Empathy, In My Own Words
Along the lines of thought leadership, I’d like to share my take on empathy – in my own words and writing this from the heart.
You can’t force empathy. You need to allow it to surface naturally.
In moments where I didn’t necessarily feel empathy for someone, I sometimes started to doubt myself. I would then force myself to feel empathy, and it didn’t always “feel” right.
What I’ve come to realize is that for empathy to emerge, you need to first lay the foundation for it to grow. Think of a garden having fertile soil here, with empathy being the equivalent of a flower.
In this case, the “fertile soil” for empathy to bloom on is emotional intelligence, emotional self-regulation, an understanding of nuance in human relationships, and patience.
Emotional self-regulation is – again, this is my own words – being able to understand why you feel the way you feel and work through those feelings in calm, even-keeled, and mature ways. It also means staying calm when faced with someone else’s dysfunction.
The reason why emotional self-regulation is so important is because if you haven’t first processed and worked through your own emotions – including the “messy middle” of those difficult emotions – it’s going to be a lot harder to feel empathy for another human being. As I type this here, I’m feeling the lightbulb come on in my own mind, and I hope that “lightbulb moment” happens for you when reading this.
To keep this as practical as possible, I’ll share something with you (never to make it about me and always to add value to you). I recently wasn’t feeling empathy for someone I know. I stayed calm and, in my own time, worked through some of my emotions to better understand myself and why I felt the way I felt.
This past week, without forcing it, and without even expecting it, empathy bloomed in my heart! It was so powerful, that it actually caught me off-guard. Empathy was possible because I had done the inner work to work through my own emotional self-regulatory process, and now the fertile soil was there. The flower of empathy bloomed.
I have no idea what the reaction is going to be to what I shared here. Some of my posts do well while others don’t, and it’s impossible to predict. Even if you disagree with what I shared here, I hope that taking the risk to put myself out there like this will help you reach greater levels of leadership, self-awareness, and success. After all, the reason I post on my blog is to genuinely help others, with no hidden agenda.
Jeff Davis is an award-winning author, most recently publishing The Power of Authentic Leadership: Activating the 13 Keys to Achieving Prosperity Through Authenticity. Connect with him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter. For three free books (The Power of Authentic Leadership, Reach Your Mountaintop, and Traveling Triumphs) in exchange for being added to his email list, email his Executive Assistant at meg@jeffdspeaks.com. Learn more about his story on his About page and feel free to check out his author page on Amazon. Also feel free to contact Jeff directly via jeff@jeffdspeaks.com. What Jeff does best is sharing his work experiences in a way that adds real value to others. Consider bringing him to speak as a mental health, authentic leadership, and/or resiliency expert at your next event. He’s also available as an Executive Coach.
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