The Art Of Understanding Emotions: Empathy

Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another person’s boots; understanding visions of his reality and attitudes without any prejudice.

Empathy not only helps others, but also ourselves.

What is empathy and why is it important?

Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s boots by  understanding their minds and feelings. Empathy does not start so much from our own perspective, but from the desire to get into another person’s thinking, beliefs, values…

Empathy starts with validation and understanding of the reality of another person’s feelings. Even though our feelings are different in a given situation, we realize the other person’s feelings are still just as valid.

To put the idea into different words, let’s look at this example; for one person, growing up without siblings can be a trivial thing, while for another one would not even be able to imagine life without siblings. In this situation, the empathetic person is able to move away  from his “scale of importance” to understand the suffering of another on their “scale of importance.”

Level of empathy

For some, empathy comes naturally, for others it may be completely impossible. However, be careful! Sometimes we confuse empathy with another concept, which is an essential part of empathy. We are talking about identifying emotions.

We refer to the recognition of emotions such as sorrow, joy, fear, and anger. Some people are able to quickly identify their mental state. For others, however, it can be so difficult that even the clearest signs of one’s own feelings do not evoke understanding.

Empathy has many positive effects. For example, it facilitates communication, comfort, and problem solving. However, empathy also has another, negative extreme. Constantly walking in another’s shoes can lead to mental detachment from ourselves. Often, such an exit comes at a hard price.

It is important to practice positioning others, but we should never abandon ourselves. The other person is always another person and it also stays that way. First we must take care of ourselves.

Examples of empathy

We may be very empathetic people, but if we never put our ability into practice, its benefits will be invisible. Let’s list a few examples:

• We know how to listen and understand another’s feelings and not hang on to our own feelings and words.
• Not only do we use words for comfort,  but we also use hugs, claps on the shoulder, kisses, and simple touches to make another feel comfort.
• We are able to help people with their problems with our humor.
• We express ourselves cautiously, while respecting the opinions of others. 
• We show no signs of boredom, irritability, or frustration when another tells us things.
• We don’t air them with a comment or joke that we know will bother another.
• We let an older person or child realize that we understand them. We show that we really listen and understand them.
• We help others solve their problems and we have the ability to reassure them.

Examples of lack of empathy

On the other hand, there are also times and situations when we do not show empathy.

• We believe our own problems are the only ones in the world.
• We do not listen to others.
• We only post negative comments.
• We are unable to provide a smile, friendly gestures or any other pleasant connection to another person.
• Every time we do something to others, we expect to get them back as well.

Practicing empathy is good because it allows us to understand others. However, we must be careful with it; we should never disconnect from ourselves.