Empathy is basic to human relationships and connections. It is found everywhere, whether in sibling relationships, parent-child relationships, among friends or in workplace relationships. A stepping stone to emotional intelligence, where you have to be able to comprehend social emotions and sensitise your actions to your social circle, empathy symbolises your strength. It is the ability to be able to step into the other’s shoes, understand their emotions, and for which it is essential that you understand your own emotions well, lest your unresolved emotions dissolve your ability to see the other’s stand clearly. Thus to start with empathy, you must understand and be aware of emotions: both yours and others.
Empathy is crucial. It defines the basic human need to be understood and to communicate. Communication is not a luxury, but a basic necessity of human life. An empathetic exchange or conversation can not only change the mood of a person but can change the meaning, direction, or even purpose of a person who is in a fix or dilemma. It is a lifesaving quality. And yes, the good news is, that like any other character strength, or human quality, empathy can be learnt and developed.
To be empathetic, you must inculcate a few basic qualities:
1. See it as-it-is:
If you are able to see the world in its real, as-it-is form without the judgement of your conditioned mind, you have it in you. Empathy means a true understanding of a scenario and a person’s emotions as he/she feels or sees it. It is understanding the emotions as they are. Thus the real acknowledgement or weighing of the situations and emotions are important, lest you may see the emotions in a warped state, in which condition, the communication would not be genuine, and also the other person would not be genuinely heard or helped.
2. Avoid being judgmental:
If the first step is attained with clarity, you must then absorb the information shared with you without judging the person with regard to right/wrong, and likes/dislikes. It is a fact that the person is feeling in a certain way, and the old the right to do so. Whether it is right/wrong or he/she did right/wrong is irrelevant. The purpose of empathy is to understand the state of emotions and the mind of the other.
3. Communicate your empathy:
Eventual and crucial to the act of empathy is to communicate to the other person that you have understood them. This means the world to them, makes them relieved, comfortable and unburdens them. Also, it gains their trust, and they confide in you, thus making the environment amicable and conducive. There is better energy, love, and a healthy, transparent space around empathetic people. So, wherever, home, or playground, or workplace, empathy is a tool of productivity and compatibility.
4. Give transparent and clear advice:
If non-judgemental, you will be able to see the exact way the other person feels or the point they are trying to make. This, in turn, lets you choose the best course of action in your dealing with that person. You know what to say, how to act, how to communicate, and with that effect- how to help someone.
So, these were some tips to develop empathy. A sidewalk to this empathy-development process could be understanding the types of empathy. So here they are:
1. Cognitive Empathy: It is basically the ability to understand the other person’s cognitive patterns, the way he might perceive the world at the mental level or the level of understanding. It is as if you take on the perspective of the other person. It is a way of initiating a whole channel of empathising with someone at deeper levels. It is through the perception that one forms a relationship with the world. Thus, cognitive empathy can be a starting point of much-needed understanding. It is of much use in workplaces to motivate people and affect their orientations.
2. Emotional Empathy: This type of empathy, as the name suggests, is the ability to understand others emotions as they are feeling them. It is a useful form of empathy in close/family relationships, or even in interpersonal aspects in professional fields like HR/ marketing. It gives insight into others’ possible emotional states in different situations. However, there can be an extreme of it. There are people who fall into the category of empaths. They are extremely sensitive and they have mirror neurons in their brain which causes them to kind of feel other people’s pain quite physically. Such emotional empathy can be overwhelming, thus needs to be carefully managed and kept within limits.
3. Compassionate Empathy: There is a midway between the mind (cognitive empathy), and the heart (emotional empathy). A balance of both the head the heart resonates with the term compassionate empathy. This is the ability to understand the emotions of the other person, however disturbing or contagious they might be to you, and using a balanced way and response to assist them or hear them out in a detached manner.
In a nutshell, the act or quality of empathy can be seen as a connecting or wiring system in the society, bringing together alienated feelings, thoughts, and visions. Empathy is not only a tool to coagulate different people and their feelings and experiences but it is the ladder that can lead to human elevation and progress, for joining and combining energies for larger and higher pursuits, for the greater and combined good.
It is an art that can be learned with the help of tips, practice, and awareness; an act of understanding and communication. It is very liberating for the one who is being empathised with and also for the one who is empathising; the one being healed and the one who is indulging in the uplifting act of healing and helping others.