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Ask HN: How to build empathy?

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Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#61

Post by fsociety »

timthorn wrote: post #37
mjwhansen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're hitting on is the difference between sympathy and empathy. Both have a role in helping people. "I'm sorry to hear that" = sympathy "It sounds like you're exhausted by that." = empathy Notice the noun in those sentences: first one is you, second one is them. What matters is what we say after those, too. There's a big difference between, "It sounds like you're exhausted that. [Solution proposal]" and "It so…

Careful though - "It sounds like you're exhausted by that" can also come off as sounding quite patronising.

Perhaps “that sounds exhausting”, so that you are communicating that you too would be exhausted by that.

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#62

Post by feydaykyn »

jugjug wrote: post #10

I use two complementing strategies: - Developing empathy towards myself first, that is, being able to observe feelings that arise within me and then being able to accept these feelings as they are. I have found this to be very relieving. A technique that helped me was meditation; training the mind like a muscle to be able to observe & recognize feelings. - Turning this outwards to others, the works of Marshall Rosenb…

Non violent communication seems so weird at first, and people think I never criticize... In the beginning. After a while, most of the people I work with openly recognize that they don't want to go back to the level of aggressiveness which is the norm in communication.

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#64

Post by stonecraftwolf »

zo7 wrote: post #32
jugjug wrote: post #10

I use two complementing strategies: - Developing empathy towards myself first, that is, being able to observe feelings that arise within me and then being able to accept these feelings as they are. I have found this to be very relieving. A technique that helped me was meditation; training the mind like a muscle to be able to observe & recognize feelings. - Turning this outwards to others, the works of Marshall Rosenb…

Adding to this, there is a specific kind of meditation you could try called metta (aka loving-kindness) where you focus on cultivating benevolence towards yourself and all things. During a session you follow a similar sequence: first focus on cultivating loving-kindness towards yourself (since this is the base from where empathy grows) then you gradually extend it to people you love out to people who you have difficu…

I would add that this can be extremely challenging (and possibly triggering) for people who had traumatic childhoods. In those cases it is best to start with loving compassion towards a beloved pet, for example — something simpler, that is not so emotionally charged.

Either way the metta instruction I’ve encountered has often failed because it failed to emphasize the sensation of emotion. It’s not lying there thinking about how much you love something. It’s thinking of the thing or person you love and trying to locate the specific sensation in your body, and then grow it.

Many people mistake ritual dissociation for meditation, which can be really really harmful.

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#65

Post by laurent92 »

mponw wrote: post #45
laurent92 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people implement NVC wrong and it becomes a codeword to divert the results of the discussion to /dev/null. “I’d like that we solve X” => “So I hear X makes you feel really bad, right?” => “Yes exactly, what can we do about it” => “Can you tell me more about X?” and so on. In fact, I have not seen people who talk about NVC and are able to listen to my request (well listen they do, but “act upon” they don’t).…

Well, thank you for you honesty and openness. (How does that sound to ears that are averse to classical NVC?) Kelly Bryson ("Don't be nice, be real") mentioned how he experienced Marshall Rosenberg being quite torn about teaching people to be overly empathic as a habit. Kelly recommends radical honesty as an antidote to that.

It’s cool, we’re online anyway. Yes, radical honesty is much easier to manage, because it doesn’t require trying to guess what the other is playing, and it doesn’t create unmerited expectations. I didn’t know Kelly Bryson, I’ll look into it.

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#66

Post by staysaasy »

Management advice that I learned the hard way –

Force yourself to talk less. If you're talking too much, just stop wherever you are or even say something like "hey actually let's hear what you have to say first."

Separate solutioning from listening + understanding. Try to listen and understand first, and then consciously separate that from any solutioning topic. It's like writing and reviewing code – you write first, then check things over, and then get a review which is done separately (and in that case, by a completely different person).

(another potential tactic – don't try to solution in friendships and relationships at all unless someone asks you to)

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#67

Post by andrei_says_ »

Use the nonviolent communication model:

- recognize that anything we do is a strategy to meet one or more universal basic human needs which we do not control (e.g. safety, to matter, contribution, respect, play, sexual expression etc.)

- recognize that how we do things depends on our experience and conditioning. Many of the strategies we have are suboptimal, or harmful, or meet some needs at the expense of others

- acknowledge that we don’t control our condition, and neither do others. Genetic makeup, rest level, conditioning, life experience, trauma, attention level, mind chatter, current thoughts, blood sugar etc. all influence our reactions and our reactions come out of all of these. Free will is a myth - we don’t control our preferences.

- feelings are useful indicators of basic needs being met or not.

- learn to look for needs and the feelings present in the people around you. Start observing them in yourself.

- learn to weave in the needs and feelings when you communicate. NVC language is clunky, the way I teach it is to weave in the essence but stay closer to less formal language.

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#68

Post by ironmagma »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #67

Use the nonviolent communication model: - recognize that anything we do is a strategy to meet one or more universal basic human needs which we do not control (e.g. safety, to matter, contribution, respect, play, sexual expression etc.) - recognize that how we do things depends on our experience and conditioning. Many of the strategies we have are suboptimal, or harmful, or meet some needs at the expense of others - a…

Not everything humans do is based on a need. We are somewhat random as well and have wants that aren’t backed by anything more than the want itself. The essentialism above reminds me of Robert California’s “all life is sex” motto.

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#69

Post by flybrand »

Go to Reddit, create an account. Join r/relationships.

Give advice to people with the goal of getting to 10,000 karma.

Then you will know what to write, which will make it easier to say the correct thing when it happens in person.

Re: Ask HN: How to build empathy?

#70

Post by lightyrs »

Cognitive behavioral therapy can help.

The intellectual pursuit of empathy often results in individuals who know what empathy should look like and are good at faking it.

Real empathy requires you to recognize and process your emotions differently. This can be learned over time but usually not by directly attacking the problem.

This is just based on my own experiences.

But I can imagine this is frustrating for you and it seems like you’re already doing the hard work of recognizing there’s an issue. Good luck to you.

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