Empathy is the ability to understand somebody else’s feelings and experiences. While sympathy means being able to sympathize with another person because you’ve gone through very similar, if not the same, experiences, empathy means understanding another person’s feelings, despite not having gone through the same experience(s). Empathy is an important skill and can be practiced. Practicing it can strengthen your relationships, and help to form new ones.

There are many ways to practice empathy. We can practice each of them at different times. Personally, I find the following four themes around empathy especially helpful. I try to do these things with varying degrees of success and consistency. My hope is that if I practice these things individually, I can cover a canvas, even if my efforts are only made up of individual strokes.

Practice Curiosity

By practicing curiosity about those around us, we learn about their lives. The more that we learn about others, the more we start to understand their circumstances. As we understand their circumstances, we begin to understand why they may say or do the things that they do. This is an important aspect to empathy.

We can practice curiosity by asking questions. We may ask those questions to people directly, or we may ask ourselves questions, and then listen for answers. We can practice curiosity by actively seeking out perspectives different from our own in an honest effort to understand somebody else’s perspective.

Listen

When we seek to listen before we speak, we gain an opportunity to better understand the people around us. When we first seek to listen, we take a posture of empathy. We’re not in a hurry to say our peace. Rather, we’re asking questions, and we’re actively listening.

We can practice actively listening by not being judgmental. We’re present in the conversation, and allowing periods of silence. Oftentimes, we’re in a hurry to fill silence with our words. When we do this, we command the conversation. When we allow for silence in our conversations, we let the other person think, and we get time to think. When we don’t understand something, we can ask clarifying questions, rather than making assumptions based on what we think we know. We can also make eye contact with the person that we’re listening to. Making eye contact is a great way to pick up on non-verbal cues and to stay engaged in a conversation.

Staying Connected

During this time of social distancing and isolation, it’s more important than ever to stay connected in some form. This goes both ways. We may turn inward on ourselves and further isolate ourselves. We may also turn away from those that need connection, forcing them into further social isolation that they don’t want to experience.

We can practice staying connected by reaching out to people when they come to mind. If you often find that somebody is coming to mind, maybe it’s a cue that you should reach out to them. Even if we can’t spend time around each other as much as we’d like, we can still reach out via chat, video chat, phone, email, text, and social media.

Another aspect to staying connected is to stay connected to the needs of people around you. Maybe not even just individuals, but groups. Are there ways that you can stay connected to groups that need assistance? Remaining physically distant doesn’t have to mean having to be emotionally distant.

Be Aware

We are each experiencing the pandemic in different ways. We may have young children at home and may be dealing with that stress. We may have to learn to work from home. We may have lost jobs. We may actually be ill with COVID-19. We may have loved ones who are suffering from COVID-19. Our loved ones may be one of the more than 100,000 people who have died from this disease. There are any number of contexts that we may be experiencing this from, and that others around us may be experiencing this all from. Awareness is being cognitively and emotionally aware of this, even if there’s nothing you can necessarily do or say about it.

A common way to practice awareness is to meditate. By meditating, we become present and aware. Meditation as a practice enables us to recognize those thoughts and go through those actions in our everyday lives, without having to go through the formal act of a meditation session. Meditation sessions help us to become more present in our day to day actions.

There are many guided meditation apps available. Personally, I use Headspace guided meditations (no official affiliation, I just prefer them.) There are many other meditation practices available as well. Meditation is a great place to start in order to practice being more aware.

Journaling

For myself, I’ve found that I can always process my thoughts better by journaling. When I journal, I can capture everything I’m feeling in the moment by writing it down. If I’m working on being more aware and present, I can capture my thoughts and feelings right away. Whether I’m struggling or feeling inspired, I can capture those feelings.

As I write, I process what I’m experiencing. When I can effectively process what I’m experiencing, I can find ways around or through them. I find journaling a significant tool in my personal growth. It highlights my struggles and my successes.

As a practice, I will give myself a journaling prompt of “empathy” or some related topic. It will cause me to think about things in different ways. I try to write 3 pages every day, so it can provide an opportunity for me to practice one of the themes that are listed above.

I’ve been told that one of my strengths is that I’m empathetic. I designed the MAKE ROOM Journal and Planner to be exactly what I needed, and part of what I needed was to find ways to explore and enhance my empathy. Personally, I’ve found it a great tool for doing just that.