Transcription
Hello, this is Dr. Mark Olsen. In this section, you'll hear about these seven words I've identified, which will help you connect with anyone who's feeling depressed and help them feel less alone, which will help them feel more hopeful.
As I said, I'm feeling so inspired and want to use the rest of my life to teach to others what I've learned. And there's something that I've developed that's, and it's a clumsy term, but it's the best I can come up with. It's called targeted interventional empathy. Targeted interventional empathy. And what that means is you go into the dark night of the soul and you touch it with love. And the way you do that is, one of the parts of it is something that I call the seven words.
And so what you might try with some introverts is, is you say, "I'd like, can I ask you a favor? I'd like your help with something." And now they may turn you away, but when you say it that way, most people will be curious. "What's this about?" And don't say it would like, you know, you're laying something on them. I mean, the tone really has to be, "I need your help with something." And they'll say, "Well, I'm, I'm working on a process to try to connect with people." And then what you say is, "Because I'm shy too, even though I'm this performer, I'm shy inside. And so I'm working on a process to try to connect with people, and I just want to try something with you. Humor me and go along with it." Hopefully, that'll help them lower their guard. And you say, "It's called seven words." And they're gonna say, "What's that?"
And then you look them straight in the eye, as I'm looking into your eyes. And, and I have no idea what's gonna happen because I'm gonna try it on both of you and see where it leads to. So lean into the introvert that you are. Lean into the introvert that you are, which I know you are underneath it all. Know it all after you're onstage, it's you collapse into the introvert that you are. But, but if I were to say to each of you, and you say to the introverts that you know, these are the seven words: hurt, afraid, angry, shame, alone, lonely, tired. Which of those speaks to you? Which of those have you felt? "All of the above." "It's especially tired. I feel like I'm tired of trying."
So you could try the seven words with your mother because the reason it works better than questions, and that's why it's interventional empathy. When you ask someone who's down, "Are you depressed?" they may say yes, but often it doesn't help because to them, it feels like you're just checking boxes. "Are you depressed? Are you tired?" And, and what happens is you're using that, and it becomes a barrier between the two of you. And they feel you're doing your job, you're being a professional, but they're feeling alone. And they're running out of time. They want to scream at you, "Don't you f***ing get it?"
By giving people words, and you could do this with your mom. You could say, "You know, I'm working on a project." Then, when you give people words, and see Kevin, he took them all in, and he smiled at me. And he smiled because he felt connected. He felt, felt, felt, not just understood. He took them all in. And, and he looked at me with these eyes like, "Mark, all of them." He got tearful because he felt relief because for that moment, he didn't feel alone. Befall him saying. And so he felt them all. And you could, and so giving people the words is different than asking them a question. In that moment, "Seven words, you gave me permission to be open about my pain." And if I was a person who never ever spoke about my pain, and you gave me those seven words, I would, I would immediately relate to all of them in some time in my life, or often many times in my life. And I would be able to, even if I didn't know you from Adam, Mark, but it's right, just met you today, you and those seven words would allow me to, if we'd went deeper, it'd be like, "Okay, this is how I define each of those seven words, and this is how its, this hurt, this feeling alone, this tired, this sound have affected my life, and this is where it hit me most, or this word history today." And I would be able to feel a weight lifted off my shoulders because I would be able to, I would have been given permission to, to be honest and true about the things that helped me. That's it. That's a great, that's a great way to look at it. Yeah.
And when I give you gave you the seven words, and you give it to your mom, it's, it's different than asking them a question. You list the seven words, and as you go through them, they're very simple, and they're registering in their mind, and the person's relating to them. And then you do ask a question. You know, what I would say is, "Pick one." Instead of even asking him a question. And Kevin was perfect. "All of them." And then what happens, as you can see, we'll say more. "Which one?" "Yes." "And you said tired." "And you started talking about it." "We'll say more about that."
"Well, you know, I love my mom, and she's strong. She's lost everything, and I want to give her relief to her hurt and pain, but she won't let me see her hurt and pain for me to comfort her. And I just love the heck out of it because she saved my life, and I want to somehow return the favor. And she's so, she's so fricking stoic, you know? I just like to say, you know, Mom, let me in."
I think he's asking, "Some of them are depressed." He's almost like saying, "You're depressed." That's right. Right. It's, it's not, it's not really a question. It's like you're assuming that, and you're going, "Oh, you're depressed. Let me ask you, you're depressed." But then there's a lot of people that don't want to relate to that word. There's a lot of people that don't want to be labeled with that word. So if you do hurt, alone, tired, broken, in pain, whatever it is, like the choose the seven words that. And then you say, "Which of those relates to you?" You're giving the person the option as opposed to directing their narrative, which is very important.
You know, as a medical doctor, here's, here's my model for treating suicide. If you know anything about surgical wounds, which you know about, what they, what you need to do is you go in, you clean out the wound, and you put a drain in. Why? Because the body wants to heal. From the find out if someone's wounded and you don't put a drain in and you suture it prematurely, it gets infected. So my approach to suicide is that there's a wound in people's spirit and soul. Go in there and keep them company in the dark night of the soul. Just say, "I'm gonna keep the company there because it shouldn't be alone." And then, and you leave an empathic drain in, which is never giving them advice or solutions that they're not ready for, and they don't want, and they just serve you so that you can report to someone, "Well, these are the five treatment plans I gave them," which they're never going to follow. But you just stay there. And that, and this is an interesting metaphor because not only does our physical body want to heal from the inside out if you create a clear path, our spiritual, psychological, and emotional body wants to heal from the inside out. But you need to lead an empathic draining so they don't feel alone from the inside out.
One of your articles, which there are many, I love the sentence. You said, "You asked a patient, 'When you feel bad, how bad do you feel?'" And then you said, "Let me live there with you." Your message was so strong that I felt like you rather been there with me. I think this was, I only met you once before I read this. And I remember there was an incident where I felt discouraged that I couldn't, for me, it pains me so much when I can't, I know I can't help. I'm not helping this person. And I felt so discouraged. And, and then I used that. What you said, and I felt, "Oh, you know, I have to remember how to do this." And then I said, "Exactly what you said, 'How bad do you feel?'" And then the person said, "I'm just done. I'm done." And I said, "Let me live there with you. I'm Terabithia. I'm living there with you. I feel your pain. I am understanding what you're going through. I'm there with you." And the person's still here today. So you.