How to Practice
Here are a few ideas on how to develop your empathy.
Listen
Listen intently when people speak to you. Conversations, especially regarding heated topics, often form a rhythm of back and forth speaking, with each party starting a point just before the conversation partner has ended his or her point. I'm sure you will recognize this pattern in yourself if you think about it. Before whoever is speaking has finished, you have already formulated your response, and you can't wait to spit it out.
Next time you find yourself in a conversation like this, slow down. Force yourself to listen to the words you're hearing. Consider the speaker's motivation behind saying what he or she is saying. Consider the life and work experience that has led to his or her current world-view.
Respond visually and with sound ("ah", "oh", "ya?") but allow at least a second to pass before responding verbally. Ask followup questions to better understand what the speaker intended or how they feel before you respond with your own opinions. Hopefully you'll need more time before you speak, because you've been too focused on the speaker to start preparing your response.
Watch and Wonder
Put down your cell phone. Instead of checking Twitter or reading articles while you wait for the train or are stuck in a traffic jam, look at the people around you and imagine who they might be, what they might be thinking and feeling, and where they are trying to go right now. Are they frustrated? Happy? Singing? Looking at their phones? Do they live here or are they from out of town? Have they had a nice day? Try to actually wonder and care.
Know Your Enemies
Maybe "enemies" is an exaggeration here, but think about a tense, preferably ongoing dispute you have with someone. Maybe it's a co-worker in a competing faction for how you should do some critical part of your work. Maybe it's a family member you're constantly warring with for some reason. Whoever it is, you're used to them being wrong and you being right. You tend to even jump to disagreeing with them regardless of what they are arguing for, because you are on opposite sides of the war.
Now imagine the entire situation from that person's point of view. The person is probably not evil or an idiot. They might not even be wrong about whatever it is you disagree about. In my own life, the problem is usually more of a fundamental philosophical difference than about the specific conflicts that occur.
How does this person feel about how you respond to them when you disagree? What fears cause the other person to be tense and hard to reason with? How do you exacerbate those fears rather than calm them? What valid arguments could this person make against your views and your handling of the situation? What good intentions does this person hold? What are the positive motivations behind what you perceive as a negative outcome? Do you agree with the motivations? If so, are they more important than the specific conflict?
If you're like me, just going through this exercise (maybe a couple of times with the same subject) can greatly reduce your frustration and anxiety over some of the most stressful inter-personal situations. It may sound obvious, but doing it is very different from understanding how it could work.
Choose the Other Side
While talking with Kelly about practicing empathy, she had a great idea. It's hard to side with your own "enemy" as I suggested above. It requires a forced third person perspective, which takes a lot of discipline when you're thinking about your own stress and emotions.
So to make it easier, try it as an actual third person. We all have friends and loved ones thatcomplain to us about how they have been treated by other people. It's human nature to complain and it's the duty of a loved one to listen sympathetically. The assumption is that the listener is on the side of the complainer. A supportive friend or loved one almost always is, instinctually.
Try practicing (internally) taking the opposing view point. Don't go with your default reaction immediately. Start on the other side and work your way back. This reminds me of a cool technique Dave Thomas blogged about several years (almost 11 years ago, wow!) ago calleddebating with knives. It's an exercise which forces you onto both sides of a debate to help open your mind to the realities of the topic under discussion.
This is probably all obvious, but I doubt many people really practice empathy. I hope you will give it a try, even for a short while, and I hope it improves your life and the lives of those around you even if just a little.
