Empathy is the ability to empathize emotionally with others, it is the key to being able to carry on an important relationship and to live together peacefully. Some are born with a natural ability in this sense, while others have difficulty in relating to people. You can increase your sense of empathy in various ways, if you find that you are unable to put yourself in another person's shoes. This article will talk about the meaning of empathy and will provide tips for becoming more empathetic.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Digging into Your Empathy
Step 1. Get in touch with your emotions
To be able to share an emotion with someone else, you must first learn to feel it. Is your heart on? Do you find that you are happy, sad, angry or afraid? Do you express your feelings? You need to let them flow into you and allow them to be a part of your life, rather than repress them.
- It is normal to try to stave off negative thoughts. Nobody likes to sit and think about sad events, it is much more fun to be distracted with the TV or to go to the bar. The problem is that suppressing an emotion creates a sort of disconnection, a lack of familiarity with the sensation. How can you expect to be able to feel the sadness of others if you are unable to express yours?
- Set aside some time every day to allow emotions to emerge. Instead of trying to block negative feelings, deepen them. Experience fear and anger, and deal with your emotions in a healthy way: cry, write your thoughts in a journal or talk to a friend.
Step 2. Learn to listen
Listen carefully to what the other is saying to you, and note his tone of voice. Look at her carefully and try to catch all the clues that can make you understand how she is. Notice if his lip is trembling and if his eyes are shiny. It can also be less visible, maybe it looks down or seems absent. Put your questions aside and try to assimilate that person's story.
Avoid judging while listening. You may feel the need to criticize the choices made by that person, don't do it. If you find yourself getting distracted, try to get back into listening mode
Step 3. Pretend to be the other
Have you ever read an action story that is so thrilling that you forget who you are? For a few minutes you can become the protagonist, you can imagine exactly what it means to see your father for the first time in ten years, or to lose love because of someone else. When you listen to a person, if you try to understand them deeply, at some point you start to feel what they feel. You get an idea of what it means to wear his clothes.
Step 4. Don't be afraid of feeling uncomfortable
Empathy can be painful! Absorbing another's pain hurts, and it takes a lot of effort to bond on such a deep level. Probably this is the level at which empathy is declining: it is much easier to keep a light conversation, to remain self-sufficient and safe. If you want to be more empathetic you cannot escape from people's emotions, which can have a strong impact on you. You may feel different at some point, but that's only because you have deeply understood that person and set the stage for a solid relationship.
Step 5. Feel compassion
Ask questions that show your interest. Use body language that communicates a connection: look him in the eye, lean towards him, don't get upset. Nod, shake your head and smile at the most appropriate moments. The other will stop sharing their emotions with you if you seem distracted, look away or show in some way that you are not interested.
Another way is to share yourself. Show the other that you are as vulnerable as he is, a relationship of trust and mutual connection will be created between you. Let your guard down and join the conversation
Step 6. Use your empathy to help others
Being empathetic towards someone is an instructive experience, let what you have learned influence your actions in the future. The next time you see a guy who is being hounded by a bully, maybe you will help him, because in that moment you will know how he feels. It may change the way you behave when you meet a new person, or your beliefs about certain social and political issues. Let empathy influence your way of life.
Part 2 of 3: Developing Greater Empathy
Step 1. Always try to learn something new
Empathy arises from the desire to get to know people and their experiences. Try to find out everything you can about the lives of others. Set yourself the goal of getting to know the people around you every day as much as possible. Here are some tips to stimulate your curiosity:
- Travel more. When you arrive in a place you've never visited, try to spend time with the locals to get to know their way of life.
- Talk to strangers. If you are at the bus stop with someone, start a conversation instead of poking your nose into a book.
- Break your routine. You don't have to always hang out with the same people and in the same places, change the air and start meeting new people. Expand your world a little.
Step 2. Empathize with people you don't like
If you notice any deficiencies in your empathic abilities, try to change directions or at least try to intimately understand the people and groups you don't like. Ask yourself why you feel repulsed by someone. Try putting yourself in his shoes, rather than avoiding or insulting him. Find out what you can learn by empathizing with unpleasant people.
You can feel empathy for someone even if you have argued with them. Who knows, when you decide to open up, you may find reasons to change your mind
Step 3. Make a commitment to ask people how they feel
It's a simple way to generate small bursts of empathy every day. Ask others to tell you about their emotions and listen to them, rather than avoiding these kinds of conversations. It doesn't mean every discussion has to become deep, solemn, and philosophical, but asking people how they feel can help you bond with others and feel what they are feeling.
Also try to answer truthfully when someone asks you how you are. Why not say it openly if you don't feel so good? Notice what happens when you share your emotions instead of repressing them
Step 4. Read more books and watch more movies
A great way to develop your sense of empathy is to absorb a lot of stories, from novels, movies, and more. Studies show that reading fictional stories increases the ability to empathize in real life. It allows you to imagine what your life would be like as someone else. The catharsis of laughing or crying with the protagonist allows you to be more emotionally open with people.
Step 5. Practice your skills with someone you trust
Make sure that person knows you want to work on this so they'll understand if you're wrong. Ask him to tell you how he feels, and go through the steps so far to learn how to empathize. When he's done tell him how what he said makes you feel.
- Notice if the feelings matched. If that person expressed sadness and you felt the same feeling while you were talking, then you have read their emotions correctly.
- If they do not match, you need to spend a little more time trying to get in tune with your emotions and recognize them in others.
Part 3 of 3: Understanding the Power of Empathy
Step 1. See it as a sharing of emotions
Empathy is the ability to feel with someone. It forces you to dive beyond the surface and experience the same emotions that another person feels. It is easy to confuse empathy with compassion, the feeling of pity for the misfortunes of an individual. Empathy is something much deeper: you don't feel an emotion "for" someone, but "with" someone.
- Let's take an example. Your sister starts crying as soon as she tells you she broke up with her boyfriend. As you look at his tear-streaked face and hear the story he is telling you, you begin to feel a severe lump in your throat. You don't feel sorry for her, you feel sad like her. This is empathy.
- Another way of conceiving empathy is to see it as a mutual understanding, the ability to project oneself into someone else's experience.
- Being empathetic means sharing all kinds of emotions, it doesn't have to be negative. It means being connected to the emotions and feelings of the other, to get an idea of what it means to be him.
Step 2. Anyone can try it
It is not necessary to have lived in the same context to feel empathy for someone, you can also feel it for people with whom you have nothing in common. Being empathetic means experiencing the feelings of another person, even those you have never experienced before.
- A young person can feel empathy for an elderly person who is in a retirement home, even if he has never had that experience. A rich person can feel empathy for a homeless man, even if he has always had a roof over his head. You can also feel empathy for a stranger who looks across the train.
- Being empathetic does not mean imagining what a person's life could be like, but feeling firsthand what he experiences on an emotional level.
Step 3. You don't have to get along with the people you empathize with
You can also try it for someone who has completely different ideas than yours. You may not even like it, but it doesn't matter. That person is still a human being, and they have the same spectrum of emotions that you have. It is not easy to do this, but you can empathize and feel the pain and suffering of these people just as you would a loved one.
- Let's take an example. Your neighbor has a political vision diametrically opposed to yours, and he spoils you with his theories that you find totally wrong. Yet if you see that he gets hurt, run to help him.
- Perhaps it is even more important to be able to empathize with people we don't like. Empathy allows us to see ourselves as beings in search of love and consideration, regardless of everything. Create the conditions for peace.
Step 4. Forget the golden rule
George Bernard Shaw said, "Don't do to others what you would like them to do to you, they may have different tastes." The golden rule does not work with empathy, because it does not help to understand what it means to be someone else. Being empathetic means opening up to someone else's point of view, even to someone else's "taste", rather than imposing one's own ideas and experiences.
Thinking about how you'd like to be treated is a good starting point for being respectful and conscientious, but to be empathetic you need to go deeper. It is difficult to do this, but it allows you to better understand the people around you
Step 5. Try to understand why it is important to be empathetic
Empathy improves the quality of life on a personal and social level. It allows you to feel connected to other people and creates a sense of shared purpose. Man's ability to feel empathy also guarantees enormous social benefits. Helping people individually and collectively to overcome racism, homophobia, sexism, classism and other social problems is the basis of social cooperation and mutual aid. Where would we be, without empathy?
- A recent study showed that the level of empathy among college students has dropped by 40% over the past 20-30 years. This suggests that empathy is something that can be learned and forgotten.
- If you can stay in touch with your sense of empathy and make it a priority every day, you can improve your empathic skills and see the improvements it brings to your life.
Advice
- Use perceptions and emotions to make assumptions and as a guideline.
- Empathy is not a physical and limited procedure. It can be spontaneous (even unwelcome) or it can be caused by a very small piece of scenery.
- You probably won't be able to imagine the whole context, but that's not a problem.
- You need to have an active mind to be able to feel empathy. Sometimes it may not work.
- If you have trouble imagining the scene clearly, try comparing it to a similar experience you have had.
- Don't believe your point of view is the right one, everyone sees reality a little differently.
