Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller; #91; Are we teaching our girls too much empathy? - Emily Abad, The Mosaic Project

i think a lot of the young girls we're often talking to sort of stay quiet or two thousand or the caretakers right and if we are to speak out or to stand up for a thousand kids being taken in the lottery or the other be wary i'm lauren shuler today an inflection point with emily about of the mosaic project about how to find that the ministry stated you can from kalw and pr x this is inflection point stories of how women rise up i'm lauren shuler just out of

college i lived in telluride colorado for a couple of years he was meant to be summer but that turned into winter which turned into summer it was just too beautiful to leave one of the many jobs i held in telluride was bussing tables for a restaurant it was run by a guy will consequently who fit the stereotype of a restaurant chefs almost perfectly so yeah a typical shaft would look like a high powered that man wearing a very fancy pants your apron than anybody else and advance your coat than everybody else and also using strong language should strong language loud voice commands well i don't actually know about the drug's birth anyway in my case was a fancy restaurant in all the celebs who came through town a bear spring up was not an option i wasn't even in the kitchen most of the time except to drop off the dirty dishes but inevitably i would yell that for not turning a table quickly enough or when horrible time for breaking a glassed in the ice wizards are

clear it's a mess and yet most evenings at work for me ended in tears with me calling my mom on the phone and snuffling about being yelled that it also wasn't the kind of world family about want to live i had to become one of the guys and put up with a lot of sexist jokes and massaging his comments in asia that type of stress and he was hired actually remember my my last chef instructor at school when we were doing our final evaluation he told me i don't know how you gonna do in this business because i think you're too sweet and you're too nice and at the time i was like i'll prove you wrong to me and i hate to say it was right is because those two nights a week it was just that i didn't want to be a part of that environment

because i didn't want to feed into that treatment of women are are people who didn't you need a dating the stereotype of like what a successful chef looks like or sounds like even though i loved the work i was doing the environment was not for me this bully culture in restaurant kitchens and tech companies and the white house seem to be a feature of male dominated workplace those guys like my restaurant bass and emily's think they need to treat people badly to be successful the hope is that as more women rise to leadership in these fields the last to you said the work environments will become that's the hope but lately i've been wondering if we're asking too much of when and to change that dynamic on our own but it works on the table here we have to adopt an aggressive attitude to become one of the guys make it in male dominated fields where we have to work twice as hard to get most eighty percent of pay as men

and what we do is there are cells and ask for more like a dane does being too ambitious for pages the more empathetic sachs if that makes the scene week and jerry's say of emotional how are we supposed to be a stabilizing force in the world of man and have no power the cancer as emily discovered was instead of fading a battle you can't win has to change the game and helped shape a kinder more equal world ultimately family left the restaurant business to start volunteering at the mosaic project an experiential education program for kids and adults beast and stethoscope the area and to me it just sort of clicked like oh this is a couple of marijuana be doing to make sense to me and so one week volunteering turned into six years our knowledge i am i'm working full time with mosaic at mosaic empathy is actually about

strength the mosaic mission is to bring together people from different backgrounds socioeconomic be racially ethnically too give them the skills and tools that they need to create a more peaceful world that we envision and together we created microcosm of that just in diverse inclusive world that we envision week demonstrate that peace is possible and we inspire action but just as emily started volunteering for the mosaic project she was facing a personal crisis with her father and learning about empathy and assertiveness couldn't have come at a better time i was born in california and my guide was born in the philippines and yeah he lived in the philippines spence hall after college and the band moved to the united states to live the american dream and in that time he met my mom they got married and

had me and one thing led to another and they eventually got divorced but my dad still tried to and lives here in the united states he started his own business and that's part of why wonder given the restaurant industry's my dad actually owned a restaurant while you lived here when i was younger and by it's been really hard to own a restaurant in the united states and i think at that time it was really rough too so eventually i was about ten years old the same age as the students that i happen to be serving now my dad moved back to the philippines as a really hard time in my life but i have say a kind of grow out pretty quickly at that point and be very understanding and my dad had to do it had to do it's you continue to make money and to support me or even those from afar have to have you seen him since he left i've been very fortunate to be able to visit the philippines yesterday left we would alternate every other year i would fire philippines as the hammonds you and every other

year hewitt five actors days to see me and i'm more prison on that we don't talk as much now because of my sexual orientation isn't quite agree with that and so we've sort of fallen out of touch for that reason but the last time i saw him was a year ago actually he came and visited me a mosaic to see the work that i did and that was a really big step for us that n c hanks you did you did you have to come out to him man we did you know where you know you talk about and that is so i mean this is congress olive yeah your own personal experience to an attack or i avoided it for a really long time my dad is very religious and i am too i grow i grew up religious from my dad's influence my mom's not and so it was actually very easy with my mom she i didn't really have to say anything i just told her that i was dating somebody and she said oh ok you're a girl those super easy and i it was i fell

so blessed in that moment that it happened like that and a lot of people don't have that experience and so but when he came to my dad is on it easier to avoid it because he didn't live with me and you and in a different countries it was a lot easier to not have to go they're so quickly but additionally it caught up with me and he was trying to call me and get in touch with me and i could only avoid it for so long and none yeah when i told her it was fine at first actually wheels that because i think he is an official army cadet command told him we know i know my mom and my dad and i talk much my dad is on facebook and as it is watching your yeah you talk about arizona's social so having t e knew on some level i was very explicit on my social media but i think it was enough for him to kind of put the pieces together so you see an official at me and eventually it came out and it was full reign actually at

first i felt very good about it we had a good conversation and so i was like oh great this is going to be great and insulin but then the next time i went to visit him i was dating a woman at the time and so i was in the philippines and you know it's far away and i missed the person that i was dating and so i wanted to call her very often end it was then that i realized like oh he's really hot ticket that he always had some comment to make about me being on the phone too much or why do you have to report to her everyday have think if it was in that then it was just completely ignoring the subject all together which actually preferred i'd rather just not talk about it with him something they know to just avoid but then eventually it turned into a deeper conversation of what i'm doing it's not riots he talked with a lot of people in his bible study community in there i'm them all giving him the advice that he needs to get me

out of that situation very quickly and he took in as ike his duty his responsibility too did take me out of that situation and so that was that was a tough conversation to have and eventually when it boil down to this is this was the the last bit of conversation that we had i said i said to him if i were to get married which you come to my wedding and he said my daughter marrying other woman and i can afford to miss that analysts it was a bit out here and that was that moment when i said okay we need airspace and so that was the last time i had seen him for a long time he got remarried to a lovely woman my stepmom she's and she's also a christian and she just wonderful and so sweden very understanding and so it was really hard to think about her arm and they also have a kid together so i'll

have a little brother with them he's eight now at the time he was for herself and so that was really hard to take a bite of them i decide to cut that hey hey there's a very hard decision but i had to cut that at that at that moment and then it had been you know what's the math for years of not talking or communicating at all until that time that he came to mosaic but before that we did have a quick conversation on facebook messenger again as their social and movies books they do have a conversation on facebook about it and he basically said that he missed me an nih ms tutu i missed him so much i really miss my dad you know as much as we don't agree on stuff he still my dad and i was always like a daddy's girl growing up so the really hard stuff try to lose ten even that was my choice to let that go for me that was me from

protecting myself and choosing not to take in them the heart that i was feeling by just taking some space so he told me that he missed me and he did and he apologized and that meant so much i didn't realize how much an apology would have meant to me even though it was just through a simple message on facebook it meant so much to me that we started talking again a little bit and then he came to visit me a mosaic and it was gray hair he had a good time he was proud of me and love the work i was doing my little brother was there too and he's loved mosaic a nice add normally use and us that when he gets older he might come to mosaic and so yeah it was great to see them at a great time he met all of the mosaic coworkers friends he even asked me about the person that i'm with now that was now my fiance and he asked me about her which he never did before so that was a huge deal so we made a lot of progress there and then i wrote to them and open their

coach engaged my stepmom or me back my dad denied any still has not acknowledged that i'm engaged so we took two steps forward and now we're just cut i think we've we we've reached that the level they were at right now so i don't know i don't think he's happy that i'm engaged i don't know who's going to come to my wedding still kind of like how he said before but that's yep that's ariane out and okay with a e m e r i just kind of lengthy accept that that's just our relationship as it is now an that may change in the future we may make more steps in the future especially fi and having kids one day i know he's probably gonna wanna be in their life i hope so yeah for now his letters and it's okay that there's that worries that matters by ten i learned schiller this is an inflection point and on talking with family abad of the mosaic project to hear more stories of how women rise out subscribe to the infection free podcast and other podcasts republican npr one

coming up in the rest of the hour we'll hear how emily is helping kids break out of gender expectations will be right back yeah yeah are for us

i'm lauren shuler and this is an inflection point and talking with family abad of the mosaic project to hear more rising up stories subscribe to the inflection point podcast the work that you do now i mean when i went why did you get involved with mosaic and the work that you do now as a kid so when all this was going down with your data they always kind of happening at the same time honestly if i if it were for a mosaic i don't know if i would've been that strong and handling a situation with my dad well yeah hello i guess that's what i'm wondering in terms of what you mean as part of mosaic you're helping kids learn about empathy ash and creating peace than equity inequality in and how to be with people who are different from them and i am at the same time you're it sounds

like you're doing not exactly the jury's it in your own life so hot it had did you do at that time did you see those two things connecting arabia would reflect on it now absolutely i'd settle is on connecting i felt it connecting to work when i was happening was like oh this is what it means to be assertive this is the work does is empathy right here and because for me as a kid i did not learn what it meant to be assertive i did not learn how to stand up for myself in a way that was respectful of others because i think a lot of young girls we're often talked to so to stay quiet or to put other people's needs the five thousand are the caretakers right and if we are to speak up or is to stand up for a cell that can be taken as being bossy or the other bee where'd i don't i didn't learn those skills as a kid i was very

quiet growing up and are not not every girl goes up being quiet i happen to be very quiet and very shy child as a girl there a surge is i come and my personality a little bit more although i still consider myself to be a shy person and interdict i'm masquerading as an extrovert by i didn't learn how to how to stand up for myself i did not demand and so there's a lot of situations in my life where i did not stand up for myself and time that i wish i had though the certain skills but i just didn't know i just didn't i didn't have the toll that i didn't know that there were other tools i could use coming to mosaic when i first came as a volunteer as a talon later i was working with the kids and i saw the other instructors teaching his students the scales as the students were learning i was also learning and it was a process even in assertiveness kills the first thing that we teach the students is just how to say the word no it's a really hard word for a lot of people to say and has

such power and there was one exercise that we were doing where we had to say no in a strong voice but without being mean and as the instructors are going around each state in and as they're passing him in cells they were all saying it very strongly no no right and then it got to me and my strong voice at that time an emergent is on microphone i strong voice at the time was no as quiet as can be and is is and you're working with for the fifth grade cancer melting out yes it's more graphic but you know so yeah that was my strong voice at that time and i didn't know i could even be stronger than that looking back on it now i almost want to cry just like looking at the transformation that i had made from that time to now because there are just so many times in my life for a wish i could've said no in a strong voice in a voice that meant something to me because i think there's plenty of times

and i said no but i was you know still like no more you know like laughing as i say it because i felt uncomfortable and sometimes we laugh or uncomfortable which can come across as being passive or aig so as i continue to watch the kids line i continue to learn and then when i became an instructor myself i still was learning from them had been continually was so inspired by the young ones and how quickly they could pick it up and it was helping me realize how ingrained it was in my mind to be quiet and to be passive and to not speak up for myself and i've had many many years of my mind being trained to do that and so there's a lot of i'm learning that a deal and as in that situation with my dad or i really felt it come out for the first time where i felt my voice gets strong in a way that meant something to me and to him is the first time where i used my voice where he actually knew that i was being

serious an email that this was important to me we tell the students that the service is being strong without being mean and it's not just about being strong without being mean it's feeling strong without being mean and in that time i felt so calm so cool and collected and confident as i was talking with him that that's when it all came together for me this is what it means to stand up yourself to those that first moment where it really came together for me and really trying to imagine where he's coming from two cars from his point of view that says what he believes so strongly that it's not right for me to be gay and it's i know that it's coming from a place of love for him and we just have completely different views on it and so i had to just understand he's coming from a place of love and saw my and i just wanted him to know how serious it was for me and that's why i chose to separate myself from him not because i didn't respect him not because i

didn't love him but because i needed to show that this is me protecting myself because that's how much it means to me right now do you think that some part of him that must've really respected their ability to do that i hope so yeah you do something so special because he did reach out to me again and then and told me how much he missed me and that he was sorry for if if he's hurt me in any type of way so i think it was hurtful at the time he was very upset at the time i think when we're he did in the moment it's hard to it's hard to really know what are two feelings are and so after some sometime a passat i hope i hope that he did feel some type of respect towards me for doing yeah yeah

now people are successful actually nobody does within our lesson because we all need it and in one way or another way that's really what were searching for like i know for me when i get into an argument with somebody or flea f conflict arises or something like that most often what i'm looking for is empathy i just wanna know that the other person gets me understand me most times when we teach children how to balance off conflicts it's

shea can say you're sorry i get out and then they're like sorry and no no no you have to nina is there is that sorry ma will play out so what do we have to tell somebody that you have to mean that you're not ready yet you know empathy is the past as it takes time we have to be able to make sure that we're calm if where he didn't angry it's harder time but that's because we're so focused on the current emotion which is the anger frustration and sadness or whatever it might be that it's hard to then have space for another person's emotions so the first step is to make sure that we have taken some deep breaths that we're in a calm place one where combat our mind is more clear in able to process other emotions rather than just the one one or two motions eric could've dominating at the moment

then using what i teach the students is empathy is putting yourself into somebody else's shoes commonality that we use to describe empathy and i continue to use the shu analogy if i tried to put on somebody else's shoes it's a lot easier if this that that the shoes off it if that person shares the same shoe size as me so it's a lot easier and the tesla someone if you've gone through the same thing that they've gone through and i met a lot of people think that you can only empathize with somebody if you'd gone through the same experience and i do believe it easier to do it like that but think of it like shoes if i try on somebody else's shoes to say we're like a size seven maybe too smart for me i'll try to put them on they won't fit that even though i'm not they'll fit perfectly can still get a pretty good idea of what it feels like so it's just like that with empathy even if i hadn't gone through the exact same experience as somebody else i can still try my best to imagine what it might

feel like to feel the feelings that person hats and i couldn't get it exactly right but i'll get a pretty good idea of how they're feeling so even if they don't ever had an experience that i can ask them how are you feeling hundred the situation make you feel they say i feel embarrassed i can say i felt embarrassed before and i can think back to a time when i felt embarrassed and it might be a different situation but we can still relate on that level because i have experience that emotion have experienced that feeling or it could be anger frustration or whatever it might be and there's you can still always find a way to connect with somebody even if you come from completely different outcome of this is that we work with they're coming from all different backgrounds different and not only ethnic backgrounds socioeconomic class different cultures different family structures to france i'm home training different family culture there's some a different factors and so of course not an attic explain the same exact experience but we've all experienced hurt nevada scariest pain

sadness embarrassment excitement all these emotions are common among says as human beings so there is always a way where we can connect and empathize with another person should citizens start with the willingness to ask someone how they're feeling i pleaded that he's australian to be willing to ask the question and then that's exactly i think it goes both ways to being the person who's going through the emotion to be able to share the emotion to sometimes that i know if i'm very here i'm angry i'm not gonna say i'm angry that i don't often won't admit that i'm angry and then people are more likely to admit to frustration or something like that but actually at least say i'm angry that's a hard thing to say because robin taught that it's not ok to be angry that's not to be angry and a lot of us are told that it's not ok to cry or be saddened and for showing especially for our young boys we're a society often tells them that it's not okay for them to cry or to be sad that they have to be tough and so just

being able to feel all come from ball and saved to express that emotion that true emotion that you're feeling invites the other person to empathize with him so what are some of the reactions from the camps some kids are like yeah i get it i know it and then there are other students who dangers they get it and i see it even without me having to really teach them and then other students i see maybe tennis silliness coming out there when we're trying to practice their and silliness of laughter can kind of come out when we're feeling uncomfortable being vulnerable was very scary for a lot of people especially for some of our young kids who are told it's not ok to be vulnerable it can be very scarier intimidating thing and so sometimes that protection comes out in the protection can sometimes come out in civilian areas or cracking jokes or even even acting out in a somewhat violent ways like

nudging other kids are certain to push them around or or shouting out even so a lot of emotions can come up when dealing with empathy and also how to be assertive to because they're very vulnerable situations so it just depends on the suit i've seen a whole whole range or i thinking about the aid that the kid who has been either trained artist taken upon themselves to bottle it all out and this is a totally new experience for them and and hoover and who reacts negatively a cessation is they're getting particularly riffing of as you're describing you terry gilliam tells can can you share a bit more about that specific care yeah yeah i'd be happy to visit and there are a lot of a lot of kids out but there's one situation actually him and pretty recently as just a few weeks ago and ashley wasn't that mosaic as actually toast mosaic so this student had already come to mosaic a very experienced aware and i went and visited the

classroom visits part of my job is to go into the classroom visit and their teacher had asked me to come because she said that the students where needed a refresher they're having a hard time remembering the mosaic values and needed some help with empathy so i went and i visited a classroom and how this whole lesson plan planned out and i was very sad about it and a lot of kids were super excited and all the kids were very excited to see me but some kids are more excited about the actual lessons on the others and there are a few students who were being very disruptive and talking over me the whole time and talking to each other and telling each other to shut up and throwing passes at each other and one of the students is the one i'm thinking of an s and he was sitting right next to me to you know usually when the sooners are acting up like that those are the ones who know i keep right next me leo if they're not the ones that you wanna send away to send out of the room keep them closer when it gets harder to love you love harder rights to happen right next to me but even still so much emotion he would get so

upset if i didn't call on him to get in and took as he knew the answers of the questions about asking him he was so excited to raise that to give other students an opportunity to share as well everytime it economy got so mad and so upset and then eventually i just like he just got out and went back to his desk and it was a really tough experience that it wasn't just him it was a lot there are a lot of other students to answer had to pause several times i had to use my eye statements with them and every area why i was there and is a tough experience i we actually able to get through it we got the most of a lesson that i was that i had planned out for them but i was really sad actually when i left the classroom usually after live across mayfield a rejuvenated ends it recharged and rubio ready for us today it's a very good like energy boost for me when i go to visit schools usually at this time when i left because i felt very defeated almost and i don't mean that that at the students fall in any way

it is felt like i wasn't able to reach them today and a miniseries that because i knew that something was something was going on there probably had nothing to do with me that was causing the sensory actions president to lash out in this way i felt really sad because this one's didn't have a ticket and thinking that i remember him so clearly from mosaic promise after school experience he was very outspoken he raises hand egg for all of the answers just like i was saying and he was so intimate and so involved and he really was one of the leaders of the group that i was leaving an hour so i'm impressed with him are so excited to really see that the type of leadership that i was hoping that you'd be exhibiting in the classroom and instead he was leading them indirectly given direction like your eyes as added and then say the most i would be canada calling him and that you know if i called him and he would say the most random thing that had nothing to do with we're talking not just to get a laugh out of everybody else to

sell very sadly democrats that if you want to have a look at a letter that he wrote to me you really a letter after others have an answer other happen that so the teacher of the question she had apologized to me she felt so sad and i think embarrassed about it bissinger reacting and then i get this text message so she said that these are his words without prompting john deere family and i'm sorry for acting like a fool and i wish i thought the next time i'll be assertive bp's thirtieth that's a chair that we do and if i made you cry it's all right to cry and i wish i can use my statement i feel sorry when i act like the class clown because i need to show respect and could i be more of a fifth grader emily i'm sorry and thank you for visiting our ho ho hole says meltzer market so much to receive that it meant so much to me and that it says they're there it

proved to me that there is so much love and empathy within everybody and when someone is not acting the way you want them to act it doesn't serve anyone to try to force them to act that way to act in the way that you want him to write back just by getting that ladder and knowing that he wasn't haunted by his teacher to write it i felt like i added the work that i needed to do oh yeah just took a little longer than you thought la la then sometimes people just need a lot more time i learned schiller and this is an inflection point i'm talking with amalie abad of the mosaic project coming up after the break how to find a mix of empathy an assertiveness will be right back oh no

jd and lauren shuler and this is an inflection point in talking to emily by the mosaic project so on behalf of the man listening and mothers of boys how much of what you teach these kids is about just reign again poised to be more like her also what i think is so cool about mosaic is that the staff that we hire is very intentionally diverted not just not just

racially diverse but also a lot of intensive genders gender expression on personality style you know all different types of staph that we hire so that the students can see leaders that looked different different kinds of leaders in the senate they may see glimmers of themselves in these leaders and so even for the very strong tough man that we also hire on staff to some i'm see them wearing pink or getting a hug to another another man's arm or to see them showing empathy are showing that they care about another person i think as you just to see that being modeled to see a young person looking up at somebody who that they do they admire end seen them exhibit all this love in these mosaic values and empathy and compassion i think is huge so

as as a teacher as an educator also for parents and it's really important what we're teaching is not as important as what we're showing and what we what we what we're showing our reasoning aerosols that is really what what the kids are picking up on so and that's one set to show different ways of being a man and being a woman or being any type of gender right so that's that's one thing it is not always easy to see you just tell kids that it's okay we have a song called it's all right to cry guessing that is and that that's lyle lovett us a great line in it but yet we have a lot of we have a whole musical curriculum that helps teach the lessons that we're trying to get across and so does a great gains but again it is it is tough sometimes see for that to be okay with a child

particularly at every now are talking about young boys and even if it's ok if we do make a breakthrough let's say out mosaic and they're young boys is able to feel safe to open up then and to cry when let's say solving a conflict with another with another student and during that profit resolution they are able to open up and be very vulnerable and can get past that notion that i have to be tough right now and so that may happen but then the week a mosaic as only a week and then they have to go back home where in some cases their own culture or arab they are in the culture and a community it's not okay to open up in the way that they are able to out mosaic so thinking about it that well it's great to be able to work with one second of the time and to have those breakthrough moment really it's a whole

think it's all whole societal change are really bad house to happen around what does it mean to be a boy was it mean to be a man was a need to be tough with anybody strong often that means to be aggressive or to fight if someone says something to you you say something that someone pushes you you hit them back that's when it gets typically the message that our young boys are receiving right and escalate now as glee but to win the fight to save to earn respect that's what it takes to earn respect often where a top i like to think that every young child that we're each arm is just a little seed planted knowing that it's our whole world a whole view of what it means to be a man and boy that that that needs to change and yes well we are making progress i think you then with each trial that we're each ads again like i said it's i believe it's a seed

planted it and i'm sometimes all i can do is hope that they will remember that it is ok to cry sometimes and just because maybe they're in a situation currently where it's not ok to do that that they will remember that that mosaic as sometimes people say you know how armor lake is defined in the real world but i think mosaic israel to its just that sometimes other places haven't quite caught up to it yet so my hope is that they will just remember what they experienced there and that maybe if it's not happening now that some day they will feel okay and safe to open up and to change what it means to be a man and what it means to be tough and that to be strong can also mean to cry to be in touch with your emotions is strong enter to care for another person and even be able to stand up with them and says

stand up for them and stand with them without hurting somebody else is strong well it's it's it's almost like in history sensitive to pinpoint where their behaviors than reinforce a raid and that amendment not match down as you as you grow up and you know looking at it with the leaders of our many of our company isn't our country or a snowman and you know they're not modeling behavior is seen more of that in the end and in more visible places that feeds lake absolutely can and i mean i look at my dad to know and i see the hand and the way that he acts now on their way back he cheats my younger brother i mean it's very different because my my brother as a boy and so the rate the way my dad treatment is different and how he treated me when i was a young girl and just like the expectations that he has is right heartbreaking to me sometimes as another argument to my dad and i had just the way that that i see my my brother being treated like quiet

about where it is that's called a rambunctious has allowed a lot of energy it is exhausting i will give my dad it it when i would play it and yet he has more energy than i have so much older than me that engages patients probably a lot less than mine and how his residence he's at now i'm at eight or nine at the nih now yeah so i am but at the time that we were at his position years maybe three or four so you know it's how they're that age so seeing how my dad went down ten or eleven hey i'm the shit if my brother words to make it my dad and i would hit him back and tell him to knock it and that's how you teach him they don't hit any teaching him by hitting hand right so it's a very confusing message for any child to receive that kind of

information that you're you're hitting me but i'm not supposed to do it write that like i said what we're modeling is what is being picked up on so that is one example and my brother being hit being yell that just completely different expectations of of him and it was of me also i was a very quiet child so i was also just very different personality senior my dad cheats my younger brother i see it as a reflection of how his father raised him and i see that coming out in him now and i just think to my psycho hustling think to myself is my dad were just allowed to just be free and as you know be a little boy just like run around and like get his energy out first before he's told to like sit still and not move how different the outcome could be right

there just like even my dad maybe thinking like it's okay for me to cry right now i'm angry it's ok for me to it's ok for me to be angry and to express that and then once that passes then they can and move through this situation more gracefully or i don't know i think about that sometimes how would it be different if he if he were raised in that way and then how that could translate to me and how i can translate to my brother and i just think about that with all of the young boys that i'm working with then and just the role models that they see and how their teaching everything that states who we are now start from when we were kids with girls i mean sometimes i wonder f we girls are excepted have so much empathy read that they are more concerned about how the other person was feeling about how they're feeling and heidi reconcile that with also teaching assertiveness and how we make sure girls have

become too apathetic as a teacher are boys don't the cattle don't like that is the thing that is to make them successful when the girls learned from from that drive and be an energy here again is another social concert venues to be change the whole mindset around what it means to be a girl what it means to be a woman that any citizens do and i think that really what it is when it comes down to is yes it is important to have empathy the matter why and so like as a young girl if you're taught to have empathy great keep it keep doing that and not just because that's what we're taught to do but because that is what we all need as humans and then it comes down to is really the assertiveness peace i know that as i mention that a lot and i think it's because that is what has had the biggest impact on me because it is what i

end up and using the most now in my adult life because i didn't learn it as a as a child and i'm able to see how impactful it has been on my life now growing up so i think the service cuts have empathy and being able to to stand up for yourself that and talk to somebody else and be able to communicate your needs is super important and to do so in a way that comes from and at the lighthouse because a law i have the right to say whether i was absolutely we all have the right to syria every one but what do we want to have happen do you want to really be heard by the people are speaking to it so that we have to be able to speak in a way that they can actually hear us and so that is where empathy and assertiveness really comes then if we have to if we are too aggressive and just putting our own thoughts in our own opinions

on to other people nobody wants that i don't wanna have other people just putting all of their stuff on to me and telling talking at me and telling me what's what's what what i should do or something like that i want to be spoken to in a way that is respectful and does need to an understanding my feelings and where i'm coming from so that there is a mutual understanding and so for our young girls i think i think this ordinance can come easier if we teach them at a younger age that it's like empathy at the next level really it's an idiot the next level but it's now it's also focusing on yourself so empathy is that mutual respect and a certain as is mutual respect and self respect at the same time though so your boundaries do i think is super important for young girls understand because again part of that putting other people's news for yourself is that we don't often learn how to set those boundaries and how to say no and if we say no then it's considered rude so that i think that's a lot of the work

passive aggressiveness can stem from or what what is the best advice he ever been given about how to be supportive to summon when a deer eternity of the best allies that either been given is just to listen for me it was always in my nature to remain is nominated but it's how i was taught because my mom is awful as les to to be a fixer we want to help everybody and so if someone comes in you know something i immediately going to take them out and i know a lot of people can identify with this image of like when i get in the device than time it here's howie is weekend dale and i had i just let this a situation for them when a lot of times sometimes it's and not just to listen with our putting my two cents and if they ask for it reverted i wanna share something i can ask if i can get that but just being able to hold space is such a skill by itself and just allowing someone to fill that space with whatever emotions that they're

coming to newark especially working with kids i think is so important to just being able to hold space for sometimes kids and thereby adults don't have that space to just unload a little bit and i realize it's also what i need a lot of the time two answers and sometimes for me if i need to talk to somebody i will talent this is part of how we teach communication with adults too as i can tell them i just i just eaten that right now can you just listen for a moment i don't need advice is downward for me for a little bit there's so many things and pack from mr storey the sexism she faced in the restaurant industry her father struggled to center for shias and how learning the right balance of empathy compassion and assertiveness became her life's work

the big takeaway for me is that empathy can go hand to hand of assertiveness and having more of it will go along way toward building a more diverse world go ahead try on someone else's she is even if they don't i mean who doesn't watch is i love la story of going to say well yes we can have empathy and still have a voice mistakes question is to give kids the skills and tools they need to create a more peaceful jobs this isn't just some hippie dippy dream it's essential to our survival and happiness if you'd like some tools to help you create a culture of empathy and compassion and assertive is in your corner of the world and will be sharing some articles that bison or facebook or the inflection point is it this is an inflection point and lauren shuler stories about women rights act you

know we reviewed it were there and make your contribution keeps women stories friends and sometimes you'll be rewarded with gifts like an infection played maggie hassan are contributing and politically rio dot org we're on facebook and inflection point radio you can follow me on twitter at la so i had to find out more about the guests you heard today and senate for that influx of three reviews that were inflection point is produced in partnership with kalw ninety one point seven fm in san francisco and dr oliver episodes are a couple podcasts reading public stitcher and try and give us a five star review interest you're listening to you her story at our content manager is a lara weaver at our engineer and producer is eric wayne in