this horrible spiral of shame and deprivation that, you know, I think just if it doesn't kind of get acknowledged and stopped, really gets passed on to future generations. And I see that's one of the biggest obstacles that we might be encountering with so many people sort of in this financial straits. Now, I know I'm sort of asking, you know, you didn't really have a lot of time to sort of sit and prepare this. But what would be some of your thoughts about how one can give or have empathy for the person who's really out there under earning in financial straits and kind of just suffering through this kind of process at the moment? That's a wonderful question because, as I said, making the distinction between sympathy and empathy is really key here. So when we're having empathy for another person, we are actually taking guesses at what they might be experiencing in that under earning situation. So let's say a person just lost their job. And they're obviously probably scared. They may be worried. They may even be panicky. So those are some of the feelings that may be alive for them. And connecting to the needs, they may be concerned about security. They may be concerned about comfort, certain comforts that they might potentially be losing as a result or that they may be worried about not having as a result of this change. And there may be other needs that are present for them. It may be a desire for contribution and no longer being able to contribute in that particular environment, in that company or in that organization. So there are a number of different needs that may be triggered as being important as a result of that person's situation. So that's just a start in terms of how to give empathy in a way that is caring and compassionate and that just allows one to be curious about what is going on for that person in that situation. It's not about attempting to fix their problem. Sometimes we tend to rush into fixing things too quickly. And what is really empowering and helpful for the other person is just being heard, just being witnessed and understood. And I have found personally that that is one of the greatest things that heals shame, just having someone empathically guessing what my feelings and needs are without judging, without trying to fix the problem, without trying to make it better, without telling me what's right or what's wrong with me, just being present with what is. And it's really listening from not a place of fixing, but of just really kind of listening to the concerns from the person that's really right before you. Because I know when I was initially laid off, there were some people who were really good at it, but a lot of people were just kind of giving me, you know, one door opens, another door closes, you know, that kind of thing. And even though I understood they were aiming to make me feel better, I at that point really needed to sort of work it out with somebody. And I really didn't have that opportunity to sort of work out what just happened. Because I think if you're not anticipating a layoff, I was laid off in the first wave right after, you know, the stock crash and all that stuff burst in 2008. I really actually didn't anticipate that was happening because it was all so very new. And I really needed to sort of work it out, like work my feelings out, because you're shocked, you're stunned. You know, I was shocked, I was stunned. And I didn't even know what my feelings were around that. And I think it would have been very helpful to have somebody at that point who could really sort of listen with me in such a way that I could have sort of worked out some of those things. And I think I would have been a lot further along in my sort of, you know, getting out of the unemployment part and just feeling better about myself if I had that listening initially. Yeah, and I really appreciate your sharing that with such vulnerability. And I'm guessing that just having that experience of someone hearing you and understanding what was going on for you at that time would have helped you get into a more resourceful state. It might have supported you to feel calmer, more at peace, more connected to your intuition. And from that connection, strategies to change the situation typically arise very organically. But without the opportunity to be heard and without the opportunity to be embraced and to be accepted, I find it really hard to come up with effective strategies. And I know that for myself what's helpful is for me first to have compassion and empathy for myself. And often that occurs by receiving empathy from another person. Right, and I think that really would have been very true because I think it's been three years now? Three years, I guess. And it's funny because three years later I'm really just starting to sort of unravel the knot of, excuse me, of what I was feeling at that time and really kind of looking at the effect of that in my life and how it sort of affected my earning, affected work, and affected me going further. And Karen talks a little, well, she talks a lot about under-earning. And, you know, and I'm just kind of new to the whole under-earning concept. And, however, I've been finding it very helpful to sort of look at how under-earning sort of affects somebody and how it sort of kind of drives a wedge into their successful, you know, successful livelihood and going out there and sort of getting their needs and wants met in a successful way. And a lot of people sort of just want other, well, people who are unemployed sort of bootstrap it, you know, to suck it up, to make a budget, get out there. And there's so much other stuff that's underneath this kind of under-earning or being out of work thing that people really who are sort of working in a job or have not experienced that really don't understand it at all. Now, you're the one who introduced me to the concept of under-earning, and I'm not making you the expert on this side, you know. I just want you to share a little bit about your understanding of how under-earning affects people. Well, yeah, I wouldn't call myself an under-earning expert, but I've had enough experience with it personally to have a sense of what it is. And I call under-earning under-being because what it is is an inability to meet one's needs financially, which is actually an expression of other ways in which needs aren't being met. So if I'm not meeting certain needs financially, then there's a likelihood that I'm not connecting to other needs that are really important to me, that I could potentially meet and that I could first value and then attempt to meet. So in my own experience, under-earning is about under-valuing oneself, and with that comes under-valuing one's feelings and needs. So I have found empathy, the practice of empathy itself, to be incredibly healing in addressing under-earning issues. Because without that level of self-connection, how can we possibly address the root cause of the under-earning? The root cause being under-valuing. Under-valuing. And do you have some examples that you may either from yourself or maybe from some other sources of what that might look like? Or I have some from Karen's book, so I don't want to put you on the spot. But if you have some, I also have some too. Well, what I think people tend to under-value is one's gift, one's ability to contribute to others. And if a person came from a family environment in which they did not receive support and they were not valued for their particular gifts or not supported to find their gifts, and I can certainly say I was in that situation as a child, it's really challenging to value it yourself, to value what you have to offer, what your contribution is. Particularly if you grew up around people who wanted you to be something other than what you were or wanted you to put a lot of energy into taking care of them. The focus, in my case, was taking care of the people in my family who behaved in a way that definitely didn't meet my needs. And the focus was off of, well, what would really give me joy? What would make me feel fulfilled? What am I passionate about? So it has taken me years and years to get in touch with that because I didn't have the experience of receiving support around that. So I undervalued contribution or a desire to contribute, and I also undervalued the gifts that I have that would allow me to contribute to other people. And I believe that that kind of undervaluing creates under-earning. And there are many other situations or many other scenarios that I would describe as under-earning. For example, people not charging enough for their services, thinking that they're ripping people off if they charge or they charge a certain amount for their services, or holding a belief that if they're contributing to people in a personal growth context that they don't have the right to charge. There are many of those kinds of beliefs that contribute to under-earning, and I have had a lot of experience in looking at those, and I've looked at them with my clients as well. And sometimes it's really daunting to dig in there and find those beliefs that are driving the under-earning because many of them are subconscious. We're not actually aware on a conscious level that those beliefs are playing out, but they certainly affect our bottom line in terms of what we earn. I think what's interesting for me is that when people who are sort of not under-earning or maybe don't know or have a good job, and they kind of make assumptions about people who aren't working, and they base those assumptions about their thoughts. So as an example, we're looking in the news the last week, we've had somebody talking about poor children and how the best way to serve poor children would to have them work, get them a job so they understand what it's like to make money. And it's interesting because the assumption there is that these kids have never seen their parents or, you know, providers working. There's a distinct assumption that they have no understanding of seeing their parents working. I think that to me is really kind of amazing and just appalling that somebody would just make that assumption rather than going to these kids and saying, well, you know, what are your needs and wants? Like what would really serve you? And I don't think people would assume to do that. They're just making the assumption that all these kids need to do is, you know, go out and, you know, be janitors, and then they'll appreciate money, and then they'll go on to be earners. And to me that's just such a sort of appalling, ignorant way to approach poor children in America. I mean, that's just my thought about that. But, you know, what do you think might be people's blocks to sort of looking at people who are earning money? You know, what do you – I mean, you would be assuming, but what do you think people are thinking when they're assuming poor people just don't want to work? People tend to have a lot of judgments about many things, and the judgments might be something like they're lazy, they're, you know, something along the lines of they just don't have an interest in working. There are all kinds of judgments that are connected to the person being bad or wrong or somehow deficient. And those are judgments that are life alienating, because what they do is they disconnect us from the other person's humanity. We essentially all share the same needs. There are certain fundamental needs that we all have, and so the question is why aren't we fulfilling those needs or why aren't we in contact with those needs? But the actual needs themselves are the same. So, for example, we all have a desire for acceptance, for a sense of belonging, for a sense of community, support, fun, peace of mind, comfort, security. Those are some basic needs that we all share. And by helping others connect to their feelings and ultimately their wants and needs, we help actually make a connection, make a heart connection to that person rather than judging them. And that's the power of empathy. The power of empathy is finding the humanity in the other person and recognizing that whatever it is they're doing, they're attempting to meet a need. Whether it's working or it's not working, they're attempting to meet a need. And so the idea is to not necessarily say that meeting that need, how they're meeting that need is neither good or bad. It's just what they're doing. And if you are able to sort of connect with that person and be able to really listen to them, you might find that they may have other needs that aren't being met and maybe there are some successful strategies that could be set up for that person to sort of continue to grow and meet more needs. I mean, maybe they're perfectly happy not working. I mean, that's an assumption also that people make about people not working. Yeah, they may be meeting certain needs by not working, and then there may be other needs that they're not meeting by not working. Oftentimes, and there may be also strategies that they've been utilizing to attempt to find work that may not be effective for them. It may not be literally working for them, but they may not see any other strategies until they actually connect to the core needs. I find that there is an abundance of strategies that emerge once we actually connect to the need. The job isn't a need. The job is a strategy to meet a need. The need may be security, food, whatever those needs are for that particular person. Yes, and it also may be food is one of them, certainly, security, and there may be other needs that are really important to their soul, such as contribution. For example, some people may be experiencing the sense of being pushed by friends or relatives, let's say, to get a job, without understanding that that person may need to connect to their sense of contribution and their sense of passion in order to know what kind of job would really work for them. What would actually fulfill them and ultimately be sustainable for them? Because in my experience, if certain core needs aren't being met, then the situation will most likely, whatever strategy that is, will burn out. It will have a certain lifespan. It will have a lifespan, and people will probably be back in either an unemployment phase or under-earning phase or suddenly getting fired and not understanding. You see people with repeated patterns of getting fired, and they're smart and they're intelligent and all these things, and people apply a certain wrongness to that. But they just may be thinking, oh, they may just not even know what their needs are and think, my need is to have a job when really their need is to really serve their talents and make a contribution, and they're just going, I need a job, I need a job, and they keep just going to one strategy that's really not clearly working without having the understanding of why that's not working, because they're not actually meeting their true needs. They're meeting an assumed need that maybe they have put on themselves or family or society or whatever have put on them. Exactly. And the other thing is there may be buried needs that they're not aware of, such as self-respect. Perhaps they've been working in environments in which their need for self-respect isn't met. And once they tap into that need for self-respect, that need is going to be much more present and alive for them when they're going for interviews or exploring other environments to see if that need can be met in that environment. I think one of the interesting things that I have found, because I've been going to an under-earning support group meeting on Mondays, and I really had been looking at the fact that I just never asked enough in terms of salary at work, that I allowed things to happen, so I really had to address these issues before I could successfully move on. And I really find it very interesting to see some of the people in that group who sort of really start to identify their true needs around work or money or whatever it is, really start to create work environments that completely support them in totally, totally different ways than they've ever had before. And you see that sort of transformation in some people in a very short time, but other people over the course of a longer time. But you really start to understand when you're really secure or really know what your needs and wants are, and you go for them in an appropriate way, that these kind of what seems like miracles happen, that suddenly people are getting the kind of work that not only supports them financially, but supports them on this sort of deep emotional, you know, soulful level. And that, to me, is just amazing to sort of witness that. Well, I love hearing that, and I love hearing those stories, because when I hear a story of a person who really taps into their needs at that level, and then all of a sudden these other strategies emerge to create a work environment that supports them, I know that miracles can happen by virtue of that person tapping into their life force energy through connection with their needs. So, to me, it makes absolute sense that they would be able to do that. They would be able to create, to manifest those situations through an awareness of those authentic needs. And I'm convinced that everyone can do that. It's just a matter of really being willing to connect. And I must say that one of the things that's really challenging about self-connection is that it can bring up pain for people. That's one of the reasons people don't do it. I think that's one of the main reasons people don't do it. It can bring up a lot of sadness and mourning about needs that haven't been met or about feelings that come to the surface that are really difficult. So it is a practice of being willing to have patience and to open one's heart and to be vulnerable, to be vulnerable first to oneself and what's really going on for that person, to have that level of self-connection. And I was surprised at the amount of mourning that came up when I started to connect to my feelings and needs. And it's also been the greatest gift that I've ever allowed myself to go through because so much good has come into my life as a result of that level of self-connection. The new strategies that have emerged, the quality of relationships that I have with people, the level of connection that I have with people, the mutuality, that has all opened up as a result of my self-connection and being willing to face pain that was buried. It really is, I think, kind of amazing. I know for myself I'm just sort of new to this process. And I've done the kind of budgeting, that kind of stuff, and strategizing, but it's always not worked as effectively. I think it's sort of maybe it fulfills an immediate need, but it doesn't really work in the long term. And sort of kind of unraveling all these issues around under-earning and deprivation and all these kinds of things, it's just really sort of opened my eyes and I think in some ways made me feel more empathic towards other people, emphasized with other people, because I see people's dilemmas in different ways and I see when people are really hurting financially and other people are just sort of like, suck it up. People really maybe at that moment, one, don't have the skill set or the strategizing ability to sort of think another way and sort of just this kind of let's just pump resumes into a system, may not work for that person in their job where they are. They may need other strategies. And without really having somebody who can hear them and hear their pain and where they are, that person just could be in a horrible, horrible loop. And that in itself makes me feel a little sad, because at least I feel like, oh, I've just come onto this, and I've gotten this awareness so I can really start to identify and work through my own issues. But I see people in such deep pain and been in such deep pain around losing their homes for so long that my heart goes out to them because I just think you want to go up to them and say, really, come talk to me. Let me hear what you've got going on. It is painful in that way to see other people suffer and not really be able to reach out to them in a successful way. Yes, and that's why I believe that just, yeah, that having the financial clarity is actually very important, doing the spending plan, having clarity about one's numbers, being out of what I've heard called a money fog. That's all very important. And there's another piece that's important as well, and that is about connection to one's deeper wants and needs. And as you pointed out, without that level of connection, how can a person really understand what motivates them, what drives them, what makes them want to get up in the morning? And I've heard some well-known people in this field and under-earning experts say that if you're not passionate about what you're doing, in all likelihood, you're going to under-earn. And that having a connection to that passion, having it feed your soul, whatever it is that you're doing, feed your soul, is absolutely crucial to healing under-earning. Very good. Well, I think that that's really important, and I hope, and I know we were supposed to have another guest on today, but I think this has been a very valuable conversation, and I do, Melissa, really appreciate you coming on and having this with me because I think, you know, people really, you know, it really is helpful for people to know that other people really do need to be listened to, they need to be, you know, they themselves need to be heard in maybe a new and different way. And if people can just start sort of thinking in that direction, I think it would just be really wonderful for us to sort of, as a country, move towards that and really develop some empathy for people who are out there deeply, deeply suffering in our country. Yes, and as you were saying earlier, that when you receive empathy, you've actually been able to hold a greater empathic space for others. That's what happens when we receive empathy. We can be more empathic for others. That's just the way it works because we are connected enough to be able to do that, able to be present enough to hold space for what's going on for another person because we've experienced that from someone else. So I do believe that empathy is profoundly healing on an individual level, on a collective level, and I believe that it can transform this planet. Well, that is wonderful. I actually am starting to believe that also. I think it can do that. And I just wanted, for people who are listening in, if you are wondering, Karen McCall, who is the scheduled guest for today, was not able to make it at the last minute, so Melissa Swanger, right? Correct? That's correct. Agreed moments before the call to sort of step in and offer her wisdom in the event Karen indeed couldn't get here as we anticipated. So Melissa, why don't you tell us a little bit about your coaching program around empathy because I think it's a very valuable program and give people out your information so if they want to find you, they indeed can find you. If they want to really be heard in the world, you're the person who can be that person for them. Thank you, Sandra. I would love to support people on the call and at large in learning how to receive the gifts of empathy and transform the areas of their lives that aren't working. And so people can reach me by going to yourgoddesscoach.com. That's Y-O-U-R, goddesscoach.com. And on my website, I list a number of ways that people can experience empathy by either starting off with an empathic coaching session or they can actually enroll in my Empathic Clearing Intensive, which is a very, very powerful way for people to transform their lives through the power of empathy. So there are a number of different ways that people can work with me and experience empathy and actually not only learn how to receive empathy but learn how to give themselves empathy, which I find is absolutely vital in having serenity and having access to my intuition and a sense of resourcefulness. So I'm really grateful that I can teach people those skills because it's something that you have for the rest of your life and it's a very, very precious gift. So once again, it's yourgoddesscoach.com. And you can write to me if you would like to write to me directly. There is a contact button on the page and there's a form, and you can send me your message. I'm very glad to be hearing from everyone. Well, and I would encourage all those listening to really look at what Melissa is doing around empathy. It's sort of one of those things that people just really need to think about and I would ask that they think about in sort of a new and different way. I also recommend, and I hope to get Karen back, if you want to know more about financial recovery, under-earning, deprivation, and how to get out of it all, Karen McCall's book is Financial Recovery, Developing a Healthy Relationship with Money. And as I said, I hope to get Karen back on to talk about this issue deeper. But in the meantime, please visit Melissa at yourgoddesscoach.com. And we will end the show a little early just because Melissa sort of stepped in at the last minute and also, well, you know, it's time. So I want to again thank Melissa for joining me at the last minute, and I do want to thank all our guests listening in, and I hope that sort of the spontaneous conversation about empathy really met your needs also. Again, Melissa, thank you, and to everybody, goodbye. Thank you, Sandra. Thank you for listening to Wild Woman Network. Please join us live every Tuesday at 2 p.m. or listen later via iTunes. Please visit our sponsors. Feel free to comment on the show and mark it as a favorite or use any of the lovely social media buttons and spread the word. Be heard online or in person. Let me show you how at wildwomannetwork.com. Thank you. 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