It’s their truth you’re dealing with, not yours

Oh, the basic things I am still learning. Lord, have mercy. If there’s one thing that I have learned over the years in counselling practice it is the value of perception.

Now, I know there are many who decry things like the postmodern age, the age of outrage, the age of entitlement and so forth. There is a fair amount of truth to the follies of perception, whereby we have a propensity to make perception an idol.

But when we take our dislike for ‘perception’ too far we also completely miss an important truth.

Let’s look at it this way. We must look at this from the context of the other person. In providing any kind of help, any sort of support and care, it’s their truth we’re dealing with and not ours. As soon as we understand this concept, we begin to fear others less, and we appreciate the other person’s viewpoint more, for a more perfect portion of understanding is granted to us.

As soon as we understand that we can listen to someone and believe their perception without necessarily ‘taking a side’, we begin to provide comfort to someone feeling oppressed. If someone feels oppressed, they are, as far as we’re concerned, oppressed. The first and final test of this is when we, ourselves, are feeling oppressed. We will have nobody tell us differently. The only thing that works, the only thing that’s needed, the only thing that glorifies God, is empathy for such situations.

Yes, I know, there are other perceptions, which are so often contradictory, and this can feel befuddling. And besides abuse, there are situations where all sides in a conflict feel oppressed in some way. Even in abuse, an abuser can gaslight their victim by saying that they, themselves, are the one abused. I would argue though that there are levels of oppression, and the oppression of safety and survival is a higher, more concerning oppression than the ‘oppression’ of not being able to control the situation (which can often be the abuser’s prerogative!). Certainly in grief, we are dealing with people completely unable to control their circumstances, where circumstances of loss have become the oppressor.

Allow me to also say this. If we can’t listen to their truth, and value their truth as a possession of their perception, we don’t deserve to be trusted. We’re hardly worthy of their trust. And this is no pandering to postmodern banter. This sort of condition on care has always been important, vital in fact, and absolutely necessary.

We must first prove that we are worthy of their trust before we can speak any value of wisdom into the situation, and yet, here is the paradox. In the time it takes us to more fully and therefore truly understand their circumstance from their position and situation, empathy may bloom, for at times empathy is but a seed awaiting germination.

We want to empathise, but we have our own baggage to deal with. We may see that we have so much to offer, unable initially to see what little we truly can offer. We may only see their ‘ignorance’, assuming they don’t have knowledge and experience they may well have. We may see more from the other person’s perspective; the one opposed to the one we’re trying to provide care for. And we have our biases also to consider. There is so much we need to cut through, no matter who we are, in order to be of help.

The only corrective to true understanding is an empathy that is positioned as close to standing in their shoes as possible. This is the difference between general empathy and specific empathy. Most pastoral supporters have general empathy in spades. But if we don’t deal with the antagonisms that emanate from within us, we prove only to be a barrier to the other person, because our general empathy is patronising when it lacks specific empathy—which is an empathy for the situation, and for them as a person themselves.

Specific empathy it is harnessed and honed through the positive assumption of unknowing. We must constantly tell ourselves that we do not know. We must constantly believe that there is more to learn. We must constantly focus on how we’re serving them. And we must constantly act as if we are their angel. Of course, we aren’t, but remember we are advocating, and advocates always vouch for the betterment of those they’re advocating for. Finally, we must carry about with us the continual conversation about where our needs are impinging. In other words, we need to be cognisant of our own needs, and not to let them get in the way. We need to remind ourselves that our time for self-care will come; that we will provide for ourselves in due course, but without putting it off indefinitely.

When we can understand and apply these concepts, we truly become agents of light. There is so much care to be given, and so many opportunities to give it. See how serving humanity really is about the other person? It really is about their true need. We must always bear in our mind how our care is imagined in their mind. The only way our care actually works is they are blown away by how we’re blessing them. When we get this right, there is the unusual circumstance of a person being helped in ways and outcomes neither they nor we could foresee.

And that is the appearance of the Holy Spirit in this ministry.

Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash