Let’s Be Out to “Get” Each Other …

“You know what everybody needs? … Everybody needs to be understood.”   Sherwin Nuland, MD, surgeon, author, bioethicist

When my children were younger, we used to regularly play a game in which I would say to them in a scary voice “I’m out to get you!” and then a chase would ensue, usually ending with us in a pile on the floor laughing.   Recently, I’ve been thinking about that game and our human desire to be “gotten” as I’ve found myself sometimes joking with a colleague (without the scary voice or chasing) “I’m out to get you” when I want to better understand them. 

Here are two stories that have been shared with me by colleagues who are participating in the PeerRxMed process that powerfully demonstrate the importance of our creating space to understand and be understood – to be gotten.  

The first shared a story about the power of creating a space to allow another to feel heard: “I really didn’t want to do the check in.  There was just too much going on in my week. If it hadn’t been for your ‘nudge’ e-mail, I wouldn’t have done it.  When I texted my PeerRx buddy and asked ‘How are you?,’ they texted back that they were so glad I reached out – that they really needed to talk with someone about a struggle they were having and they didn’t know who else to talk with about it.  What resulted was an important phone call where they opened-up about something quite serious they had been grappling with and we talked through it together.  I don’t think any of that would have happened had I not reached out.  It felt really good to be able to help them.”   And I suspect it felt even better to feel helped.

The second story was equally powerful about our need to feel understood.  “I had a close relative who had recently died, and I was feeling quite sad about it.  When I checked in with my buddy (FaceTime), they asked how I was doing.  I initially said that I was ‘fine,’ and then realized I was falling into a default pattern for me around stuffing ‘negative emotions.’  In the spirit of your encouragement to ‘feel what you feel,’ I interrupted that default mode and shared that I was actually not doing fine and was feeling profound sadness over the recent loss of someone whom I loved dearly.  What followed was an incredible sharing about how death had impacted each of our lives, and we both found ourselves crying, which I rarely do and never in front of a colleague.  We only talked for 15 minutes, but at the end I felt both comforted and so much more deeply connected with them.”  Wow ….

Yes, the need to feel understood is an essential part of who we are.  There is incredible power when we connect around those things that most deeply matter to us.  This week, when someone asks, “How are you?”, allow yourself to be “gotten” a little more by sharing from your sacred “this is really important to me” space, and take a moment to appreciate the gift of having someone in your life who cares enough to be “out to get you.”