Am I feeling what you're feeling?

September 18, 2013 8:14 AM

How can I learn to be a bit more empathetic?

Hi mefites, I try to be empathetic but sometimes I end up mis-reading people/getting it wrong.. Also, empathy doesn't really come naturally to me. I do it very deliberately and even then with limited success. Naturally empathetic people of mefi, do you have any habits and tips for empathizing with others? And doing it automatically? Life would just be more colourful I think if I could see it through many different lenses.

Thank you! :)

posted by dinosaurprincess to Human Relations (17 answers total)

previously

Buddhist meditation of "equalizing and exchanging self with other" is simple and profound.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:22 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think you can do it by asking really open ended questions rather than assuming. So, "tell me more about that?" or "how did that make you feel?". I think it's something that comes easier with practice. So you're on the right track!
posted by dawkins_7 at 8:27 AM on September 18, 2013

Practice imagining what others are feeling by reading good fiction.
posted by mareli at 8:32 AM on September 18, 2013 [5 favorites]

Best answer: I used to joke that I had pathologically low levels of empathy. And now people actually say things like "wow, I had never thought of that, you're kind of bizarrely empathetic."

What happened is that I was unemployed for a while and got very, very poor. I was never, ever anti-poor people or haughty or anything like that, it was just merely the experience of man, life is hard sometimes that kind of re-set my sensors and made me more aware of other people. (Also perhaps that I had day after day to fill with cheap activities, like thinking.)

So what I would suggest is that for every situation you encounter, try to envision all sides of it. Think, "well, if I were this person, how would I react? What if I didn't have X? If it weren't for my experience with Y and knowledge in Z, what might I be feeling right now?" and so on. Basically, create for yourself a list of the assumptions that YOU have when going through life, and systematically try to envision what your world would be like without your personal filter.
posted by phunniemee at 8:37 AM on September 18, 2013 [11 favorites]

You might be interested to know there are interesting distinctions among different types of empathy.
posted by 3FLryan at 8:45 AM on September 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

Deliberate and acute observation of other people and personal reflection (clothes, posture, gesture, body language) is often surprisingly effective in building up a surprisingly accurate portrait of people in any situation.
posted by Middlemarch at 8:56 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: A few things:

Assume everyone is acting rationally. Whenever you're perplexed or annoyed by someone and you begin to criticize them, stop, step back, and begin again with the idea that, if only you could see things from their point of view, you'd probably understand they're not weird, unintelligent, thoughtless, etc.--that there's a good explanation for everything they're doing and you just need to seek an alternative explanation. In addition to giving you a better grip on reality and making people like you, it saves you an awful lot of time to not have to listen to their rebuttal of your criticism.

Ask open-ended questions that lead to people showing you the world from their point of view. If you want to know how other people think, talk to them, but try not to introduce assumptions that might be alien to what they have in mind.

That Buddhism trick of seeing yourself as another or another as yourself is a blast. I sat on a sort of plaza just the other day, idly people-watching but also trying to imagine their simple experiences of trivial things--walking, getting out their keys, opening doors, etc.--from their exact point of view. It's not a difficult act of imagination.

Reading fiction is great for this too, though you may want to seek out novels that are really about the interior lives of others, not so much action or plot. Things like The Man Without Qualities or By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept leap to mind for me personally, but I suspect what works for you in this domain is something you have to discover for yourself. You might also look at the many AskMe threads on well-written autobiographies that go in-depth into another person's point of view.

Finally, in the absence of empathy, kindness will do. Be generous and compromising. Some people will remain opaque to you, and as long as they're not taking advantage of you in some obvious way, that's fine. Let them be something you can't understand and just be kind to them.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:06 AM on September 18, 2013 [14 favorites]

Some people have already noted some of these things, but let me say I'd suggest you do all of the following three things until it is second nature for you:

1. Observe carefully and thoroughly.

2. Ask questions and listen hard to the answers. Follow up where people drop crumbs for you -- e.g. when they say almost everything is fine, that's a big clue to ask what isn't fine.

3. Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you are experiencing exactly what they are experiencing.

Empathy is sure to follow. Lack of empathy, in my experience, is either pathological (in which case I can't imagine the person with the problem putting up this post) or simple lack of understanding of where other people are coming from.
posted by bearwife at 9:08 AM on September 18, 2013

Best answer: I have the complete opposite problem from you. I recently had a test done of my strengths as a worker bee (it was a work thing..), and I scored overwhelmingly as an empathic person. So much so that it's On. All. The. Time. I can not not empathize with people. (Trust me when I say that this has downsides)

The thing that I'm doing automatically.. is putting myself in their shoes. How would I feel if I were them? I'm listening to their conversations that don't include me, listening to the tones and inflections of emotion in their voices. I'm looking at body language. Are they meeting my eyes, are they engaged in what I'm saying? If I smile, do they smile? How bright do they sound when I say hello to them? How far, loud, or high do they pitch their voices? How quickly are they talking?

I can tell you now, 90% of what get is from nonverbal communication. Not what they're saying, but how they're saying it and what their body is telling me. Are they behaving different from how they normally do?

Sincerely, the toughest part of this, is the individualness of each person. The more you know the people around you, the better you can gauge their moods. I bet you're more empathic with your mom or significant other then your coworker.

I have a couple of coworkers who, despite suspensions that I'm half betazoid, I cannot get a gauge on during most of our interactions. One is completely stonefaced and an incredibly guarded person. The other doesn't conform to any remotely understandable social norms. I have a great deal of frustration when talking with these people.

Watch a bunch of movies with the sound off. Try to understand what the actors are expressing without being able to hear it.
posted by royalsong at 9:18 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Read a lot of good novels. It's a way of getting into other people's heads. Character-driven films can also be good.

Practice active listening (pdf):

Respond to Feelings. In some instances, the content is far less important than the feeling which underlies it. To catch the full flavor or meaning of the message, one must respond particularly to the feeling component.... Each time, the listener must try to remain sensitive to the total meaning the message has to the speaker. What is he trying to tell me? What does this mean to him? How does he see this situation?

Note All Cues. Not all communication is verbal. The speaker’s words alone don’t tell us everything he is communicating. And hence, truly sensitive listening requires that we become aware of several kinds of communication besides verbal. The way in which a speaker hesitates in his speech can tell us much about his feelings. So, too, can the inflection of his voice. He may stress certain points loudly and clearly and may mumble others. We should also note such things as the person’s facial expressions, body posture, hand movements, eye movements, and breathing. All of these help to convey his total message.

Connect with your own emotions. It's hard to identify what someone else is feeling if you're never aware of what you yourself are feeling. Ask yourself "What am I feeling right now? Where do I feel it? Is it big or small? Heavy or light? How would I describe it?" Stay away from asking why you're feeling something -- that's moving out of the emotional realm and into the intellectual. Just get comfortable feeling things.
posted by jaguar at 10:00 AM on September 18, 2013

Best answer: I think how you act is more important that how you feel. Even if you don't understand why someone is feeling the way they say they do or why that emotion is making them behave in a certain way, if you can act in a respectful, thoughtful, realistic fashion, you'll go a long way in dealing with others. You don't have to share their emotion or their reaction to a situation. Also, your own emotions don't actually have to control your behaviours.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:06 AM on September 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Assume everyone is acting rationally. Whenever you're perplexed or annoyed by someone and you begin to criticize them, stop, step back, and begin again with the idea that, if only you could see things from their point of view, you'd probably understand they're not weird, unintelligent, thoughtless, etc.--that there's a good explanation for everything they're doing and you just need to seek an alternative explanation.

This is good. I would also expand it to include that (because people must be acting in an understandable way) if someone's behavior is puzzling you, that suggests you're missing a piece (or pieces) of the jigsaw puzzle of their situation or motivations. Since you know the outcome but not all the causes, you can often get a good feel for what the shape of the missing piece(s) might be. That can give you a direction to start in if you're seeking to understand more about what is going on.
posted by anonymisc at 10:36 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There are two things to remember: First off, is that we tend to judge our own actions by intention, not result, but judge others by result and not intention. Take a moment to be mindful of what the other person's intentions are. Second, something that's helped me stop being such an inconsiderate jerk is thinking things like, "If I drop my trash here, who's going to have to pick it up? Am I making that person's day worse for no reason?"

The other thing that helps is really listening to people's complaints. For example, I'm a dude, and I'm never going to get a real first-hand experience of the type of sexism that women experience all the time. So, I ask questions and generally recognize the limits of my experience, so I take the feelings that women describe as legitimate. I think that's a lot of what empathy is — recognizing that other people's feelings are legitimate.

(Also, and this may be controversial, take acid or MDMA. Both are known for diminishing the ego and encouraging empathy; in fact, MDMA was widely used as a therapeutic drug prior to being made illegal. Tripping has helped me develop more empathy too.)
posted by klangklangston at 10:38 AM on September 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: When possible, make sincere eye contact. Recognizing someone's humanness is hard to avoid when you're looking them in the eye.

Also try to remember that everyone loves someone and everyone has been hurt by someone. That goes a long way for me.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 10:50 AM on September 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

This may be kind of a backward way of going about it, but I've noticed a lot of people who are not empathetic are very poor listeners. They're looking over your shoulder for someone more important, or waiting for you to stop talking so you can become their audience. So taking care to really listen to others, and take in what they say, digest it thoroughly, might help a lot to enhance your empathy capacity.
And yes, good fiction.
posted by fivesavagepalms at 2:06 PM on September 18, 2013

Like 3FLryan said, being broke will do a lot to make you empathize with poor folks. Work as a restaurant busboy for a while, and busboys will never be invisible to you again. You'll know to say thank you when they bring you a glass of water, because you'll know what it's like to do their job and be absolutely invisible to the people you're serving. Getting really sick does wonders, too. Spend a few months struggling to do everyday tasks, and you may see disabled people and old people differently.

Of course, this is only true if you have the capacity to be empathetic. There are people who suffer terribly in life, and just become callous, awful people from it. I'd say the fact that you want to be more empathetic is a good sign.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:22 PM on September 18, 2013

Don't feel bad about lacking in empathy per se. Overly empathetic people sometimes can be very rejecting to others if they are picking up on a lot of less positive emotions, and it can result in their acting in very hurtful ways if a friend is going through a rough time, or even hearing about difficult things from years ago that are all in the past for their friend.

Trying to just be aware of what other people are experiencing is all you really need to do if you want to show kindness to others. You don't have to actually experience their emotions to react in a caring way.

Or maybe that's not why you want to have empathy?

Life would just be more colourful I think if I could see it through many different lenses.

Not recommending this, but if you want to really feel like you are experiencing what others are feeling, psychedelics will do that.
posted by yohko at 6:34 PM on September 18, 2013