In daily life, communication plays a crucial role in ensuring smooth work, enhancing emotional connections between partners, and promoting happy interactions among friends.
Empathy can play a very important role in communication, and people with empathy are more likely to establish stable interpersonal relationships.
What is empathy ability? How can people with weak empathy develop this ability?
01
Why does he always make me 'light up'
I once encountered a woman named Li who came to consult in clinical practice. She complained, "I was already in a bad mood because of my parents' trivial matters, but my husband was persuading me on the side, which made me even angrier. His original intention was to persuade me not to be angry, but in the end, he would blame me entirely for the mistake, causing my already terrible emotions to burst out in an instant and pour all his anger onto my husband
Ms. Li believes that her husband's language expression ability is not a problem, but what he says always sounds uncomfortable. What is the reason for this?
This is actually a manifestation of a lack of empathy.
In daily life, this situation is not uncommon: the intention was to comfort others, but it resulted in unhappiness for both parties. An excellent 'empathizer' will do this when comforting others: when someone comes to complain, he will be a serious listener, understand what the other person is expressing, understand why the other person is feeling upset, without interrupting or preaching, and give some comfort to the other person at the appropriate time, so that the confidant fully trusts him and feels his sincerity, and is willing to accept his advice.
Therefore, empathy is not just an attitude, but also a skill and ability. In other words, if Ms. Li's husband could understand her emotions from her perspective instead of going around in circles, I believe Ms. Li would not be "indifferent".
02
Is lack of empathy a disease?
Many people who have had similar experiences with Ms. Li's husband have expressed that sometimes they want to explain something and will not give up until they explain it clearly, which often makes the other party even angrier; I thought I could care more about the other person, but when I actually met, I didn't know how to speak up; I wanted to make more friends, but when the other person really showed their kindness, I ignored them and even pushed them out of the door.
Empathy, as an ability, manifests at varying levels in different individuals, and its level is also influenced by factors such as one's upbringing, personality, and society, resulting in different outcomes. Children who have been beaten and abused since childhood are prone to lack empathy, and those who are introverted and do not like to communicate with others may have weaker empathy compared to those who are extroverted and love to communicate with others.
03
How to improve one's empathy ability?
People who lack empathy do not need to feel self blame for their lack of ability. This ability can actually be improved through some methods of self training.
The first step in empathy is to understand the emotional state and needs of others, and the best way to achieve this is to listen and observe. By actively listening to what others say when interacting with them, while observing their facial expressions and body language, practice the ability to perceive others' emotions, and truly understand their inner feelings from their perspective.
The second step is to practice self reflection. The so-called self reflection does not really require you to punish yourself for the mistakes of others, but encourages you to learn more about your true thoughts and realize how these thoughts affect your behavior. Only by truly understanding oneself can one empathize with others, understand others, and ultimately empathize with them.
The third step is to change cognitive biases. Prejudice is an objective and unreasonable understanding of things, and subjective thoughts and inappropriate cognition can easily form prejudice. Sometimes these biases can inadvertently appear in the mind and easily be imposed on others. Once there is cognitive bias, even if some expressions may be well intentioned, they can make the other person feel uncomfortable and lead to the result of "getting angry". For this common situation, only by being aware of the existence of bias and promptly preventing its interference can we better enter the other person's heart.
The final step is to take goodness as the root and maintain the original intention. Emotional assistance to anyone must start with kindness. Compassion and helping others are important steps in building interpersonal relationships and enhancing empathy. Through these behaviors, not only can we establish better emotional connections with others, but we can also help resolve their emotional conflicts and improve our own emotional regulation abilities.
Improving empathy skills requires starting from the most basic aspects, starting from the people around us and testing the skills of family and friends. Of course, in the early stages of practice, there may be some "tuition fees" involved, as the process could potentially "ignite" the other person at any time. However, the ability to empathize will gradually improve with continuous practice.