Empathy

Empathy? What it "feels" to be?

It's because nowadays it feels like people forgot how it is like to put themselves in someone else's shoes. I consider myself being a very empathic person and I like to put heart and soul in what I do, but lately I observed that people just preffer not to get involved emotionally that much, even if we're speaking about a task at work or a fight in a friendship. The truth is that if you get involved too much, you get hurt.

For me it's simple, we're humans, we're supposed to get to feel things deeply, and that happens only if you let yourself do that.

In my opinion, empathy is something you are born with. You cannot force yourself into feeling something, therefore you cannot deliberately make yourself empathize with somebody if you are not really feeling that. Empathy makes you kinder, sometimes it makes you realize how hard life is for some of us, and how the subtitle says it puts yourself in someone else's shoes, regardless of the situation we're speaking about.

What empathy really is...

Let's get to the formal part which says:
Empathy is the capacity to understand and feel another person’s experience, and to let that understanding guide how we respond.

• Cognitive empathy: Imagining another person’s perspective.
• Emotional empathy: Feeling echoes of another persons’s emotions.
• Compassionate empathy: Understanding paired with helpful action.

How could you practice it?

Empathy grows through small, intentional actions.

• Listen without planning: Give someone one minute of uninterrupted attention.
• Perspective shift: Write one sentence from another person’s viewpoint.
• Notice emotion: Pause and name what someone else may be feeling.