How To Feel and Respond to the Emotions of Others

Empathy is the ability to sense other people's emotions and imagine what someone else might think or feel. Empathizing with others enables you to act with compassion and find ways to reduce their distress and your own.

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Empathy isn't reserved only for the challenging moments in life; it also allows you to share in the excitement of others and experience joy together. It will enable you to create more meaningful relationships by authentically connecting with what others think and feel and for others to connect with what you're feeling.

“Constantly think of the universe as a single living being, comprised of a single substance and a single soul; and how all things issue into the single perception of this being, and how it accomplishes all things through a single impulse; and how all things work together to cause all that comes to be, and how intricate and densely woven is the fabric formed by their interweaving” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.40

Types of Empathy

The three types of empathy that psychologists have defined are Cognitive, Emotional, and Compassionate empathy.

Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize and understand someone else's mental state. It allows you to see their perspective and acknowledge their emotions. If you recognize that your friend is upset, you can predict that sharing some bad news may worsen their mental state. Cognitive empathy maintains a certain distance from others; to truly connect, you also need emotional empathy.

Emotional empathy enables you to experience the emotions others are feeling as they are feeling them. If your partner is excited about a recent accomplishment, emotional empathy allows you to mirror those emotions. This type of empathy can extend to physical sensations, such as cringing when someone accidentally whacks their finger with a hammer.

Compassionate empathy is the ability to understand and share in someone else's emotions without getting lost in them or blurring the line between you and the other person. This type of empathy uses emotional intelligence to respond effectively to a situation without becoming overwhelmed or trying to "fix" anyone.

The Importance of Empathy

Research has shown that having a solid social support network increases your happiness and sense of belonging. Because empathy leads to more meaningful relationships, it's a critical component of building a more fulfilling life. Empathy can also:

Reduce burnout because it enables us to communicate and collaborate more effectively, even, or especially, during difficult situations.

Improve decision-making by giving insight into how your decisions affect the people around you and how those decisions are perceived.

Help reduce conflict by preventing you from being overly critical and speaking from a position of understanding and compassion. When you better understand another person's perspective, it is easier to find a compromise that works for everyone involved.

Motivate social behavior by moving you to take actions that improve the lives of others. Feeling needed and having a positive impact are some of the biggest drivers toward living a meaningful life.

Lack of Empathy

Having empathy isn't binary; it's not something you either have or don't have. Some have a lot of empathy, while others have almost none, and most of us fall somewhere in between. If you generally have less empathy, you may feel indifferent to other people's pain or pleasure. For example, if a friend gets let go from their job, you may think, "well, you wouldn't have lost your job if you had worked a little harder."

Low empathy can also cause you to believe that the people around you are too sensitive. You may think that friends or coworkers are too easily offended by your jokes or have difficulty understanding how your words and actions affect the people around you. Low empathy can cause a wide variety of misunderstandings and conflicts.

If you tend to become impatient when others are in distress or are tempted to tell them to "just get over it," you may lack empathy. Another sign is never having the time or emotional capacity to listen to the perspective of others or being unable to reflect on their emotional states.

Empathetic Conversation

Empathy is a skill, and just like any other skill, it can be built with the proper intentions and practice. Increasing your empathy will improve both your personal and professional life, and it makes meeting and connecting with strangers much easier. Here are some things you can do to practice empathy:

Don't interrupt others when they're talking. We were given two ears and one mouth, so emphasize listening rather than speaking. When you cut people off, you are signaling that what they have to say is less important than what you have to say, and you may also interrupt their train of thought.

Signal the other person that you are listing. Look at the other person and maintain eye contact, smile, and keep your body in a relaxed position. These signals will let the other person know they have your attention and are invited to continue. If you appear hostile or disinterested, the speaker will feel you don't care about what they say.

Don't be judgemental. Communication happens most clearly when you keep an open mind. Don't jump to criticize or blame the speaker; make a genuine effort to understand the perspective they are speaking from. You may be surprised to learn some things you didn't expect to.

Minimize distractions. Make sure you won't be interrupted for the duration of the conversation and put away your phone; there is no quicker way to make someone feel unseen and unheard than by pulling out your phone.

Ask questions. Repeat in your own words what the speaker said to you and ask them clarifying questions when you might have misheard or misunderstood something. This allows the speaker to clarify their point and makes them feel acknowledged.

Empathetic Habits

Get curious about strangers. Those with high empathy have an unstoppable curiosity about others. They will talk to the person sitting next to them at the airport, an elderly neighbor, or someone in a check-out line, still having the natural curiosity we all had as children, but which the society we live in excels at beating out of us. They tend to think others are more interesting than they are and seek to understand their perspective rather than dispute it.

Challenge your prejudices and find common ground. We all have assumptions about others and use collective labels to place others in a box. We learned this behavior in childhood when a rapid and dynamic world forced our brains to categorize and assign labels. Highly empathetic people refuse to succumb to this natural laziness of the brain and search for what they have in common with others rather than what divides them.

Imagine stepping into other people's shoes. One of the most effective ways of getting your brain accustomed to thinking in terms of empathy is by imagining others people's points of view. The more you dislike or even despise someone, the more effective this habit is. Imagine what fears the other person may be facing and how much they are struggling - just like everyone else. Doing so will allow you to have more compassion and find common ground instead of only creating more negativity; there's already plenty of that to go around.

Why I Care About Empathy

Empathy has always been an integral part of my life, primarily because of what my mom taught me from a young age. Whenever I spoke badly about someone or failed to communicate properly, she engaged me in Socratic dialogue by asking how I would feel had the situation been reversed. I was taught from a young age that the lives, perspectives, and emotions of others are just as valid and important as mine.

A former commander in the military once said: "I have sympathy for others, but I refuse to have empathy. The former enables me to work with others, while the latter only gets me caught up in their emotions." While I agree that we have a finite amount of emotional bandwidth, I think this mentality is precisely what is wrong with the world today.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of others more frequently, we wouldn't feel the urge to perpetuate all the negativity that surrounds us as much. We would live freer and more compassionate lives. We would have more meaningful relationships and have a more positive impact on the world. Every tiny action we take ripples out much farther than we can possibly imagine. Like any other habit, our ability to empathize increases, widening our emotional bandwidth as we practice it.