6 ways to teach yourself empathy

6 ways to teach yourself empathy

When was the last time you took a walk in someone else's shoes?

All of a sudden, the word “empathy” is on the lips of scientists and business leaders, education experts and political activists. Empathy is not just a way to extend the boundaries of your moral universe. According to new research, it’s a habit we can cultivate to improve the quality of our own lives.

But what is empathy? It’s the ability to step into the shoes of another, aiming to understand their feelings and perspectives, and to use that understanding to guide our own actions. That makes it different from kindness or pity. And don’t confuse it with the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As George Bernard Shaw pointed out, “Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” Empathy is about discovering those tastes.

The good news is that empathy can be learned. In my new book, Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution (Random House), I’ve honed six key habits that highly empathic people (HEPs) bring into their daily lives. So what does it take to teach yourself empathy?

Habit 1: Switch on your empathic brain

The recent big buzz about empathy stems from a revolutionary shift in how scientists understand human nature. The old view that we are essentially self-interested creatures is being nudged firmly to one side by evidence that we are also Homo empathicus, wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid.

Over the last decade, neuroscientists have discovered that 98% of us have the ability to empathise. They have also identified a ten-section “empathy circuit” in our brains which, if damaged, can curtail our ability to understand what other people are feeling. Evolutionary biologists like Frans de Waal have shown that we are social animals who have naturally evolved to care for each other, just like our primate cousins. And psychologists have revealed that we are primed for empathy by strong attachment relationships in the first two years of life.

A good way to start switching on your empathic brain is simply to make a mental note every time you notice an instance of empathic thinking or action in yourself or others. Maybe you will spot your boss managing to see someone else’s point of view, or observe empathic cooperation between your children. Think of it as becoming an “empathy detective”.

Habit 2: Make the imaginative leap

Highly empathic people make a concerted effort to imagine themselves in other people’s situations, like an actor who occupies the personality of their stage character. Making this imaginative leap can be boosted by “empathic listening”. “What is essential,” says Marshall Rosenberg, psychologist and founder of Non-Violent Communication (NVC), “is our ability to be present to what’s really going on within – to the unique feelings and needs a person is experiencing in that very moment.” HEPs listen hard to others and do all they can to grasp their emotional state and needs, whether it is a friend who has just been diagnosed with cancer or a spouse who is upset at them for working late yet again.

We all know, instinctively, that empathy is a great tool for maintaining healthy relationships. Just think of all those times you’ve been arguing with your partner and thought, Why can’t she understand what I’m feeling? What are you asking for? Empathy of course. You want them to step into your shoes, if only for a moment.

That’s why it’s worth practising empathic listening in your relationships. Next time things are getting tense with your partner, focus intently on listening to their feelings and needs – without interrupting (and this might just induce them to return the favour). You might even ask them to tell you about their feelings and needs. It’s amazing how doing this can prevent a niggling annoyance from turning into resentment or a full-scale argument.

Ultimately, most of us just want to be listened to and understood.

Habit 3: Seek experiential adventures

So you think ice climbing and hang-gliding are extreme sports? Then you need to try experiential empathy, the most challenging – and potentially rewarding – of them all. HEPs expand their empathy by gaining direct experience of other people’s lives, putting into practice the Native American proverb, “Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticise him.”

The writer George Orwell is an inspiring model. After several years as a colonial police officer in British Burma in the 1920s, Orwell returned to Britain determined to discover what life was like for those living on the social margins. So he dressed up as a tramp with shabby shoes and coat, and lived on the streets of East London with beggars and vagabonds. The result, recorded in his book Down and Out in Paris and London, was a radical change in his beliefs, priorities, and relationships. He not only realised that homeless people are not “drunken scoundrels” – Orwell developed new friendships, shifted his views on inequality, and gathered some superb literary material. It was the greatest travel experience of his life. He realised that empathy doesn’t just make you good – it’s good for you, too.

We can each conduct our own experiments. If you are religiously observant, try a “God Swap”, attending the services of faiths different from your own, including a meeting of Humanists. Or if you’re an atheist, try attending different churches! Spend your next holiday volunteering in a village in a developing country.

Next time you are planning a trip, don’t ask yourself, “Where can I go next?” but instead “Whose shoes can I stand in next?”

Habit 4: Practise the craft of conversation

Highly empathic people have an insatiable curiosity about strangers. They will talk to the person sitting next to them on the bus, having retained that natural inquisitiveness we all had as children, but which society is so good at beating out of us. They find other people more interesting than themselves but are not out to interrogate them, respecting the advice of the oral historian Studs Terkel: “Don’t be the examiner, be the interested enquirer.”

Curiosity expands our empathy when we talk to people outside our usual social circle, encountering lives and world views very different from our own. Conversations with strangers can really help challenge our assumptions about people, so we get beyond our snap judgments about them based on their appearance or accent. It’s also a great cure for the chronic loneliness that affects one in four Westerners. No wonder happiness guru Martin Seligman identifies it as a key character strength that can enhance life satisfaction.

Cultivating curiosity requires more than having a brief chat about the weather. It involves talking about the stuff that really matters in life, like love, death or politics. Set yourself the challenge of having a conversation with one stranger every week. All it requires is courage.

Habit 5: Travel in your armchair

If all of this is sounding a bit strenuous, you can always throw a little “armchair empathy” into the mix. This is about reading books and watching films that catapult our imaginations into other people’s lives that are vastly different from our own. Think of a movie like City of God, which reveals the violent world of two boys growing up in the shantytowns of Rio. Or the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, with its classic line, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” In fact, there has been an avalanche of recent neuroscience and psychology research showing that entering other people’s lives through books and films is one of the best ways of learning to empathise.

It isn’t always easy to find the most inspiring and powerful empathy books and films, which is why – alongside my new book – I’ve just founded the world’s first online Empathy Library at www.empathylibrary.com. You’ll find the very best novels, non-fiction, kids’ books, feature films and video shorts all about empathy.

Habit 6: Inspire a revolution

Empathy isn’t just something that happens between individuals. It can also flower on a mass scale and start shifting the contours of society itself. Many of those who took part in the Occupy Movement and Arab Spring were motivated by empathy – empathy for those whose lives had been ravaged by the financial crisis, or who had suffered police brutality. An important way to boost your empathy levels is to join with others to take action on empathy-related issues that matter to you – whether it’s child poverty or the fate of future generations whose lives will be affected by our addiction to high-carbon lifestyles. Even taking part in your local choir or playing five-a-side football are ways to engage in communal activities that break down the barriers between people and promote a more empathic world.

Empathy will most likely flower on a collective scale if its seeds are planted in our children. That’s why HEPs support efforts such as Canada’s pioneering Roots of Empathy, which has benefited over half a million school kids. Its unique curriculum centres on an infant, whose development children observe over time in order to learn emotional intelligence – and its results include significant declines in playground bullying and higher levels of academic achievement.

So now you’ve got some ideas for growing your empathy, let me leave you with a question. Who in your life do you need to develop more empathy with – and how might you go about doing it?