The Align Your Purpose Program STEP SIX:...

The Align Your Purpose Program

STEP SIX: EMPATHYKNOWING & SOLVING UNMET NEEDS

Light For The Souls

Copyright © Vladimir Kush

A L IGN YOUR PUR POSE P ROGRAM - S T E P S I X : EMPATHY

Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com

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IN THIS LESSON:

• Empathy as Emotional Intelligence• If Nothing Else, Know the Need• The Downside of Empathy

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense amysterious connection to eachother.

“

”Meryl Streep

Welcome to Step 6! Where we learned last lesson that the essence of asking questions could lead us into

receiving and a genuine opening of our hearts, in this lesson we look more closely at how to continue heart

expansion: through both receiving and giving. Such heart expansion helps us further awaken and step into

our personal power while also helping us intuitively align our purpose with our actions—because where the

mind can become confused or choose the wrong path at any given turn... the heart always knows its own

Truth. We only need know our own hearts. ☺

Empathy becomes a beautiful next step to this end as it is one of the heart’s most exquisite talents. Through

it we sense the mysterious connection we have to all beings and to all things. Through it we can also give

our own gifts, love and actions in ways that transform those we care for... and which have the opportunity

to create massive ripples of change across the planet.

Additionally, empathy helps us understand an aspect of our world that lies beyond data and factual

information: through it we can understand people—and to achieve anything in your personal or professional

life, it is vital to understand the people in your world.

In fact, researchers, doctors and scientists often point to Empathy as a key defining characteristic found in

successful people and those in leadership positions.

The other side to empathy is that in order to give the essence of ourselves, we first learn to receive the

essence of those we choose to serve, assist and love. And we learn to do so from a place of healthy

openness—meaning what flows into us can be felt and recognized, but then also allowed to flow out. We

do not let another’s suffering become our own suffering, for then rather than lifting another up, we have

instead brought ourselves low... and we become unable to truly serve or assist them. Misery, in reality, does

NOT love company.

So what precisely is empathy and how can we use it to not only further our understanding of the people in

our lives, but to also continue forward into our purpose and achievement of our pusuits?

http://www.choicepointmovement.com



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The primary reason empathy is highlighted as a key characteristic of leaders and successful people is

because it presents the flip side of good listening: beyond fully listening to those around you, empathy allows

you to discern what those around you most want to listen to.

Empathy helps us craft our conversations, presentations and proposals in ways that communicate in another

person’s language. Through empathy we can determine what another person wants or desires so that we

can explain “what’s in it for them” to participate with us.

These are very rarely logical positions, though logic is a factor. What comes first however is the emotional

need the other person wants fulfilled... and once we’ve communicated that we (or our venture) can meet

that need, it becomes an easy journey to justify that emotional position with logical support.

In his book on Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman discusses the five crucial skills to perceive, command

and evaluate emotions. Rather than repeat his valuable work here, we’d like to build on the power of

emotions to also establish a rarely-discussed form of empathy that can take your own communications

and ventures to additional heights: Needs Intelligence.

EMPATHY AS EMOT IONAL INTE L L IGENCE




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As you’ll notice if you read Goleman’s work on

Emotional Intelligence, you can learn a great deal

and exponentially increase your effectiveness when

you understand the emotional drivers at play in the

people you serve, the people you collaborate with,

and of course even the people you love.

However emotion in itself, though useful, is tied to a

deeper driver: a person’s core need.

As I have often taught in my own practice, and as

we understand it here at Choice Point, there are 7

Human Needs that underlie core emotional

response and drive. Knowing which one or two

needs are paramount for a particular person, or for

your overall audience, dramatically increases your

ability to communicate your position in a language

they can hear... as well as your ability to serve and

heal the greater essence of any person’s desire or

pain.

We all possess some degree of all 7 needs, however

in relation to you or your venture, you will find the

person or people you’re dealing with will often have

one or two primary needs you can address. As you

will see, some of these needs are complementary

and others are contradictory. Knowing which needs

are paramount will keep you from presenting a

message that violates that person’s true driving

need (such as communicating a sense of certainty

when your audience seeks uncertainty in the form

of variety!).

This is because while defining an emotion is useful,

such as whether someone primarily identifies with

grief or if it presents itself more as anger... you can

glean massive amounts of additional information if

you know the underlying needs those emotions are

attached to. Because almost always an emotional

reaction is triggered because a need has just been

met, or clearly not met.

Armed with such information, in addition to echoing

back their emotional experience for rapport and

relationship, you can now go a step further to speak

to their primary need and how you can help them

meet it. Such information is priceless in all forms of

communication!

I F NOTH ING E L S E , KNOW THE NEED




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The Seven Human Needs Are:

1. Safety & Certainty

This need is often expressed as a need to control as

much as one can, to know how something will turn

out before it actually happens, or to only want to

make safe decisions or participate in safe

relationships. The unknown or uncertain is incredibly

stressful and often such a need is closely tied to our

survival instincts and fears.

2. Variety & Adventure

Variety is basically uncertainty. This need is

expressed as a desire for adventure, for what is

different and new, and for things to not always be

the same. Such a person desires novel experiences

and is often bored if things always appear the

same.

3. Significance

The need for significance is directly tied to our

human need to feel valued and to know that we

matter; that we are worthy. At its worst, this can

manifest as egotistical pride at any cost, however

for most people this is a healthy desire to be

appreciated and to know that somehow, by the

time we leave this planet, we will have left a

meaningful imprint on it that only we could uniquely

provide.

4. Love

Our need for love naturally goes beyond romantic

love. Some people find that beneath their desire to

“save the world” and their big visions for change...

the driving need is simply a desire to be loved by

those they would save. Sometimes religious or

spiritual fervor is tied to a need to know we are

loved by a divine parental or universal figure.

5. Growth & Evolution

As human beings we are predispositioned toward

evolution. This need is often expressed as a desire

for more wisdom or knowledge, improving skills or

evolving one’s station in life. It can also manifest as

a desire to evolve oneself physically into peak

condition, or to evolve spiritually toward awakening

or enlightenment.

6. Contribution

We are designed as social creatures, and as such

we desire to contribute to our communities—

whether the local tribe of our village, our personal

family, or to a greater collective. This need often

manifests in charity, giving, volunteering, or seeking

a social station that tells us our place in the larger

collective.

7. Oneness/God

Our final need is also our first. However not everyone

identifies with this need consciously quite the way

each of us will at times identify with the previous six

needs. That said, we will often see this need express

itself in religion, spiritual seeking, philosophy and our

desire to know the unknowable and answer the

unanswerable. In many ways our fascination with

the Mysteries of life—even in our most logical and

practical pursuits, such as in science—is a need to

know one way or another: are we One? Is there a

God?


Awake In A Silver Land




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You can likely see here the obvious benefit to

identifying one of the above needs as a primary

driver in someone you need to persuade,

collaborate with, or speak to.

However, consider also the way two needs can

interrelate. This is exceedingly informative because

it helps us understand what can often be

contradictory behavior or drivers in another person

or in a larger audience.

For example, consider that someone’s top two

needs are Love and Certainty. This means that in

their approach to all things: whether their career,

social contribution, or their own personal

relationships... there is an underlying and perhaps

unconscious need to feel loved. Ask yourself how a

person with such a primary need would feel loved

in a particular situation? If you’re in a business

presentation with a CEO who has this as her primary

need... how can you communicate with that? Likely

she will respond to language such as “feel” and

“your employees will be inspired to loyalty and a

deep appreciation for your leadership, not just as

their CEO, but as an individual they enjoy working

with and for.”

Add to her desire for love a desire for certainty, and

you see the waters get a bit muddier. Now not only

does she need to know that she’ll feel a sense of

love if your project is approved... she also needs to

feel an immense amount of certainty that the

project will succeed, particularly in that specific

way.

On the other hand, let’s say that her second primary

need was Variety rather than Certainty. In this case,

you’d want to communicate how she can be a

pioneer in approaching her employees in the way

you propose. How it will add so many new elements

to her experience as a leader, as well as to the

experience of her employees. Communicate to her

as a trailblazer that is heart-centered.

You can do this quite easily with all the 7 human

needs in any of their pairings.

But how to determine a person’s one or two top

needs?

ASK QUESTIONS!

You won’t necessarily ask outright, “Is your top need

one for significance?” Instead, make a note of

words, traits and ideas commonly associated with

each need. Then to determine a person’s top

needs, ask him to describe his vision. What are his

desires and fears? What problems does he see

himself facing in this particular area of his life that

you’re focused on? How does he imagine it can be

solved?

Don’t just pay attention to the information in his

answers, but also the words he chooses in explaining

himself. There is a language to love. A language to

significance. A language to contribution and to

Oneness.

Don’t analyze it too hard... know that you have

each of these same needs in you, and with your

natural ability for empathy you can instinctively or

intuitively identify another person’s top needs

because they will echo the needs within you.

And finally, I just want to touch on one other key

aspect of empathy: it’s downside that we can

sidestep with our awareness...


Awake In A Silver Land




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To fully understand the downside of empathy, it may

serve to first be clear what empathy is. By formal

definition, empathy is the ability to understand and

share the feelings of another. Yet most of us have

learned that to empathize properly with someone is

to actually match another person’s emotional state

or energetic vibration, and this can harm us as well

as prevent us from doing the good we sought to do

by empathizing in the first place.

Although matching another person’s emotional

state allows us to more easily feel and relate to what

they are feeling, when we do this their suffering

becomes our suffering. Their anger gets stuck in our

body as anger. Their grief seeps into and lowers our

energy and depletes us as it has depleted them.

The challenge with empathy is we’ve been taught

that there’s no middle ground: either we’re cut off

from another’s experience and we remain aloof or

uncaring... or we fully match them in their feelings

and take on the other person’s suffering, anger or

pain.

These are both no-win options if we wish to both a)

understand the world of another person and their

lived experience, and b) have the personal power

and energy necessary to assist them and give them

love or caring that can elevate and lift them up.

This is why we recommend that you focus more on

identifying a person’s need rather than just their

emotional state. It helps provide some neutral

distance so that you can fully relate to their

emotional reality without adopting that reality as

your own and ‘taking it on.’ Also identifying a need

provides you information that can be actionable. It

seems that often the downside of empathy gets

triggered when you don’t know how else to help or

be there for them. Focusing on action or insight

helps you maintain neutral and healthy empathy.

Because you’re never meant to heal or fix another

person, or their situation. Instead, you can give your

gifts: your love, your caring, your insights and your

support. Only they can truly heal their own

emotional state.

THE DOWNS IDE OF EMPATHY


www.choicepointmovement.com


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