"There are two kinds of empathy, one is called emotional empathy and the other is called cognitive empathy.
The former means that the feelings of both parties are connected, the other party understands your feelings from the heart, can understand your pain, and even when the pain of both parties contradicts, you can give up on yourself, because the reduction of your pain is also a kind of happiness for him.
And the latter just feels that he should express something at this moment, he has no way to emotionally experience others, there is no way to empathize, and he judges purely by cognition. So when will he choose to empathize with you? When the thing is meaningful to him. ”
Only those who understand empathy can feel the softness of others' hearts, and can truly help others with the kindness of pushing themselves and others.
However, in practical application, it is easy for us to confuse empathy and sympathy, and how to distinguish between empathy and sympathy, here we can refer to the content of the dialogue between Filip Putin Bardo and Chinese students.
First of all, Professor Philip Zimbardo affirmed that empathy is an important personal quality and explained that empathy is a perception of others, your keen perception of the emotions of others, so it is different from empathy, because empathy is only one part of sympathy, and the other part of sympathy will motivate you to do something to alleviate their pain and make them more comfortable, so empathy is to think, feel, and then act. And empathy has no action component, it only shows that you care about others and understand their feelings, so empathy is also very important.
In short, empathy is to stand in the other person's perspective, put yourself in the shoes of others, accept your own and others' true emotions, but do not take action; Compassion is understanding compassion from one's own point of view, suppressing one's own true feelings and those of others, and having taken action to help others.
In addition, there is also a concept called self-compassion, that is, sympathy for oneself, it is very important to do self-analysis, how do you feel in a given situation, life is full of interesting events, in the face of things happening, sometimes we actively show it, sometimes we choose to digest it alone, do not share it with others, we usually do not tell others our negative thoughts, but it is still important to show our own compassion.
How to master the expression of empathy, there are six essentials:
Transform the angle.
Truly put yourself in the shoes of the visitor to perceive, think, and experience with his eyes and mind. As Atticus says in To Kill a Mockingbird, you can never really know anyone unless you put them in their shoes and accompany them on a journey.
Listen to the other person's plight with input.
Pay attention not only to the content of his speech, but also to the emotional information revealed by non-verbal cues (tone, expression, posture, etc.).
Come back to your own world.
Identify, discern and understand what you perceive and experience from the narrator.
Express what you receive, verbally or non-verbally.
Sometimes, it is enough to express his meaning and feelings accurately, and occasionally it can be deeper than his, or add a little bit of your understanding and explanation.
Pay attention to the other person's feedback while reacting.
The key is to see if the other person feels that you understand him accurately, because your empathy can be wrong, and the other person's feedback is an important message to correct the error.
Give a certain amount of strength and support
Put yourself in the other person's shoes to find a way to solve the problem, express understanding and support, and solve the other person's dilemma at the root.