#Middlebury
Insights for Constructive Living
by PAT IANNUZZI
Empathy is a feeling. It’s the ability to demonstrate recognition, awareness, and appreciation for the thoughts and emotions of others. Having the ability and willingness to understand what another person thinks and why he or she behaves the way they do can be an incredibly valuable skill for connecting with them and a powerful tool for gaining their cooperation. Additionally, empathy is often a great first step in developing a personal relationship and a major factor in generating rapport.
To empathize with others is to put yourself emotionally in their shoes. If you feel, for example, that someone is upset over something you feel is trivial, it usually isn’t a good idea to dismiss the issue as unimportant. Unless the situation is the result of a genuine misunderstanding, trying to explain to another that they are wrong in their perception will often only generate conflict and discord. If someone is hurt or offended by something you say or do, it almost never does any good to minimize their feelings. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with their perceptions, but only that we show that we understand and appreciate them.
As a state of mind, empathy involves putting yourself in the situation another is experiencing to gain an understanding of what he or she is going through, but without losing your objectivity as an observer. A friend may have had a serious financial setback and is in danger of losing everything. You may never have experienced such a setback, but you can imagine the harsh reality of losing the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to or the anxiety of not being able to pay your bills.
By acknowledging others’ plights and predicaments and relating to their feelings, we demonstrate empathy toward them, and we convey that we genuinely care about them. When people perceive that we care about them, they are much more likely to form positive and productive connections with us.
Empathy and sympathy are not the same thing although they are often used in the same context. Being sympathetic simply means sharing the feelings of another; such as when a person has lost a loved one. You feel bad because he or she feels bad. It’s often a component of empathy, but strictly speaking, empathy has to do with understanding the feelings of another without necessarily sharing them. Demonstrating empathy for someone who has lost a job can help you deal positively and productively with them because you understand how they feel, whereas being just sympathetic would only demonstrate you feel sorry or sad for them.
Furthermore, sympathy may have a consoling effect, but it really doesn’t do anything to help improve the situation another person is facing. Empathy, on the other hand, can be a forerunner to compassion, which is empathy in action. Compassion reflects a commitment to actually do something that relieves someone else’s pain and suffering. When you are being empathic, you can tell someone that you know how they feel and really mean it.
Can you think of the last time you demonstrated empathy?
Pat Iannuzzi of Symbiont Performance Group, Inc. is a performance consultant, trainer and coach focusing on selling, presentation and interpersonal skills. He lives in Litchfield and can be reached at 860-283-9963 or piannuzzi@symbiontnet.com.
