Better Yourself, Have Empathy!

ince young, my sis and mom have always said I was too self centred and didn't think care enough about those around me. And so that led me to think, am i really like that? I needed to find out more, and what i could do to change myself for the better. Today my dad showed me a small column in the newspaper writing about empathy, and how to develop it. The article was done in a Q&A manner, and was rather brief to say the least. But that was sufficient to drive me and find out more, to find out what is empathy really all about, and how do i train myself to be an empathetic person.

You're probably asking yourself, what is "empathy"? Do you have it?

The best way to find out is to ask yourself if you are inner-focused or outer focused most of the time. If you are outer-focused, then you have empathy because you care about other people's experiences, feelings, needs and wants instead of yours.

- Do you give the other person in your life much thought, or do you spend most of the time thinking about yourself?

- In a conversation, what percentage of the time do you spend talking of yourself versus what is going on with the other person?

Moving on...

After doing some research i found out more than i wanted to, apparently there's this thing called EDD(empathy deficit disorder). Unlike sympathy -which reflects understanding of another person's situation, but viewed through your own lens-empathy is what you feel when you enter the internal world of another person. Without abandoning your own perspective, you experience the other's emotions, conflicts or aspirations. That kind of connection builds healthy relationships -- an essential part of mental health.

EDD develops when people focus too much on acquiring power, status and money for themselves at the expense of developing those healthy relationships. Many people nowadays have become alienated from their own hearts and equate what they have with who they are. The net result is that we don't recognize that we're all one, bound together. We only see ourselves.

Recent research shows that the capacity to feel what another person feels is hard-wired through what are called mirror neurons. Functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) showed that brain regions involving both emotions and physical sensations light up in someone who observes or becomes aware of another person's pain or distress. Similarly, research shows that altruistic behaviour lights up the pleasure enters of the brain usually associated with food or sex.

Just as you can develop EDD by too much self-absorption, you can also overcome EDD by retraining your brain to take advantage of what is known as neuroplasticity. Similar research shows that as you refocus your thoughts, feelings and behaviour in the direction you desire, the brain regions associated with them are reinforced. What's more, changing your brain activity reinforces the changes you're making in your thinking. The result is a self-reinforcing loop between your conscious attitudes, your behaviour and your brain activity.

How to develop empathy?

Part of the 'empathy process' is establishing trust and rapport. Creating trust and rapport helps us to have sensible 'adult' discussion.

Establishing trust is about listening and understanding - not necessarily agreeing (which is different) - to the other person. Listening without judging.

A useful focus to aim for when listening to another person is to try to understand how the other person feels, and to discover what they want to achieve.

Listening is by far the most important of all communications skills.

It does not come naturally to most people, so we need to work hard at it; to stop ourselves 'jumping in' and giving our opinions.

Mostly, people don't listen - they just take turns to speak - we all tend to be more interested in announcing our own views and experiences than really listening and understanding others.

This is ironinic since we all like to be listened to and understood. Covey says rightly that when we are understood we feel affirmed and validated.

He coined the expression: ‘Seek first to understand, and then to be understood’, which serves as a constant reminder for the need to listen to the other person before you can expect them to listen to you.

By focusing on developing empathy, you can deepen your understanding and acceptance of how and why people do what they do and you can build respect for others. This doesn't mean that you are whitewashing the differences you have with other people or letting them walk over you. Rather, empathy gives you a stronger, wiser base for resolving conflicts and trumps self-centered, knee-jerk reactions to surface differences.