Empathy certainly seems to be one of those things some people just have heaps more of than others. The good news though, is we can all learn to be more empathetic – although I did encounter someone once who said, ‘why would I want more empathy?’ to which I would reply (now):
- You develop deeper, closer, more authentic connections with others with enhanced feelings of trust.
- It helps you communicate more effectively as you have increased awareness of others’ various perspectives.
- It increases personal development as you expand your understanding of others.
- Connection through empathy helps you feel a sense of belonging and reduces isolation.
- It means you can manage conflicts more successfully because of your greater understand and insight of others.
- It helps you be less self-absorbed, which has also been shown to improve mental health.
- It helps others feel really seen and heard by you (which can, in turn, can increase the chances of you feeling really seen and heard)
- It’s a kindness you can gift to others – and giving kindness always feels good.
The wish to develop greater empathy does start with the premise that you want better connections with others and to navigate people situations more effectively. It also insinuates you’d be happy to prioritise someone other than yourself at times.
The distressed person
Imagine someone came to you distressed about a personal situation. How empathetic you would be doesn’t just depend on how empathetic you’re capable of being. It might also depend upon your relationships with that person, the time you have to give, how previous interactions with that person have gone, how much ‘resource’ you feel you have to give, or even just how tired/hungry/distracted you are. However, even when we ourselves are ready to help someone in distress, there are responses we can commonly engage in that are unhelpful and they include the following.
- Any kind of negative judgement or blame
It’s a rare situation where this is the response to someone’s distress but it can happen – particularly within very familiar relationships. Rather than being motivated to console the distress, the upset person is blamed or judged harshly for their own part in creating the situation that caused them distress. When I have witnessed this it’s usually because the non-distressed person is irritated or unable to manage the impact of another person’s distress. For example: a parent snapping at their child for dropping their ice-cream.
- Dismissing their upset
This can come from a place of misguided love, but in our attempt to ‘smooth-over’ the distress, we try to dismiss it with ‘it’s no big deal’ or ‘you’ll be OK’. This can leave the distressed person feeling unheard and possibly as if their judgement was wrong for becoming upset in the first place (which can lead to complications via suppression of emotions and/or mistrust of their own emotions – especially if they are a child).
- Out-bidding them
I am sure we’ve all heard a person hijack someone’s distress with their own ‘far worse’ experience as if it’s almost a competition. We could understandably and easily convince ourselves that it would be soothing for the distressed person to hear how much worse someone else’s story was. However, this just shifts the focus away from the person who is distressed and immediately makes it about the person with the ‘bigger story’. The person’s distress has in effect been ignored.
- Bombardment of solutions to try
This seems so helpful and many of us do it. However, unless we are in immediate danger, the distress is really what needs addressing first and foremost. This is not successfully done by listing possible solutions to your perception of what the problem is. Soothing distress is the first thing to do and this is best done by listening and focusing on being as empathetic as possible. Our (often unconscious) discomfort with other’s distress can sometimes make us frantic in hunting for solutions. Solutions seem positive, safe and more concrete than the unsettling nature of another’s distress so there’s no surprise we often lunge for them.
- Delivering sympathy
Sympathy sounds like a good thing and it’s not completely terrible! But sympathy is done ‘to’ or ‘at’ someone and can feel a bit dismissive and/or patronising. With sympathy, you’re looking at someone’s distress from a position of some detachment and feeling some pity towards them. You’re probably saying ‘there there’ without attempting to engage with what’s really going on for them.
So what is empathy?
One of the most common ways I see someone misguidedly believe they are being ’empathetic’ is to imagine they are in a distressed person’s situation (or metaphorical ‘shoes’) and consider how that situation would make them feel. Again – this isn’t terrible, and many times, there will be overlap between what the distressed person is feeling and what anyone else would be feeling in the same situation. However, it ignores the fact that two people can see and experience the same situation in quite different ways.
A situation that triggers one person to be distressed, another person might judge as an over-reaction, might conclude they’d react differently or possibly be confused about what exactly caused the distress. These judgements are blocks to helping the upset person feel listened to and understood – which is generally what we mostly need in order to feel better.
True empathy takes more work than ‘putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes’. It tries to understand what the person’s distress is like for them, with their values, attitudes and unique perceptions – with their visor and way of experiencing the world.
You put your assessment of how you’d be in their situation aside, you listen to understand (not to answer, find solutions or apply your perceptions) and to accept that the emotions they are feeling are totally valid for them. To do this you can’t be distracted, dismissive, focus on solutions or upstage them. You have to be present, focussed and make ‘it’ all about them. It’s why it’s a beautiful gift.
P.S. I could never claim to have been a great listener – certainly not historically – as I when I am over-excited (which might actually be often), I tend to become extremely expressive! However, I have got much better by learning to really notice and tune in when when someone has a real need to talk. When a person clearly has this need, now I will switch my metaphorical listening button to ‘on’ and do my best to listen attentively and with presence. This puts me deliberately into a different mode. It actually feels great to be able to do this and it clearly helps more than continuing to talk.