PIllow Method

As a child I never could empathize with anyone. I could argue, understand, heartily debate a discussion from both sides but show no real love or loyalties to either side. Maybe I'm missing the exact definition of empathy; I don’t know. Looking back, I feel like I was living an extremely unusual childhood where learning how to take either side was a matter of self preservation. It wasn’t until I began taking college courses that I learned how to share the feelings of others and actually find a belief of my own to hold on to. I also discovered that as a young girl I was using the technique called the "pillow method" without realizing that was what I had been doing. Apparently this method was developed by a group of Japanese schoolchildren, and gets its names from the fact that a problem has four sides and a middle, just like a pillow.
An example of when I used the pillow method was when a friend and I were discussing the laws regarding marriage as a legal right via a popular social networking site. I found faults with his opinion that marriage was a "personal choice between two consenting partners as opposed to a government controlled issue". The First Step of the pillow method is taking the "I'm Right, You're Wrong" stance, which is the first point I usually begin an argument. (regardless of the situation). As we continued talking, I tried to transition into a better, genteel way of getting my viewpoint across. Thereby, causing the conversation to progress to Step two, which is "You're Right, I'm Wrong".
I thought about everything my friend was saying and why he might think that marriage should not be a legally binding contract. I began to see that he had more valid points to his argument than simply parroting a political party's platform. After that. it was natural enough to carry the conversation to Step Three.
In my opinion, Step three is easier to discuss than Step two. Step three is seeing that we're "Both Right, Both Wrong". At this point