|
The playwright
George Bernard Shaw disputed the golden rule of “do unto others as you
would have them do unto you” when he wrote, “Do NOT do unto others as
you would have them do unto you—they might have different tastes.”
By doing so,
he exposed a problem we commonly face when dealing with other people—we
treat them how we think they should be treated, not how they'd like to be
treated.
To do
otherwise would require understanding how they feel. And if that sometimes
seems impossible to do, that's because it is. Everyone is unique, and
everyone experiences things uniquely.
But that
shouldn't discourage us from trying. The willingness to try to learn about
someone else's experience, to step out of ourselves and try to enter
someone else's world, is the essence of empathy.
Like the other
EQ skills, empathy has nothing to do with cognitive ability. To be
empathic, all that's required is being human, knowing how to listen, and
having some imagination.
Theresa
Wiseman, a nursing scholar, associates the following qualities with
empathy:
Perspective-taking: the ability
to see things from somebody else's perspective or to recognize it as their
truth;
Suspension of judgment: being able
to listen without labeling things as good or bad; and
Acknowledgement: recognizing emotions
in other people, and then communicating that.
If you'd like
to become more empathic, here's what can help:
·
Read more good
fiction. Interpreting the thoughts and emotions of
complex literary characters isn't very different from making sense of people
in real life. That's why reading makes us more empathic.
·
Learn to
listen. Listening helps you understand what
others are going through and better equips you to offer support. When
someone shares with you, let them speak. Don't judge, don't offer advice,
and don't interrupt.
·
Don't minimize
the other person's pain. Just because
it's hard for you to understand someone else's pain doesn't give you the
right to minimize it. Author
Brené Brown says that an empathic response rarely begins with “at least.” Whenever we say “at least,” we're trying to “silver line” the
other person's painful experience.
·
Try
perspective-taking. Put yourself
in the other person's shoes. Pretend you are them for a minute. Try to
understand why they think and behave the way they do.
·
Relate. Try and remember an experience in your own life where you had
a similar feeling. Do this only to gain insight into what the person is
going through, but focus on their story, not yours.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment