Empathy is known as the ability that human beings have to put ourselves in another person’s shoes and understand the emotions and feelings that our interlocutor may experience, even if we do not agree with their opinions or beliefs.
The essential key is that it is an ability to understand what the other person is feeling, and more specifically to understand why they are feeling that way in a given moment. Therefore, it is one of the key psychological elements to be able to create strong social bonds and fluid relationships with others.
Luckily, empathy is a skill that is learned naturally through the psychosocial development of boys and girls from childhood, which is reinforced during adolescence and is put into practice throughout the child’s life. person; However, this can also be enhanced in adulthood, as long as several measures are put into practice. strategies to develop empathy Let’s look at some of the most useful and effective ones.
Strategies to develop empathy in your relationships with others
The most empathetic people will have greater facilities to relate correctly with others. On the contrary, people with few empathy skills will have greater difficulty communicating with their environment and establishing more intense and deeper relationships. Therefore, it is important to adopt habits that allow us to experience empathy with all its nuances.
In this sense, here you will find the main strategies to make you empathize more and better with others in all contexts of life, not only with the people closest to you.
1. Think about other people’s priorities
Not everyone governs their life according to our values and our medium and long-term objectives, and ignoring this can make relationships less fluid.
Thinking about what others want and expect from their projects We will realize that we are not alone in the world and that other people also have their own dreams, hopes, needs and ideas that must be listened to.
Only the fact of focusing our attention on people other than ourselves will make us be empathetic and put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, and will keep us away from egocentrism. This way we can begin to progressively incorporate thinking about other people in our environment into our daily lives.
2. Avoid prejudices
We often tend to create our own idea about other people and conceive them as we have imagined them to be from the beginning This technique based on prejudice is highly unrecommended, since in addition to being unempathetic and unfair in many cases, it prevents us from truly getting to know other people who cross our path.
Instead of making value judgments beforehand or letting ourselves be carried away by prejudices, it is important to know that person first and value them solely based on reality.
3. Consider possible contextual causes of bad behavior
Many behavior patterns considered “bad” or inappropriate have among their main triggers situations that are not under the control of the person behaving badly For example, an addiction or a traumatic childhood due to family problems. Taking into account these aspects that go beyond one’s own individuality is another way to develop empathy.
Gratitude is another sign of empathy that we should not overlook, since it means that we value the efforts of those who help us or do us any favors.
The most empathetic people always value the work of others, whether they are in a cafeteria, a restaurant or a university classroom. Thanking others whenever we have the opportunity is one of the first steps to being empathetic.
5. Practice an assertive communication style
Assertiveness consists of clearly expressing what we feel or think about anything or anyone, always respecting the opinions of others. In addition to that, it is also based on always listening to the other person, not judging them, establishing personal limits and being emotionally responsible.
If we manage to bring together all these skills and practices and communication styles, we will be assertive; This way of relating to others also predisposes other people to be closer to us and to make their concerns, concerns, etc. known. After all, To develop assertiveness we should not focus only on ourselves, we can also achieve it by facilitating changes in others
6. Value the suffering of others
Some people tend to minimize or relativize the suffering of others or those situations in which someone may be having a bad time. This habit is very unempathetic, since, again, it means that we believe we are the center of the universe or that we are superior to others.
What may seem like unimportant nonsense to us, for others can mean living hell We have a clear example in those who suffer from post-traumatic stress and experience situations that activate their trauma.
Sometimes we must learn to read between the lines in gestures or non-verbal messages that our interlocutor may emit. Both in non-verbal communication and in the intonation with which things are said, we can identify how the other person is feeling beyond their literal message.
Empathic people catch on the fly all these messages that other less observant people may overlook or ignore.
8. Respect the rhythm of others
This means that if someone needs more time to express themselves or is slower, we must adapt to their pace and communication dynamics.
Only in this way will we be able to know that person in depth and achieve a true, deep and genuine connection.
Therapy Can Help Develop Empathy
Psychological intervention is another of the most important and effective resources to become more empathetic people. If you are looking for professional help for this, contact me.
Am Thomas Saint Cecilia psychologist specializing in Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology, and I serve in person and online.
