How to use EMPATHY in 2020
This year has been a tough one across the board, affecting everyone on a global scale. As humans, it is our nature to share our stories of survival, of triumph, of loss, of suffering with others to help us feel supported and whole again. It is our shared connections that unite us and we need them now more deeply than ever. As we take this time to reflect with those that we love, we will be collectively swapping our experiences of all the curve balls 2020 served us and we want to be able to support each other as best we can.
But how do we react when receiving heart-aching stories about other’s hardships? We want to be helpful and supportive, we want to extend warmth and understanding — but how?
As the old saying goes, “treat others as you would want to be treated”. In this, there is an often over-looked misconception, however, that we ought to give others the help and attention that we ourselves would want in a similar situation. The more valuable alternative, of course, is to learn what other people actually want and provide that. Assuming that people want what we want is the kind of dismissive attitude, however well-intentioned, that can lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. Extending the hand of aid to another looks different for different people but with the following clarifications, good intentions can be perceived and received as the goodwill they are truly trying to offer.
Sympathy is often used as a synonym for empathy, but there are some crucial differences in how using each makes others feel. Thanks to the booming grief industry, sympathy has become the sort of care and concern best reserved for people to whom we are not particularly close. It is a righteous step above pity, which is a kind of detached discomfort we feel at the distress of others, such as strangers on the street. Pity often feels slightly condescending, empty, and met with the sensation of unfortunate oblivion familiar to those in our out-groups. Where this overlaps with sympathy is when we lack the sensitivity and sincerity to fully acknowledge another’s pain. Brushing people off, assuming exaggerations, or labeling people as dramatic are all ways in which we set barriers from really connecting with those who need us. Offering sympathy is an expression of shallow sorrow without the effort to dig deeper into providing space, time, or resources to help. This is appropriate as small tokens of consideration but it is often perceived as indifferent to close friends or family.
A layer deeper is empathy, which provides a sense of shared understanding of the experience. When receiving empathy it should feel very authentic and genuine versus self-serving or automatic. The word empathy translates from the term “feeling into” and is often best described as being able to put yourself in another’s shoes. There are two ways in which people can express empathy; active empathy and cognitive empathy.
Active empathy is the ability to feel what others feel; for example, if someone around you is very excited, you pick up on that energy and it makes you feel a sense of excitement also. Cognitive empathy is the ability to change one’s perspective to see the world through another person’s lens or walk in their shoes. For example, if your friend is going through a break-up and you recall the painful experiences of love lost from your previous experience, you can imagine how your friend might be suffering.
While empathy is one of the highest virtues, understanding how to use it in each scenario can be difficult. When trying to help someone through a tough time, it’s very common to want to sprinkle in examples of our own experiences, often with the good intentions of letting others know that they are not alone. This can easily backfire, however, because people will feel interrupted, unheard, or that their pain and personal suffering is invalid. The problem-solver in all of us leaps at the opportunity to provide solutions as this makes us feel useful but it’s most important to remember that this is not about us. As much as we should try to put ourselves in another’s shoes, the truth is that we simply cannot. Even if we have had the exact same experience at the exact same time under the exact same conditions, our individual perceptions are different. This is why trying to see the world through their lens instead of always providing our own is paramount to convey true empathy.
Thanks to the dominance of technology and smartphones, our communities are becoming less and less empathetic as we dive into disconnect and get very little experience with face-to-face communication. Fortunately, empathy is a skill that we can rebuild with a little intentional practice. Here are a few methods.
Active listening: this is the practice of listening with full attention and focus. It is listening without judgment, without waiting for our turn to talk, and at a master level, without filtering it through our own lens of what this means for us. Active listening is listening to truly hear someone, as so much is communicated in the tone of voice, tempo, pitch, choice of words, as well as what is left unsaid.
Celebrating in other’s joy: when others win, let’s learn to rejoice in that! We might not be able to really feel another person’s pain, especially if we have trouble relating to specific situations, but we can all practice celebrating joy. Not only will we feel better ourselves but also we will deepen our relationships by establishing that we are reliable and consistent supports in good times as well as bad.
Look for commonalities: it’s too easy to see how we are different from others. We often feel the need to separate ourselves from others as back in the caveman days, it was important to know our rank within the tribe but in modern times, division gets us nowhere. Trying to see how we are more alike than different will provide a sense of connection despite wildly different circumstances, which offers more peace, cooperation, and understanding.
Watch faces: we’ve all heard that the majority of communication is non-verbal. Get back in touch with body language cues, particularly facial expressions, which communicate profoundly. Thanks to mirror neurons in our brains, when we see a facial expression, we mimic and reflect this in our minds, which can permit us quicker access to understanding what and how others are feeling.
Read more: books often provide in-depth character development that can literally bring us inside the brains of other people, at least temporarily. Imagining the world through the eyes and experiences of other people through the pages of a great book can open your mind and heart to deeper levels of compassion, patience, and empathy.
A final word on empathy is that as magical and transformative as this skill is for supporting your loved ones and those that you care about, don’t forget to extend some empathy toward yourself as well. There is such thing as compassion fatigue, often seen in caregivers who over-extend their empathy by taking action everywhere they see the need. As incredibly altruistic as this may be, it often leaves people drained and emotionally blunted, as they are unable to show up for themselves. The holidays are certainly a time for extending as much genuine hospitality and care as we can, but without filling our own compassion cups, we might unintentionally rub others with pity instead of the patient empathy we aspire to give. With a little practice, we all have the capacity to turn our good intentions into empathetic action; warming hearts one by one, beginning with our own.
