Empathy – a feeling, a personality trait or a skill?

What factors influence our level of empathy?

It would seem that empathy is something that some people are simply born with, as naturally gifted with a better "feeling" in interpersonal contacts. This is partly true - certain personality types show a natural predisposition to recognizing emotions, sometimes even taking on the feelings of others and experiencing them as deeply as their own (such literal "empathy" is sometimes called emotional empathy; another type is cognitive empathy, or the ability to imagine the perspective of another person, their motivations or beliefs). There are also biological predispositions: the level of empathy that we inherit from our ancestors and with which we are born, but also, for example, temperament and the ability to feel strong emotions (both positive and negative). Another group of factors responsible for shaping our ability to empathize are psychological predispositions, or patterns that we received in childhood. Sometimes environmental predispositions are also distinguished, i.e. everything that shapes us in the later stages of life - experiences, close relationships and patterns of behaviour accepted in our environment.

How does empathy make life easier?

Empathy is the foundation of building healthy bonds and relationships. A person with a high level of empathy can understand the needs of their partner, friends, parents, children, etc. This makes it easier for them to avoid judging the other person's reactions or feelings. This creates space for honesty and conversation, which in turn increases the level of trust and closeness. In a conflict situation, if our first reaction is anger or sadness, empathy allows us to distance ourselves from our point of view, because trying to understand what motivated the other person, we begin to notice different nuances and understand that not everything is black and white. However, the benefits of empathy are not limited to relationships with loved ones. Empathetic people often also have well-developed intuition, which helps in contacts at work (or in other places where we come into contact with people with whom we do not have very close ties). Empathy helps us sense the intentions of others (which is useful, for example, in negotiations); empathetic people are less likely to pigeonhole or judge people, and are more likely to remain impartial, open, and relatively calm in conflict situations.

When is it worth developing empathy?

Although empathy is often interpreted as something unequivocally positive, it is worth remembering that by focusing too much on other people's problems, we can easily lose touch with our own needs. The key to finding the golden mean is to get to know ourselves thoroughly - if we know that our level of empathy is naturally very high, it is worth focusing on developing the ability to set boundaries and decide when we should take care of ourselves. However, if we often have difficulty understanding why people act the way they do, or if we feel uncomfortable talking about emotions - this may be a signal that it is worth putting some effort into developing empathy (and overall emotional intelligence). So if we react to the expression of emotions by loved ones with irritation, annoyance or are simply confused and do not know how to behave - we should probably explore the topic.

The benefits of developing empathy and self-awareness

And while it may seem difficult, remember that empathy can be learned at any age and is really important in building healthy, deep relationships. It helps us in life on virtually every level - in family, at work, in relationships (friendly and romantic), in dealing with everyday matters and resolving conflicts. If we still feel insecure about emotions, it's worth remembering that we are not alone in this. In our culture, we are taught, directly or indirectly, that talking about feelings and being honest is emotional exhibitionism and that "some things should be kept to yourself." And while I don't encourage you to tell someone you've just met about your childhood traumas, I do think that we can benefit greatly from reflecting on how and when we express emotions, in what terms we think about them, what it gives us to open up to another person, and to what extent we internalize the message that expressing feelings is something negative rather than positive. Reflecting on these issues and doing a bit of self-reflection (e.g., can we even accurately name our own feelings?) are good starting points on the path to developing self-awareness.

How can we learn empathy

Of course, an equally good starting point is simply understanding what empathy is. We can also analyze our childhood and consider whether our home conditions and our parents’ attitudes were conducive to the development of empathy. We can learn many skills that are useful in this process – such as concentration and mindfulness – through meditation, mindfulness and other types of work on self-awareness. The more we are “in touch” with our own feelings, the more we can name them and know what they express or reflect, the greater the chance that we will be able to relate to another person in a similar way. We should also practice the ability to listen actively, in order to give the maximum of our attention to the person we want to support. Analyzing our behavior (e.g. in a situation when the other person needed to be listened to) allows us to draw conclusions and catch mistakes. The ability to introspect is also important, i.e. noticing your own feelings without judging them, making yourself feel guilty, etc. People who can look at their own emotions without dividing them into "bad" or "good" often recognize the emotions of others more easily and, in the case of very intense feelings or conflicts, are less likely to feel overwhelmed by them. It is also worth remembering that every "negative" feeling results from some unfulfilled need. Another aspect of developing empathy is working on the ability to communicate - building trust, honesty, openness to the other person and their perspective, which may differ significantly from ours.

Developing empathy in childhood

As I mentioned, if we want to increase our level of empathy, it is worth considering what role models we received in childhood and what impact they had on our development. As children, were we rewarded for our ability to feel and received the message that expressing emotions is necessary and healthy? Or maybe on the contrary, from an early age we were taught that crying or showing sadness is a sign of weakness, and if we want to be taken seriously, we must not express any negative emotions? The early stage of life is extremely important for the development of emotional intelligence. Not every child is born with a natural ability to empathize. A situation when, for example, a child takes a toy from another child and is completely insensitive to their protests and crying is a chance to demonstrate to them how important empathy and the ability to understand the emotions of another person are. Of course, many of us grew up in homes where there was little attention paid to the ability to empathize or the development of emotional intelligence. It is true that if we want to raise an empathetic child, we should let them experience this empathy firsthand. Children who feel heard and understood will more easily develop this skill in relation to other people. However, if it is only in adulthood that we realize that we ourselves have not received a solid emotional education, it is worth investing time and effort in developing these skills. This is a path that we can start at any time.

Compassion and empathy

Although both of these similar-sounding concepts refer to how we react to the emotions and needs of other people, they are fundamentally different. When we sympathize with someone, to some extent we lean into their situation and notice their suffering, but we put our feelings at the center - for example, we feel sad about what happened to this person. When adopting a compassionate attitude, we often try to comfort them in some way, offer help and support, but there is no element of listening to what they really need at a given moment. For example, we may have good intentions in trying to "fix" their problem, but we have not checked whether this is what they really expect from us, or whether they simply need us to listen to them. By reaching out to them, we sometimes try to drown out our own conscience in this way. Compassion is sometimes accompanied by a sense of relief that we are not in such a situation ourselves. Meanwhile, empathy is the ability to "be present with a suffering person without being carried away by their suffering." This is an attempt to take their perspective, tune in to their thoughts and emotions, complete focus and attention, active listening and taking care not to judge in any way what is being communicated to us. By adopting an empathetic attitude, we shift our attention to the actual needs and feelings of the other person. Sometimes it may seem that the reactions of an empathetic person are "cooler" or less engaged than those of a compassionate person. At first glance, a compassionate person may show more care, sympathy and readiness to help; however, they are limited in their ability to understand the attitude of another person. They are probably able to imagine how they would feel in a given situation and try to help on this basis. However, they do not take into account the fact that as people we are significantly different from each other and using a copy of your own experiences is not always the best way to offer support to someone.

Empathy and setting boundaries

So far I have focused on the positive aspects of empathy, but of course it happens that someone has too much of it. Such a person easily identifies with others, sometimes even takes on someone else's feelings, forgetting about their own needs. As humans, we naturally like to feel needed, so if we have a lot of empathy and are unable to set boundaries or simply prefer to focus on someone else's problems, thus escaping from our own, we become susceptible to manipulation. Sometimes in this way we unconsciously develop a tendency towards an anxious attachment style, making our self-esteem dependent on how our partner perceives us. Of course, emotional empathy does not have to be destructive - as long as we have a reasonably good relationship with ourselves, know our needs and are able to express them, we will be able to notice when the ability to feel other people's suffering begins to have a negative impact on our lives. It is worth asking ourselves from time to time whether empathy is making our lives harder rather than easier (especially if we tend to lose ourselves in the problems of others).

Empathy, communication, honesty and vulnerability

There is an interesting relationship between empathy, communication, honesty and something that is nicely called " vulnerability " in English, but so far I haven't been able to find an equally nice Polish translation. It may even be my favorite word in English - it means a certain sensitivity, susceptibility to being hurt. In this context, being " vulnerable " means opening up to the other person, allowing them to learn about our flaws and weaknesses, showing the greatest trust we can and accepting the fact that they could easily hurt us (while trusting that they won't). I believe that combining these four aspects is the basis of a healthy, respectful relationship. At the beginning, it is worth defining these concepts - do we both agree on what empathy is? If honesty is the number one rule for us, does our partner think the same? Reciprocity is also important - if we approach this relationship as trusted partners and strive to maintain a balance - each side takes and gives more or less the same, it creates a strong foundation for further work on the relationship. As I have already mentioned, empathy is very important in communication - thanks to it we can confront problems other than our own, we understand the reactions of the other person, we listen actively and we are able to constructively support each other. If we are both at a similar level of self-awareness and equally committed, working on the relationship will bring us a lot of satisfaction.