I lost my first fiancée in a car crash.
It doesn‘t take much imagination to realise how that event had a devastating effect on my life.
It was a few years later that I started dating again. One of the first people I met, was a girl close to my age, called Rachel.
We met, I took her for a meal and a drink before taking her back to my place. Back at my place, I was hoping for… well; you know what I was hoping for. She, though, wanted to talk.
She wanted to talk about her last boyfriend
It turned out that her last boyfriend had proposed to her, and she had said ‘yes’. They were both happy and excited as they climbed onto his motorbike and started their journey home.
They were so excited that they hardly gave attention to the road. The consequence was that he lost control of the bike, crashed and died. Rachel sustained an injured leg but survived.
She told me all this, and I sat there listening to her. Do you know what though?
When she had finished, I had no idea what to say.
I felt a failure as a human being
Even though I had been through something similar, I still didn’t know what to do or how to respond. I was ashamed of myself. I felt like a failure; a failure as a human being.
It will not surprise you that my relationship with Rachel went no further and lasted no longer. It was a disaster; a total disaster apart from one thing, one good thing which arose out of this experience.
I made a promise to myself. I promised myself that I would find out and learn how to respond in such situations, so that, not only could I avoid such an embarrassing experience in the future but that I might be a positive benefit to the other person.
It was two years later when I could satisfy this promise. As a teacher, I was invited to extend my skills by taking part in a course to develop counselling skills. My tutor was a relationship counsellor and her course was to become a ‘light-bulb’ moment in my life. It was she who gave me my first insight into counselling and empathy.
So energised and excited was I by her introductory course I signed up to study for further qualifications in counselling. A major part of these courses was the study, practice and skills development of empathy.
Empathy is the most misused word in the English language
Let me say I believe ‘empathy’ is the most misused and misunderstood word in the English language, currently.
‘Empathy’ is not ‘understanding’, not ‘compassion’ and not ‘sympathy’, yet it is often used as a word when one of these three would be more correct. I feel this is because ‘empathy’ sounds a more powerful and positive term. Moreover, ‘empathy’ is not merely about emotions, as it involves much more.
What my training taught me is that empathy is not about putting yourself into someone else’s shoes. It is not about imagining how you would feel if you were experiencing the same situation as someone else.
Empathy is about seeing and experiencing the world through the eyes and senses of another person. More than that, empathy is interpreting those experiences through the point of view of the other person.
For empathy to exist, there needs to be communication between yourself and the other person. That communication needs to be in a ‘language’(1) you both understand.
You cannot be empathic with an animal
Consequently, you cannot be empathic with an animal, you cannot be empathic with a baby. That does not mean you shouldn’t be compassionate or understanding or even, if appropriate, sympathetic but please don’t claim you are being empathic.
The biggest barrier to empathy, apart from a lack of communication, occurs when you have been through a similar or the same experience as the other person. I’ll let you read that sentence again.
It is often assumed that if you have been through a similar experience; it makes it easier to be empathic, but the opposite is the case.
If you have been through the same or a similar experience to the other person, you are likely to believe they will have had the same emotions or the same responses as you did. By believing this, you are projecting your emotions and responses onto the other person. To be truly empathic, you need to put aside your own experiences and your emotions and take on those of the other person.
One other aspect of empathy which I have learned is that nobody is born or is innately empathic. I keep an open mind on this but to date, I have maintained that belief that nobody is naturally empathic. Empathy has to be learned and has to be practised.
So let me conclude
So let me conclude by saying that empathy is a powerful tool which has positive benefits for all of us. If you ever have an opportunity to learn or to improve your empathy skills; I would urge you to take that opportunity. In the meantime, please stop saying ‘empathy’ when you mean ‘understanding’, ‘compassion’, or ‘sympathy’.
(1) I have put ‘language’ in quotation marks as I believe it does not have to be spoken language but could be written, sketched or even a symbolised form of communication.
Throughout this article, I have used the adjective ‘empathic’ as I feel this is the preferred adjective rather than ‘empathetic’.
This post first appeared on Medium at here
