Ask HN: How to build empathy?

Just ask.

"I'm here for you and I want to help; do you want listening, or fixing right now?"

The above is not meant as a script, but the idea you need to get across. If you're not feeling you can delicately explain such things, always start with your own desire to be clear, and usually you will have leeway with someone after you show that you want to help, you maybe just aren't sure how to best do it.

Empathy is a trained skill and also a factor of familiarity, and until you know a person or really learn to understand the context of different cues someone provides, you're at a loss. No one is a mind reader, and even the best therapists/counselors ask very direct questions.

For listening, as much of a tautology as this may seem, you have to actually want to listen to get better at listening. If you don't have the motivation or want, then empathy isn't going to improve. Find whatever reason you need to justify your want to listen and then just remember what the person is looking for, and expressing your desires.

Review how you listen; some people are good at just absorbing information and agreeing, others try to show they're invested by telling their own stories that relate, there are many ways of doing this. Understand your usual/default way and review how it makes you feel when you do this: there is a personal gain you get from such communications, so what is it? Then, see how others have responded or understand it. Do they see it as you trying to "steal" the conversation? As something unrelated? As a point of comfort?

Watch how a person you care about listens to you; likely there's a correlation to how they like to be listened to.

Remember that your feelings will generally guide how you respond to such situations, and you need to keep yourself level on a few subjects:

- You cannot fix some problems, so look to comfort not to fix (e.g., nothing you can do will make a loved one dying any better for someone)

- You might not be able to provide what someone needs at a specific time. This is not a fault or flaw of you, it's just their need differs than your offer. This is a neutral thing

- Low Empathy and even some features classifiable under the DSM may be explanations for why you struggle to listen that people accept, but it won't make them feel better necessarily unless you make an effort to still work past it. There may be a limit you have to such interactions, but if you "give up" with your limitations, it's usually interpreted as giving up on the person also. This doesn't mean you need to bend-over-backwards struggling, but the efforts you do make to overcome these limits will never be forgotten.

Most communication failures with those who struggle with empathy/listening are just communication issues (broooooad generalization of course). Both external communication and your own internal. Take the time to understand yourself first and what you are missing/not getting, and try to find a way to articulate to yourself what your needs are at a given time. If you can't know, then there's no way someone else can except by guessing. And if you cannot understand your needs in a situation like this, it's hard to even begin to understand what others might need.

Because the 2nd one sets a totally different tone which might be seen as you wanting to stop talking about them and now it's your turn to guide the conversation and make it about you. It's also making a pretty big assumption about them being exhausted in which case you might drop the "too" to get rid of that assumption but you're still trying to sound like you're shifting things to be about you instead of them.

I cannot recommend this method, as it usually sucks, but it will often open your heart as well as a side effect.

Instead of the Golden Rule, think of it this way:

"Ask others how they want to be treated, and then treat them that way."

Jokes aside, to feel empathy without ever having suffered greatly is hard/impossible. Instead you might be able to express sympathy, which is better anyways.