I Dont Hate You how I chose to express empathy instead

[Applause]

so

i’ve noticed that i’ve miscommunicated

with

a lot of people in my life

and i realized that that was unfair to

them and unfair to me

hi i’m damian gold and i’ve been through

a lot of really bad friendships

and today i want to talk about

my story of communication in hopes that

i inspire

empathy or a new sense of communication

in someone else

so to set the stage for who i was

more than a year ago i was very

assertive

as a person i enforced a lot of

boundaries

that kind of kept a wall around me and

kept me closed off from the outside

world

i would go so far as to say that i was

aggressive

even i was the one who would dominate

group projects

i would shut down anybody who disagreed

with me with no hesitation

and i never left room for my ideas to

not be heard

uh i was also the one that had

expectations for people

i never said anything about them i had a

friend in

recent years who never made plans to go

out and see anybody

but i expected them to and i never said

that

out loud but i got mad when they didn’t

make plans with me

and it was frustrating because i felt

like i wasn’t being understood

and it was frustrating on their end

because i wasn’t saying anything about

it i never got to sit down

and have a conversation where we reached

an agreement or mutual understanding

about things as simple setting

plans and i would also be the person who

perceived everything

as an attack and i think that that came

from a fear

of not being an established person in my

social surroundings

i was scared that if i did something

wrong that i was a bad person

i was wrong and i would never fit in so

i would take things like criticism

as an attack on my character as

disrespect

and i would i would perceive everything

as a personal

vendetta against damian so i didn’t get

text back after a couple of days from

one of my friends and i would think that

i was being ignored

these interactions shaped how

people viewed me and i still live

through the repercussions of the the

myth of

aggressive demon gold today

people have told me that i am a control

freak i’m

aggressive and it it’s all based on

me coming off aggressively and asserting

myself so

after a lot of failed friendships i

realized that i was the common

denominator

in all of them and i should reassess how

i’m interacting with people

and over time i also had a growing need

to be

understood because i felt like since i

wasn’t communicating

properly no one understood who i was and

what i wanted

and what i was feeling and these two

reasons really motivated me to set out

to learn

about healthy friendships and

communication and empathy

so i’m late to the party so what am i

doing

now to communicate better

with the people around me i expanded my

language to include a sense of self so i

started talking about my feelings and

needs more

marshall b rosenberg a psychologist who

wrote the book

nonviolent communication a way of life

outlines

four main things that we should be

communicating with the people around us

and that is

non-judgmental observations feelings

our needs and a request that would

enrich our lives and that looks like an

i statement so

i feel blank when blank happens because

i need blank

i would like blank in the future using

this

framework really helped me to connect

with other people about what i was

feeling

and needing so for example with the

friend that i discussed previously i

could have

and said sat with them and said i feel

lonely when you don’t respond to my text

after a couple of days

because i’m really needing communication

with the people around me

and i would like us to talk more often

over the phone or via text

i also expanded

my ability to listen to other people’s

feelings and needs and that really just

looks like asking people what they’re

feeling and asking what they’re needing

so i could have said are you feeling

frustrated

when i don’t communicate properly about

my expectations because

you’re needing communication also

another thing that i did that really

improved my friendships over time was

trusting

in myself and having faith in myself

so i was really scared of being

vulnerable of being hurt

and i think that not only did i throw

preemptive strikes at people because of

that

it also made me scared of communicating

because i thought that i would be

betrayed

if i showed a sign of vulnerability or

weakness

but i i’ll never know if someone’s going

to betray me that’s an uncertainty that

i have to accept

in life i just like i’ll never know i

wake up tomorrow or i’ll never know

if i’ll never know anything in like the

next year

it’s all uncertain and not set and sewn

yet

but what i do know for certain is that

i’m trying my best today

to communicate and to show empathy

and to listen out for others and

i can trust that i’ll be okay no matter

what happens because i’m learning tools

to love myself and accept myself

and accept the world of uncertainty

around me so

where has this gotten me um

i am in a better state

mentally i would say that grounding

myself

in the present and being able to

accept what i can and cannot control

has been really beneficial

to my mental health i was able to

rekindle a lot of the friendships

in the past where i’ve hurt somebody by

not being able to communicate properly

and that makes me the happiest person in

the world right now

um and i’m also able to understand

people who aren’t my friends

it helps in situations where i have a

shared responsibility with my peers

like in group projects i’m a better

communicator

to my teachers my family

so these skills aren’t limited to

friendship

they’re pretty universal

another way that this has improved me is

i’m able to

[Music]

i’m able to connect with people who i

don’t know yet and under like

i’m able to understand

where people of different backgrounds

are coming from because

if i if i can have that empathy for

people around me and understand

how situations can cause complex

feelings and needs for other people

i can totally see how situations i’ve

never heard

of the situations i’ll never experience

can cause stress

or anxiety or frustration for people

who live across the world and it’s

helped me become

a better person at least in

understanding global conflict

in creating this ted talk speech

i realized that a lot of the team

thought i hated them and so they were

very

unsure about putting me in a speaker

position

and i realized that there are probably

more people

who were affected by my lack of good

communication and so

to those people and to the team i’m

sorry

um i’ve been working on

being a better communicator and

understanding really understanding other

people’s feelings and needs as well as

talking about my own

and making sure that the end goal of

conflict resolution for me

has been meeting both of our like

everybody’s needs

and i’m really excited to have

accomplished that

and to be able to get stand up here

today and talk about my story because i

hope that it inspires a new sense of

global awareness or awareness of other

people’s

like complex realities

and an understanding of self too and and

the trusting of self

for the first time in the longest time

i’m able to look at people like people

both figuratively and literally by

learning how to communicate better

i’m more confident in myself i can make

more eye contact with people and so i’m

literally seeing people’s faces for the

first time

and i’m also seeing people as more

complex

than i think i myopically thought they

were in the beginning

i’m seeing that they have their own life

stories and their own complex

needs and feelings and being able to

understand that

has really not like has really just

improved my

friendships and so i hope that

if anyone out there is anyone like me

and that they

were scared of communicating before i i

hope that i

inspire somebody to step out of that

cycle

and start talking about

your feelings and needs and listen for

others because

i can honestly say that i’m so much

happier in

my interactions with people now i’ve

started doing that

thank you that’s all i have