The meaning of empathy and how to learn to put yourself in another’s place

Have you caught so much from someone else’s laughter that you couldn’t stop laughing? Have you cried seeing another cry? Have you ever been so overwhelmed by someone’s emotions that you felt attached to them?

A person tells her story full of pain and at the moment those who listen to her cry with her and feel invited to also show their wound. They can even heal it by sharing it with that person. Brené Brown, a researcher at the University of Houston, assures in her Ted Talk that vulnerability is what generates the most empathy. But, what is empathy? Is it possible to develop it? In what way?

what is empathy

Empathizing is expressing our understanding of what the other feels and at the same time that two human beings feel recognized as such. Thanks to empathy we receive support and we can give it.

Empathy allows us to belong. The ability to empathize makes us similar to each other and makes us feel like we belong. “Empathy it’s a mechanism specific so that when we see pain in another person, we also feel pain. We not only understand each other’s pain cognitively, we also feel it. Is extremely important because it indicates that people are very similar. This was expressed by the Italian neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti, who discovered mirror neurons in the 1990s.Empathy helps us socialize. These neurons explain that our brain, eminently social, Be able to perceive the same thing that another person experiences. So much so that when we see someone receiving a massage in an area of ​​the body, we can feel almost the same. In fact, empathy was one of the foundations of psychotherapy before we knew where it came from scientifically.Empathy is essential to build values. Cultivating empathy means paying attention to you, discovering the other’s world, making the other person feel seen. It also means having the ability to feel and recognize what the other is experiencing and putting yourself in her place to better understand it. It is like dancing together, tuning in with the other, which helps us build the most precious values ​​that human beings have: family, friendship and love.

Why some people have more empathy

The ability to empathize can be diminished by the traumas experienced throughout our life. These traumas are important when it comes to relating to others and being able (or not) to empathize.

If we have unresolved traumas, it will be difficult for us to reestablish the link with the environment and with others in an empathic way.

That is to say, our capacity for empathy will be distorted by memories that will continually interrupt our relationships in the present to undermine our trust in others. Our nervous system will be on alert and we will become survivors. It will be very difficult for us to establish healthy and supportive ties.

Traumas explain why it is sometimes so difficult to develop empathy and why, depending on what situation, we fail to connect with those around us. They also allow us to understand why the difficulties we have in this pandemic in getting in touch with others are affecting us so much, and that is that our emotional self-regulation occurs above all through physical –and empathetic– contact with other people.

Childhood traumas from the primary bond with the mother are the ones that most determine the capacity for empathy. Our affective internal structure is generated through this primary link. The look of our mother or main caregiver is vital to shape the way we perceive the world.

How to develop empathy

Although the ability to empathize may be impaired by unresolved childhood traumas, we can do a lot to develop it.

The quality of our relationships depends on our ability to develop a healthy empathy that perceives others without losing sight of ourselves. the possibility of creating a more reliable and supportive world.

Here are some tips to develop this capacity and thus be able to connect better with the people around us.

Adopt a favorable attitude

There is a part of empathy that occurs spontaneously as mammals that we are, but our attitude can also promote or paralyze it.
Contagious laughter is a form of spontaneous empathy and at the same time constitutes one of the best resources to connect with others.

Seeking eye contact also favors her and it is necessary to better bond with others, something that confident and extroverted people do and not so much the shy and insecure.

These gestures and attitudes help to truly connect with the other and develop healthy empathy.

be present. To be open to contact with others, you need to cultivate pure presence and at the same time be willing to be influenced by the other person. It is about accepting what is being lived next to the other, without resisting it or wanting to change it.Empty yourself from internal dialogue. Empathy requires self-awareness and being able to realize if we are getting carried away by our thoughts and emotions. You have to empty yourself of judgments to be able to honestly feel what the other is feeling.Balance between you and me. Healthy empathy distinguishes between “I” and “you” in a way that differentiates one’s own feelings from those of others. Although we understand what the other is feeling and we can feel it, we do not lose sight of ourselves.Repeat what the other says. Active listening is essential to be able to understand the other person and cultivate empathy. When we repeat what the other person says, the connection is facilitated because then the person feels heard and recognized.Confirm what you understand. One way to repeat what the other says is by reformulating it with questions. This helps him to go deeper into what he feels and what is happening to him. At the same time, it allows us to check if we are fully understanding what he is expressing.Look into the eyes and touch the other. Looking into the other person’s eyes and lightly touching their hand or shoulder will improve the rapport between the two of you. The soft touch and the look help to disconnect our alarms and the nervous systems to calm down, because they feel safe.Emptying one to make room for the other

It is also necessary self-awareness of one’s emotions and enjoy sufficient mental health to be able to empty ourselves and our thoughts and judgments.

Precisely when we are traumatized this emptying becomes more difficult. And it is that empathizing means letting a part of our brain be like a white canvas in which the other can have a space to draw their emotions when we come into contact with it.

This contact may be impossible, even if it is in front of us and open, if we are too busy with our things or locked in our prison of anxious, sad or egocentric thoughts, as a defense against traumatic injuries.

For empathy to occur, it is convenient to lower the volume of our “I” to give space to the “noise” of the other. We have to “tune” our brain to the frequency of the other’s brain to dance in coordination. That is also why empathy is one of the bases of altruism and compassion.

Put yourself in the other’s place

This does not imply that our “I” ceases to exist. Empathy informs us above all that “I could be you”, which is not the same as “I am exactly like you”.

It is the ability to connect with the other and not lose ourselves in it, believing that there are no differences between us. Because there is an empathy that invades us so much that it can prevent us from acting and it blocks us by not being able to differentiate ourselves from the other and maintain our identity. However, there is a healthy, compassionate empathy that, by differentiating ourselves from the other, makes it easier for us to help them and to be able to cooperate.

See the other without stopping to see yourself

We could distinguish other nuances to make it easier for empathy to be cooperative and help others, to develop healthy empathy. The communication consultant and author of The island of the 5 lighthouses (Ed. RBA) Ferrán-Ramón Cortés warns us of the dangers of projected empathy.

How many times do we take for granted that the other perceives the world in exactly the same way as we do and we do not distinguish that there are other ways of feeling it? How many times do we believe that others must feel the same as us in a certain situation?

Here, more than empathizing, what we do is project our emotions onto the other and with it we are also ceasing to really see it.