It has been said that people who read a variety of books tend to have more empathy for others. This is likely true because you tend to take on the persona of the protagonist. If they suffer, you suffer. You feel like you can put yourself in their shoes, which is empathy. Having empathy is important because it helps people understand each other better. The result is stronger, more productive relationships. Aside from reading, here are a few ways to be more empathetic.
1. Show Don’t Tell
One way to express empathy for others is to show you care. It can feel like an empty gesture to tell someone you’re sorry for their loss or that they’re suffering in some way. This is the biggest difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy is a feeling of sorrow or pity for someone. It’s saying “Oh that stinks.” Empathy, on the other hand, is when you genuinely feel someone’s pain as if it were your own. In this case, you’re moved to show you care.
You can build your empathy by acting on the impulse to do something for someone who’s hurting. If it’s a coworker or a friend who’s lost someone, you can send sympathy gifts or a card. If you have a friend struggling financially, you can help them find a job or hook them up with resources to get through the hard times. If you’re feeling sad about national or global issues, you can find ways to volunteer. Taking action to help is a great way to build empathy.
2. Listen Actively
It can be challenging to build empathy if you don’t listen. How can you know what someone’s going through if you rarely give them time to tell you? Listening can be especially difficult for talkative extroverts. You have so much to say, and if you’re talking to an introvert, you might not even realize you’re taking up all the space. Introverts tend only to open up when they feel safe and comfortable enough to share.
If this description sounds like you, take a beat in between stories and hold space. You can ask open-ended questions, like “How do you feel about that?” To short answers, offer words of encouragement like, “Tell me more.” Then, actively listen. This includes making eye contact and responding with your facial expressions and verbal cues, like “Go on.” As you actively and openly listen, you’ll likely find yourself relating more than you did before.
3. Challenge Your Biases
One of the biggest reasons people lack empathy is personal bias. People without empathy tend to think that because something hasn’t happened to them, it can’t happen to anyone. They can’t imagine that everyone doesn’t experience the world in the same way. Then, when their biases are challenged, they often make excuses. They figure if only the suffering party had done things differently (the way they would have done them), they wouldn’t be suffering.
If this experience sounds familiar to you, you have to allow your biases to be challenged. Interestingly, you can often do this by watching movies or shows (or reading books) on subjects you normally wouldn’t. You can also work on your active listening skills when people with different experiences speak up. When you feel yourself shutting down, stop. Open up to new information even if it makes you uncomfortable. This pathway leads to empathy.
4. Pay Attention to Your Triggers
When someone is talking and you feel angry, hurt, or unsettled, your emotions are often triggered to reject the information. It’s why you tend to turn away when someone is chronically ill or when you see populations of people suffering. It can be because you feel helpless. Maybe you feel helpless, or maybe you worry that the suffering will extend to you. And you’re afraid to “catch” the suffering. So, you close yourself off to empathy and compassion.
If you’re hoping to build more empathy, it’s important to stop turning away. You have to allow yourself to feel triggered and examine those triggers. It doesn’t mean you have to save the world or take on its problems. It just means recognizing that what’s happening is heartbreaking. From there, you can investigate whether you can do anything. It might mean a sympathy basket for a chronically ill coworker. Or it might mean signing up for the Peace Corps.
5. Accept Feedback
Another way people are often triggered emotionally is when people provide feedback. The difference between a healthy response and one that lacks empathy can be a fine line. Typically, an emotionally healthy, empathetic person will view feedback as just that — information to take in and investigate. But someone easily triggered and lacking empathy will see the same information as criticism and either turn away or prepare to fight.
To build more empathy, actively listen to what you hear as criticism and decide to take it as feedback. You don’t have to like it, and the person providing it might even be wrong or present it in a harsh way. But accept the information as feedback and sit with it. Consider the source and explore your actions, feelings, and biases. Maybe, even in the harshest criticism, you can find an opportunity to grow and become more empathic.
In the end, empathy is an emotional and psychological muscle. And like all muscles, you can strengthen it by testing it, challenging it, and using it more often. You’ll likely get it wrong many times. Empathy can go too far sometimes and lead you to forget to set boundaries. Or you can fail to be empathetic enough and hurt someone’s feelings. This is normal. Be gentle with yourself as you learn, and keep trying. It’s all part of the human experience.
