There has once again been a lot of talk around empathy in my circles.
I’m beginning to love this subject, there are so many layers, angles and levels to it.
I have always found it quite easy to pick up another persons feelings when I walk in the room.
As an extra sensitive individual, it was something I started doing quite young so I could gauge every situation.
But to see myself in another persons shoes, especially someone who is angry or irrational, or someone who has a completely different worldview from mine is a lot trickier.
I came across this in my reading recently…
“The key reason for every argument: You can see how you feel but don’t see how you act. You can see how the other person acts but don’t see how they feel.” – Kyle Cease
It’s profound.
When we get upset, how we act is typically not in accordance to how we really feel.
It’s much easier to be angry than it is to be honest about what scares you.
It takes guts to be vulnerable.
It takes guts to say, “when I saw you talking to her it made me feel inferior”, or “I’m scared that I’m not good enough to pull this project together”.
It’s easy to see the way someone else is acting, especially when they are yelling and irrational, but that kind of behaviour makes it hard to see how they really feel.
Angry people are the most fearful.
When someone is ranting and raving like a lunatic it’s really hard to see their fear… and they certainly aren’t going to admit it.
Being able to put yourself in their shoes takes away the resistance.
It helps you to validate them so they don’t have to keep trying to prove their point to you and it helps diffuse the situation.
The next time things start heating up, try to imagine what the other person is feeling instead of focusing on how they are acting, and see how things change.
It’s not easy to set your ego aside, but it will probably be worth it.