The Bieber Incident (aka Confronting My Trauma)

I'm going to take a break from the Empathy Equation to tell you my "you have unresolved trauma" wake-up call. It took the stupidest form ever. A seemingly innocuous joke triggered a full-blown panic attack for me at work, witnessed by dozens of people. At the time, I was working as an office admin for the youth ministry of a very large, very conservative church in Dallas. The team of fun-loving youth pastors I worked with was notorious for playing silly pranks on each other and laughing hysterically. Fun, right? Well, this particular day was the first time the joke was played on me. TW: I definitely didn't react in a fun-loving way.

My boss, the youth director, had acquired a larger-than-life-sized cardboard cutout of a pre-teen Justin Bieber a few months prior. It had already been featured in numerous practical jokes around the office. High-fives had been had by all. On the day of the Bieber incident, as I jokingly refer to it now, I was walking out of my office to check the mail when a gigantic, man-shaped Bieber jumped aggressively out at me from the shadows. He even roared like a monster: "Bugatey, bugatey boo!!"

In the past, when any of my coworkers had been the victims of this prank, they had shown momentary shock and then immediately started laughing. Not me. I made a high-pitched scream and jumped so high, I was practically crawling on the ceiling. I started shaking uncontrollably and crumpled to the floor, sobbing, gasping for air, and feeling like I was absolutely dying. My boss, who had been wielding the offending Bieber was speechless. After regaining control of my limbs, I fled to the bathroom, locked the door behind me, vomited, and cried as I tried to stop shaking.

I was absolutely mortified by my public hysteria, especially since I generally pride myself on being in control of my emotions. (I better not see anyone rolling their eyes!) My desperation to prove that I was a fun, chill, and *ahem* normal member of the team was crushed in that one spectacular meltdown. I spent about an hour locked in the bathroom, getting my panic under control, and, naturally, spiraling into shame. 

When I finally emerged from the bathroom, multiple well-meaning coworkers grimaced at me with worried expressions. My boss apologized profusely and after a few minutes of silence, he tentatively asked, "So…um… What happened?" I was at a loss. I’d just spent the last hour asking myself that exact same question. (Well, technically, I think the exact question I was asking was, "What the fuck just happened?")

The Bieber incident was the first time I truly confronted the fact that I was still deeply impacted by childhood trauma and I needed to address it. I'd gone to therapists numerous times (always at churches) for depression, but the topic of trauma had never come up. I had chalked up my depression to be a “thorn in my side” that I just needed to live with. The Bieber incident proved it wasn’t going to be that passive of a process.

Confused but intrigued, I started looking for explanations for why I reacted the way I did. Google insensitively informed me that having an “exaggerated startle response” is a common symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Rude. The more I read, the more the sobering reality started to sink in. I went to a psychologist (this time, one who specialized in trauma) who confirmed the diagnosis. It was like discovering a gaping wound in my chest that I’d been blissfully ignorant of until then.

I started trauma therapy and reluctantly began examining the long-tucked-away memories of my childhood and the problematic thinking patterns that had come with them. I gave myself permission to stop running from my darkest memories. It was miserable. Whenever I processed a "big" trauma, it seemed like 4 more would pop up in its place, like a diabolical hydra. I was determined, though, hungry to learn about what I was experiencing. 

Although I didn’t have the words for it then, the Bieber incident had kickstarted a pivotal change in how I viewed myself. In hindsight, the work I was doing in therapy was me working through the Empathy Equation…for myself. My PTSD breakdown had highlighted feelings, beliefs, and behaviors that didn’t make sense to me. In order to solve that mystery, I had to investigate my identity, experiences, and circumstances with curiosity and non-judgment.

As I slowly got to know myself, I discovered a problematic core belief that had unconsciously been the foundation of my worldview my entire life. It was this: My feelings don’t matter. It wasn’t a belief that I had chosen, but one that I acquired through years of repressed trauma and trying to smother my fear for the greater good. The Beiber incident made me realize I had a habit of shutting off any awareness of my needs in order to handle situations where I felt trapped and powerless.

Confronting my trauma forced me to start paying attention to my body’s constant tension and stress and actually look for solutions instead of hiding. As I slowly opened the door to self-empathy, I not only uncovered parts of my identity that I had never acknowledged before, but I actually started treating myself like I mattered. That was the year I quit my job and started my master's in counseling.

Experiences & Circumstances (The Empathy Equation)

We’re working through the Empathy Equation and here’s a quick reminder:

Identity + Experiences + Circumstances = Feelings + Beliefs + Behaviors

Earlier in the blog, I talked about origin stories, the dramatic backstories of heroes or villains that help to explain their motivations. Origin stories aren’t just in fiction, though. Every single human has an origin story of their own and, believe it or not, their feelings, beliefs, and behaviors can all be understood in that context. Today I’m focusing on the most obvious parts of someone’s origin story: their experiences and circumstances.

Experiences are the unique events that we encounter throughout our lives that shape how we see the world. Formative experiences are like plot developments in the origin story of our life, setting the stage for how we will interpret events and react in the future. Experiences can be adverse (abuse, poverty, illness, etc.), positive (relationships, accomplishments, etc.), or just neutral, but they all play a part in molding us. The way we were raised, friends we’ve had, jobs we’ve worked, our love life, our losses, and even major global events are all experiences that influence how we think and how we see the world.

Let’s do a thought experiment. Think about a major event that happened in your childhood. It doesn’t matter if you perceived it to be a “good” or “bad” experience. How did that event impact the way you saw the world? What did it motivate you to do? Now imagine that you have a clone, someone whose brain and identity are perfectly identical to yours. If you experienced that pivotal childhood event but your clone did not, what would be different about their perspective on the world? How much a difference would it make?

In that scenario, we’re noticing how one single event, or lack thereof, could impact two humans with the exact same brain, genetics, capabilities, etc. In real life, no two brains are identical though, so we have an even greater range of possibilities. If you had 10 different kids experience the exact same event at the exact same time in their development, each of their responses would still be completely unique. Their own unique identities and other experiences would heavily influence the way they perceived that same event.

Circumstances are similar but even more acutely relevant. They are the immediate contextual factors that impact how we think and feel right here, right now. These factors can be anything from getting a poor night's sleep to having a midlife crisis. Because circumstances are immediately relevant, they have a huge impact on our feelings, thoughts, and reactions.

When you start thinking about how Identity, Experiences, and Circumstances affect each person uniquely, it’s no wonder that we respond to the world in such drastically different ways. Our very perception of what’s going on is subject to the filter that we each carry around with us. In turn, as each of our experiences gets integrated into our worldview, they start to impact how we interpret new information moving forward.

The first half of the Empathy Equation is a person’s origin story. Their identity (who they are), their experiences (what they’ve been through), and their circumstances (what’s stressing them out right now) all set the stage for what they’re feeling, thinking, and doing now. A person’s experiences and circumstances will never be exactly the same as any other human’s. And when we recognize that no two identities are identical, it makes sense why similar experiences and circumstances would provoke vastly different responses from different people. 

The next time you encounter someone who is feeling or thinking something that doesn’t make sense to you, you need not assume that they are being irrational. Maybe it would be irrational for you, but you are not living in their body, with their memories, with their stressors. Conceptualizing a person’s unique origin story goes a long way toward helping us understand why they react the way to do to the world.

Identity (The Empathy Equation)

In my last post, I introduced the Empathy Equation. Here’s a reminder:

Identity + Experiences + Circumstances = Feelings + Beliefs + Behaviors

In order to do it justice, I’m going to break down each element in the equation in detail. Today, we’re focusing on identity, the first term in the Empathy Equation. Identity in this context refers to the traits, values, and roles that make a person who they are. Each person’s identity is completely unique and completely subjective. Our identities develop early in life but continue to evolve over time as we get to know ourselves and learn more about how we fit into the world.

Traits are the parts of our identity that are usually born in or formed in early childhood. They are the basic categories that we use to identify ourselves such as name, family, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, culture, etc. Other traits are things like personality, temperament, genetics, and any physical or mental predispositions that we’re born with. Developmental psychologists theorize that most of our personality develops within the first few years of life, making it a foundational part of who we are and how we act.

Values are the motivational parts of our identity. They inspire passion, bring us a sense of purpose, and define our character. We often form our early values through family and culture, but our most meaningful values are the ones we choose autonomously. When our behaviors are aligned with our values, we feel confident and comfortable. When our behaviors are incongruent with our values, we usually feel ill at ease until we either change our behaviors or choose new values. When I work with clients who want to understand their identity, we usually begin by identifying their values.

Lastly, Roles are the parts we play that are modeled after various archetypes. Psychologist, Carl Jung described these archetypes as representations of the universal parts of humanity’s collective unconscious. Each role or archetype that we try out plays a part in molding our identity. We choose which roles we want to adopt and we can change them from one season of life to the next. Although identity roles can correlate with jobs or careers, they don’t depend on external behaviors. When our values change, our roles often also adjust to fit our new understanding of who we are.

If I’m trying to understand someone’s feelings, beliefs, and behaviors (the second part of the empathy equation), the first thing I’ll want to investigate is their identity (aka. their traits, values, and roles). Before I start, though, it’s essential to remember that identity can’t be “right” or “wrong”. Identities simply are. When a person makes a helpful or unhelpful choice, we can’t blame it all on their identity. Remember how I used to work with inmates in the jail? Do you think those people I met were there because their core identity was “a criminal”? Of course not! They each had unique personalities and values and roles that were valid and useful, regardless of the choices they made.

Why do I bother to point that out? Sadly, many people operate on the toxic belief that a person’s identity itself can be evil or broken. Not only does that false logic make us write people off prematurely, but it also causes toxic shame that makes us feel trapped and unable to change. Healthy self-love and respect for others allow us to grow and adapt while still embracing and accepting our identities.

That being said, an identity role can get in the way of productive change if we cling to it even when the evidence shows that changing would be more adaptive. When someone attaches a belief system to their identity, there is always a risk that their values will be compromised. We’ll go into more detail on beliefs when we get to that part of the Empathy Equation, but it’s important to understand the difference between a belief (what you think) and an identity (who you are). When things aren’t black and white, we can do a lot of damage by stubbornly clinging to a belief that isn’t congruent with our values.

Perhaps this is why we often see scandals emerge where someone who professes positive values justifies harmful actions because of a belief system that was a higher priority to them. The more I’ve learned about Religious Trauma, the more I’ve come to recognize the misunderstanding that many people of faith have about the nature of beliefs and identity. That’s a topic for another blog, though.

Below is a list of values that I often go over with my clients. What resonates with you?

• Adaptation (flexibility, accommodation, adjustment)
• Ambition (drive, aspiration, desire)
• Analysis (assessment, evaluation, investigation)
• Authenticity (truth, genuineness, originality)
• Ballance (temperance, moderation, carefulness)
• Belonging (connection, acceptance, community)
• Caution (careful, tentative, thoughtful)
• Certainty (undoubting, assured, confident)
• Collaboration (cooperation, participation, teamwork)
• Compassion (mercy, grace, benevolence)
• Competition (rivalry, contest, controversy)
• Consistency (dependability, stability, predictability)
• Courage (bravery, daring, fearlessness)
• Courtesy (politeness, kindness, deference)
• Creativity (invention, innovation, discovery)
• Curiosity (inquisitiveness, questioning, exploring)
• Discipline (reserve, restraint, regulation)
• Diversity (nonconformance, defiance, resistance)
• Duty (obligation, responsibility, work)
• Empathy (sensitivity, understanding, inclusivity)
• Excellence (achievement, accuracy, success)
• Excitement (adventure, anticipation, variety)
• Freedom (autonomy, independence, agency)
• Gratitude (thankfulness, appreciation, contentment)
• Humor (amusement, levity, sarcasm)
• Influence (persuasion, impact, guidance)
• Integrity (ethics, honesty, honorability)
• Intentionality (purposeful, deliberate, mindful)
• Justice (impartiality, equity, fairness)
• Logic (reasoning, intellect, deduction)
• Loyalty (commitment, attachment, allegiance)
• Nurture (care, soothing, support)
• Optimism (hopeful, expectant, positive)
• Order (organization, categorization, systematic)
• Passion (expression, drama, poignant)
• Peace (serenity, calm, harmony)
• Play (enjoyment, fun, amusement)
• Power (strength, authority, leadership)
• Practicality (objectivity, groundedness, realism)
• Productivity (activity, effort, industriousness)
• Progress (evolution, improvement, advancement)
• Propriety (poise, decorum, properness)
• Recognition (respect, esteem, honor)
• Selflessness (helpful, altruistic, sacrificial)
• Simplicity (clarity, directness, plainness)
• Skepticism (doubt, suspicion, critical thinking)
• Spirituality (supernatural, sacred, metaphysical)
• Tolerance (inclusivity, forbearance, non-judgment)
• Virtue (righteousness, morality, principal)
• Wealth (abundance, affluence, prosperity)
• Wisdom (insight, perceptiveness, discernment)

The Empathy Equation

Humanity's origin story is still pushing us toward the brutal, tribalistic behaviors that helped us survive back when those were the only options. In the old days, survival required unapologetic violence against rivals, brutal hunting and slaughtering, and unabashed procreation with any fertile partner. No one was asking anyone for consent. It was rough.

Today, there are 8 billion of us crowded on a planet that we’ve sucked dry as we continue to seek domination above all else. Our survival as a species now requires a drastically different approach. But since our inner caveman never grew out of his brutish mindset, he's still urging us to fight, hunt, dominate, and make babies ad nauseam. Reality is somberly telling us that those strategies won’t work anymore. It’s time to adapt. But how?

Our capacity for empathy has given us an invaluable tool that the inner caveman does not understand. Whenever we encounter a challenge, our brain democracy jumps into a debate on how to handle it. The inner caveman screams, "Fight those other people! They're different, they're the enemy! We've got to get ours before they come and take it!" Other voices in the democracy respond too. Our inner scientist says, "Actually you're barely any different from them at all. It makes more sense to work with them rather than against them." Our inner nurturer says, "Why would we cause pain for one of our people? Surely there's an alternative." 

This is the nexus at which we stand. We can keep using outdated strategies or we can try something new. If we have any hope of stopping our inner caveman's violent impulses, we need a foolproof way to convince him that every single person who looks, thinks, or acts differently from him isn't his enemy. We're all just one tribe now (picture a Coke commercial, but less problematic.)

This predicament is why the Empathy Paradigm matters. When I stood face to face with my enemy in a cold jail cell in 2017, my inner caveman was hungry for battle. He was incredulous when I sat down and spoke gently to a man who had destroyed the innocence of many children. I could see reflected in him the man who had stolen my innocence and safety 20 years prior. Despite my rage, I opened my heart to the most unlikely thing: empathy.

It took some time for me to understand what took place that day. The rage and disgust in me broke and were replaced with connection, something I was conditioned to avoid. Like raw new skin, I was painfully sensitive but undeniably changed. As time passed, I began putting words to this paradigm shift. In the empathy paradigm, I had no enemies. 

Prior to this experience, the entire world had been against me. The suffering and isolation of my childhood had left me bitter, cynical, and chronically suicidal by age 5. By age 8 I had multiple traumas to add to my list of evidence against trust and connection. I was broken, no matter how many times I said the sinner's prayer. But suddenly, after two decades of dutiful survival, I stumbled into safety.

After meeting and forgiving Joe in the jail that day, I had an excruciating realization. Joe wasn't my worst enemy. I was. I had hated the body and mind I'd been trapped in for my whole life, never uttering a single kind word to myself. Yet here I was, learning to forgive someone else who by all accounts should be unforgivable. I spoke to myself the way I'd spoken to Joe and began to feel something tender and unexpected. Empathy, the very last thing I ever thought I could possibly have for myself, bloomed in my chest.

This healing experience of learning empathy, not just for my enemy, but for myself was too profound to deny. As I talked to loved ones and colleagues, my new paradigm became more concrete. Its foundation was simple: Once I understand someone I no longer want to hurt them.

With Joe, the inmate, it took digging into his horrible past and current reality to realize that I understood his choices. In turn, it prompted me to view myself with grace instead of hatred. I was elated and determined to create a formula that could cultivate this kind of understanding for anyone. Here's what evolved:

Identity + Experiences + Circumstances

=

Feelings + Beliefs + Behaviors

In statement form, the equation sounds like this: “Based on who you are, what you’ve been through, and what’s been going on lately, the way you're feeling, thinking, and behaving is understandable. I still may not agree with you, but I understand your reasons.”

The Empathy Equation, despite its relative simplicity, is deceptively challenging to practice. Learning with genuine curiosity and non-judgment is something our inner caveman has rarely accomplished. Even our evolved, civilized brains are conditioned towards othering and inflexibility. So when it's time to empathize with different people, this skill takes intentionality, time, and practice.

Intentionally learning and understanding why other people feel, think, and act the way they do is essential to empathy. The good news is, once we've seen someone's suffering and connected with them, we can't help but accept them into our tribe, forgive them, and protect them. Sorry inner caveman, no more blood feuds for you, buddy.

The Inner Caveman

In comic books (and in the over-abundance of movies based on them), both heroes and villains alike are given origin stories. They offer the reader or viewer a peek into the character’s troubled past, setting the stage for present-day drama. A lot of characters have surprisingly traumatic back-stories, the more heart-wrenching the better. Some are orphaned in a horrific way, falsely imprisoned, or their dog is killed by a home invader. Sometimes they just fall into a giant vat of acid.

Regardless of the details, an origin story’s purpose is to explain that character’s motivations. Their beliefs and choices, justified or not, can be understood more deeply once you’ve learned their origin story. Often, characters you wouldn’t have connected with emotionally become more endearing once you discover their tragic backstories. It explains why they are the way they are.

With intentional empathy, our first task is to learn the origin story of the person or group that we’re trying to understand. Since all humans have the same ancient origin in common (sorry, evolution deniers), let’s begin there. Investigating humanity’s origin story is to ask the question: Why are we the way we are?

One of my favorite authors, David Eagleman says in his book, Incognito, “Brains are like representative democracies. They are built of multiple, overlapping experts who weigh in and compete over different choices. [...] There is an ongoing conversation among the different factions in your brain, each competing to control the single output channel of your behavior.” One of these competing representatives, who often plays an antagonistic role in our modern-day functioning is a guy I like to call “the inner caveman.” 

The inner caveman represents a vital part of our humanity that has been passed down from millennia to millennia, keeping us alive with his primal instincts. Sigmund Freud called this primitive part of our minds the “Id”, an unconscious drive toward sex, aggression, and survival.

I picture the inner caveman as a rather unintelligent chap who likes to grunt his advice on how to solve our problems in the simplest way possible. He's impulsive, aggressive, and easily provoked because his only focus is on meeting our basic needs for safety, food, and shelter. Oh, and satiating our compulsion to procreate find things to dominate. I hate to say it, but he pretty much invented sexism and racism.

Unsophisticated though he may be, our inner caveman is the one who alerts us to our primal needs. In fact, he gets a lot of the credit for our survival as a species (so far). Unfortunately, his gloriously simple approach to life hasn’t adapted very well to the modern world. The threats and challenges that humans face have changed dramatically since the inner caveman was in his prime. 

Today our survival relies less on hunting, mating, and defeating rival tribes, and more on our ability to communicate complex ideas and collaborate with other tribes. Humanity’s new survival strategy looks drastically different from the inner caveman’s. "Many woman, much meat, more war" isn't going to hack it anymore. Nowadays the inner caveman is often irritable, stubbornly trying to use his ancient strategies in a world that is exponentially more complex.

Fortunately for us, the inner caveman is capable of adapting. Even if it does take him a lot longer than we would like. The poor fellow has had a rough couple of centuries, what with women being allowed to speak, no one wanting to be slaves anymore, and things like violence and rape being generally frowned upon. Since we can’t just delete the inner caveman from our DNA, and ignoring him isn't working, we need to learn how to work with him.

Eagleman’s democracy of brain representatives I mentioned earlier symbolizes our ability to acknowledge the inner caveman’s impulses while also listening to voices of reason. No single representative, including the inner caveman, has control over our choices. That’s great news! When the inner caveman grunts for us to give in to our base instincts, other representatives (maybe our inner scientist, inner accountant, or inner nurturer) have the chance to offer alternative perspectives.

If you think you’re pretty good at empathy, you have either (1) learned how to negotiate well with your inner caveman, or (2) you’re completely delusional. False dichotomies aside, the truth is we can’t just deny that we have an inner caveman. No matter how hard we pretend, he still hasn't transformed into the hot prince at the end of Beauty and the Beast. He’s here. He’s queer-phobic. Get used to it.

Before we can collectively create a culture of empathy where we can start working together to survive, we’ve got to address the reality of our inner caveman. As long as we refuse to admit that we have a racist, sexist, warmonger fused into our DNA, we’re sabotaging ourselves. Ignorance keeps us stubbornly justifying our outdated intuitions. If we give ourselves permission to acknowledge that the inner caveman exists, however, we can start actively choosing not to be so swayed by his vote. 

How do we accomplish such a thing you ask? Hint: It's what this blog is about. Stay tuned.

- Anna

Sources: 

https://www.amazon.com/Incognito-Secret-Lives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389928 

https://www.amazon.com/General-Introduction-Psycho-Analysis-Sigmund-Freud-ebook/dp/B00N14R3B6