Have you ever heard the word “empathy” and you wonder what it is? Maybe you have heard scientists, doctors or even businesspeople use this term. Some people want to know how and if they can expand their empathic potential and learn to be better people. Empathy is not just how moral you are, but it is something that you can do so that you can make your own life better.
You might wonder what empathy really is. Empathy is when you are able to connect with another person and you are able to feel their feelings and their emotions, and you are able to be compassionate and caring. This is not the same as having pity and is not part of the Golden Rule, but it is more about understanding people around you.
People are interested in their own wellbeing and we often forget that we are supposed to be there for other people, to help them and to push them along. Some have found that our brain will be able to develop the way that it sees other peoples feelings and emotions and since we are social people, we have or will learn to care for one another.
Some psychologists believe that we are meant to have empathy and that it is why we attach to people so closely when we are toddlers.
Even though a lot of things stop developing once someone is out of childhood, empathy does not. We can learn to be more empathic as we live our life and as we learn to understand personalities and other people.
Having more empathy is something that we can make a part of our lives, each and every day. Here are some habits that Empathic people often have:
Curiosity
People that are highly empathic are very interested and curious about other people around them, even strangers. They talk to people that they have never met, at the supermarket or on the bus, and they are very questionable. They want to know things about others and sometimes it seems like they are interrogating them when they really just are curious.
Curiosity gets bigger when we talk to people that we don’t know and when we go past our own social circle and out into the world. This helps us to know more about other people and to see the differences that we share.
This is a strong characteristic for people and if you have this, chances are that you will have a more satisfied life and will not be lonely as other people are.
You can become more curious by talking about things such as the weather or non-important things. This can help you to understand others more and to get inside the heads of those that you don’t know.
Prejudices
Everyone assumes things about other people and they often label them such as “welfare parent,” or “Christian.” When a highly empathic person looks at someone else, they often do not have prejudices against people, but they wonder what divides them.
Some people have been very swayed by prejudices to the point where they join hate groups or find people to hang out with that allow their prejudices to control them. When they later look back on their life, they realize their mistakes and some of them come back to help save that group that they once tormented and hated.
Another Person’s Life
Do you want to do something extreme like go sky diving or rock climbing? Do you feel that you need to challenge yourself to do something interesting and exciting? If you said yes, try being an empath. Being an empath means that you are able to get into the lives of other people and you are able to know what their life is about before you ever think of putting them down or criticizing them.
Even George Orwell would go out and talk about people and write about people that were dressed differently than he was because he thought that he was better than they were. As he created friendships with people that were poor, different, and other relationships, he realized that inequality is unfair and that he made new friends that he could love.
Everyone has their own experiences and experiments at how they look at things and how they share their feelings and their thoughts. When you want to know more about someone, you need to try to spend a second or a week in their shoes. Go and volunteer somewhere in a poor country or be around people that are different than you.
Open Up
A person that wants to be an empath needs to be a radical listener. They need to be able to figure out what is going on and what the person they are talking to has experienced in their life. A person that is an empathic person will often be able to understand what someone is going through and what their emotional needs are.
Listening is not enough, and you have to get down to the level of someone else. You have to be vulnerable, and you have to let your own thoughts, feelings and emotions come out. In order to create an empathic bond with someone, you have to exchange ideas, beliefs and values and learn to embrace the differences that you have.
Some churches will come together and pray with each other and bring people in that have conflict and they will share stories that the whole group can learn to understand, even though they have different beliefs. This helps to bring peace and to build friendship with people different than us.
Social Change
We often think that being an empath just happens because of the individual but being empathic can help to bring about social change.
Think of the different movement such as slavery. When the abolitionists came, they had empathy for those that were suffering, and they made changes. They realized that these people should be treated equally, and they made a collective agreement on that.
Empath people will help to plant seeds to their children, and they will give their children the root of empathy which will help to benefit people around them. They will be kind and compassionate and they will do things to bring about necessary change. They will help to get rid of bullying and hate.
Learning how to change social situations takes an empathic person to do that. They have to suffer, and they have to work to get to know people that are different than them. They have to make connections.
Imagination
The last trait of an empath is that they will do more than be compassionate with someone, but they will find people that some call the enemy, and they will befriend them. They will do what they can to understand the other person and to change their thinking in order to bring peace and love to others.
They will do what they can to be tolerant of other people and they will try to get rid of conflicts. They will think differently, and they will be able to change things. Empaths will be great at teamwork and being leaders because they will influence others to do better.
When we look at our own lives, we have to learn to understand how we are living and look deep inside of ourselves to discover what we believe in. Look at your life and see if you need to create a new world around you full of love, compassion, and empathy. Get rid of old thinking and old laws and find ways to change policies and to make life about human relationships and kindness.