How To Be More Empathetic

Fun fact about me: most of the time I feel like I don’t know what to say when someone is going through a hard time. I try to identify with them, I try to comfort them, I tell them how sorry I am, I make some more noises that may be loosely interpreted as either sympathetic or empathetic, not sure which. Then I kind of try to fade into the background because I don’t want to bother them. When this has happened to me in the past, many times I just kind of gradually lost contact with them. I ended up feeling guilty because I wasn’t as good a friend or support system as I should have been. If this sounds like you at all, you may benefit from what I’ve learned about empathy and how to be more empathetic!

When someone is going through something, whether it’s big or small, tragedy or not, treating people with empathy will help them. It will help them, and it will deepen your connection with them. I did a lot of research for this whole empathy thing, and it turns out – shocker – that there’s no instruction book or manual to follow to magically become more empathetic. Like any other skill, it takes practice. Being aware of others’ emotions, taking the time out to deal with your own emotions, and developing your active listening skills will help you as you work to become more empathetic.

Don’t Be The Non-Question-Asking Friend

To start with, I reread some parts of Option B, by Sheryl Sandberg, which I reviewed as part of our resilience theme. Chapter 2, Kicking The Elephant Out of the Room, deals with empathy. In it, Sheryl shares her experience with friends who didn’t ask questions or check in on how she was feeling after she lost her husband. She notes, “I felt invisible, as if I were standing in front of them, but they couldn’t see me.”

She says this in reference to her “non-question-asking-friends”, and references blogger Tim Urban, who describes them as follows:

You’ll quit your job. You’ll fall in love. You’ll catch your new love cheating on you and murder them both in an act of incredible passion. And it doesn’t matter, because none of it will be discussed with The Non-Question-Asking-Friend, who never, ever, ever, asks you anything about your life.”

– Tim Urban, Wait But Why

To someone going through a trauma, the non-question-asking-friend may think they are giving that person the respect of privacy in their grief. Or they might be thinking that they don’t want to bring up sad feelings. Or maybe they don’t know what to say. Regardless of the reason, not asking questions of someone that is going through something, trauma or not, can be interpreted as you just don’t care enough to ask. The person you are avoiding often feels isolated, even though they many times want to talk about it.

This right here is my worst failing (well, that I know of) when it comes to demonstrating empathy towards someone else. I am worried that I won’t know what to say, or that I’ll say something stupid, or I’ll dredge up bad memories.

As Ms. Sandberg says, you can’t remind them of their loss, or what they are going through. They are already aware of it. Painfully so.

Respond With Compassion

Next I turned to Heartmanity, from which I got several of the concepts I applied to the first post in this theme. So much of what I found in the various empathy articles written by Jennifer A. Williams in that blog align with what I think about when I think about empathy. If you have time, I definitely recommend checking out her work.

As it relates to this article, one of the things she talks about is to respond with compassion to someone that needs a listening ear. Compassion is not pity, or even necessarily sympathy. It is treating them with kindness. Genuine resonance with their feelings and accurately mirroring back what they are feeling as a result of what they are going through.

Don’t Make Light of Their Feelings

Ms. Williams notes that you should avoid minimizing the person’s feelings, as in “It’s not as bad as you think”, or fixing, as in “here’s what you should do” or “here’s what I would do”. She calls these things “feeling stoppers” because they minimize and diminish what the person is going through. Other feeling stoppers include pitying someone, as in “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

Instead of fixing, minimizing, or pitying, you can respond compassionately by being supportive and encouraging without fixing. You can respond to the feelings underneath whatever is happening. You can be sorry for a loss, or an event, without pitying the person themselves.

Some examples Ms. Williams gives are:

• Saying “I’m deeply sorry for your loss” instead of “You poor thing! I’m so sorry for you!”
• Saying “I know how important that was to you. What is most upsetting?” instead of “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. Here’s what you should do.”

Clean Up Your Own Emotions

When we’re wrapped up in our own stuff, it’s really hard to be present to someone else’s. If we’re unaware of our own feelings, it can be easy to misinterpret or put our own feelings onto someone else. We might assume how someone is feeling, because that’s how we are feeling, or mistakenly think that sharing how upsetting something is for us will help the other person. For that reason, it’s important to know what’s going on in our own minds and hearts, and to ask meaningful questions that help us understand more about the person we’re talking to. Taking the time to understand their feelings.

Ms. Williams puts it well when she says, “our own emotions create static, which prevents us from being present.”

Just…Listen

Think about times when you were going through something hard. Did you want someone to come in and fix it? Or did you just want someone to talk to? Someone to hear you? The theme I saw repeated over and over again, is that people going through something just want to be heard. They want to know that they are not alone. Sometimes, that’s all you need to do. You don’t need to fix it, you don’t need to solve the world’s problems or tell them how their stuff is affecting you. They probably don’t need you to pretend it’s not happening. You just need to listen.

In a sneak peek to Wednesday’s podcast, active listening is a key component to empathy. Listening to someone without interruption, without distraction, without the “static of your own emotions” is many times the best way to respond compassionately to someone and help them feel heard.

Remember that in active listening, you are listening with your whole body, and not for your own turn to talk. You are making the conversation about the speaker, not about yourself. Respond to the emotions under what’s being said, and pay attention to both the spoken and unspoken messages.

Over To You

Empathy doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Lots of people think they’re good at empathy when they might not be. As with anything, it takes practice.