What situations over the past week have moved you to tears or prompted you to take action? What was it about the person(s) in question that really got you? You put yourself in their shoes, related to their experience and shared their feelings. You showed
empathy
The state of my innards this past week has been a barometer for my empathy levels. As I write, there are major exams being sat by eldest Nearest-and-Dearest, plus three Godchildren. I cannot sit their exams for them. But – oh dearie me – can I ever empathise with the process and horrors of exam taking. My anxious internal rumblings and grumblings testify to my heightened awareness of all their stress, anxiety, concentration, weariness (apologies for the oversharing).
More momentarily – I’ll let you get over that image.
Last week I was musing about kindness, and how kindness doubles when you share it.
One important facet of kindness is empathy. They are not always connected: we can be kind to another without necessarily needing to tune into their situation. We see a need and can fill it.
But sometimes kindness is the practical outworking of empathy – we relate to someone’s predicament and choose to do something about it.
Either way, empathy is a wonderful trait to be modelling to those around us, especially of the next generation.
For me, what links kindness and empathy most is the third facet of empathy:
empathic concern
There are three types of empathy, as described by Daniel Goleman, author of the key text, Emotional Intelligence: cognitive, social and empathic concern.
Cognitive empathy is about seeking to understand someone else’s perspective. This is where one of my favourite quotes of all time comes in –
I studied To Kill a Mockingbird at school some 30 plus years ago, and it remains my most ever favourite book. I now re-read it every couple of years and it makes me laugh, cry, and rage as much as ever. As a lesson in how to get alongside other people, and to take action prompted by all facets of empathy, it takes a lot of beating.
[An early blog here shows my devotion to this book, and the wisdom therein.]
Social/emotional empathy is about feeling with the other person what they are feeling. This goes beyond seeing their perspective, and is as if their emotions spill out and we blot them up and absorb them. This of course can be a problem in situations where too much emotion hinders rather than helps.
You will know when you have been on the receiving end of this. When you have cried and someone has just sat and cried with you, without seeking to fix, help or express platitudes. When you have seen in them the mirror of how you are feeling, and that they are fully present to you with no agenda other than to be in there in the mud and mire with you.
This is a real gift – to give and to receive. To be present to someone to this extent, to give of your emotions, your time, your energy, your vulnerability. This is one of the foundational elements to emotional maturity, and the basis of rich relationships. Daniel Goleman talks more about this here, in relation to leadership.
Take this to another level, and you get empathic concern. That perspective of the other person’s situation, plus your shared emotional experience of that prompts you to take action.
To do something about their situation, to help them out, to be there for them in practical ways.
Going back to my innards – my stressing about these exams is not going to help the examee one jot. However, if I convert that anxiety into empathic concern, then I am in a position to help. I can’t sit the exam. But I can allow my empathy to prompt action – to help create study structures, to test on quotes needing learned, to prompt regular breaks and exercise. To ensure there is ALWAYS cake in the house.
What is going on in your life just now?
What situations are those you care about facing that are causing you grief? There may be much that you are not in a position to do to change that. But where might your empathy prompt you to take action in the form of empathic concern?
To do what you can to make their situation better or more bearable?