Day 32—Empathy (Part 1)
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Her father’s spiritual and emotional being was damaged, wasn’t whole.
— Louise De Salvo, Writing as a Way of Healing
Empathy is about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, and it comes in really handy for making relationships work better.
Relationships are tough—two people trying to relate, communicate, manage conflict, and (hopefully) get closer with time. Fortunately, there are some tools that can help navigate the treacherous terrain, like remembering that everyone has:
A unique personality and wiring,
A different love language, and
A unique set of experiences.
Personality
In recent years, I’ve spent time learning about personality theory. I’m an INFJ, Enneagram Type Four in a relationship with an ENTP, Enneagram Type Seven.
We are similar in some ways, very different in others.
Our similarities make me see us at times as soul and mind mates, and our differences (again, at times) make me wonder if we have what it takes to make it for the long run. Fortunately, more often than not, those differences are what stretch us as humans and also what round us out as individuals and as a couple. We’re a good complement to one another.
Personality theory has given us a tool for seeing and communicating with each other. It reminds us that we have different perspectives and ways of relating to the world, that we have different preferences, as well as needs, fears, and motivations. Mostly, it reminds us that it’s not personal—it’s just our wiring, the way we were built.
That’s just one way I’ve gotten better at empathy, remembering our individual makeup as humans.
Love language
Another is remembering our individual love languages.
Gary Chapman popularized the concept with his book The 5 Love Languages.
Basically, we each have a way of showing and receiving love (a “language”), such as:
Spending quality time together,
Giving and receiving words of affirmation,
Giving and receiving gifts,
Giving and receiving acts of service, or
Physical touch.
Whatever your primary love language, that’s how you receive (feel) love and also give (show) love, and if you and your partner (or friends, parents, etc.—it applies to all relationships) “speak” different languages, you can have a hard time feeling loved within the relationship (even if you or your partner are actually attempting to show it) … unless, of course, you both make a concerted effort to learn (and use) the other person’s language.
By remembering that your relationship partner has a different way of showing and receiving love, it helps you put yourself in that person’s shoes when it comes to needs and intentions, and it’s one more way to develop greater empathy and understanding with the people around you.
Experience (scar tissue)
The last tool for developing greater empathy is remembering our individual experiences. Revisiting the quote from earlier: “Her father’s spiritual and emotional being was damaged, wasn’t whole.”
It’s like that Red Hot Chili Peppers song goes, “Scar tissue that I wish you saw.”
Every person has it, scar tissue—old wounds that are sometimes visible (sometimes not) and that sometimes are still sensitive and painful.
When you can see that a person is behaving a certain way as a reaction to scar tissue and experience, it’s a lot easier to cut the person some slack.
Now, that doesn’t mean we each don’t have responsibility for how we react to having been hurt, but (here’s that old adage again) “hurt people hurt people,” and if you’re dealing with someone who has no awareness around this hurt (or who hasn’t done the work to heal it), then you can at least have some level of compassion and also boundaries for yourself when dealing with that person.
Again, it’s just one more tool for developing greater empathy and understanding and (again, hopefully) one more way for getting closer within our relationships.
Resources & further reading
Websites on personality theory:
Books on Enneagram:
Books on Myers-Briggs:
Books on love languages:
Today’s quote
“Empathy begins with understanding life from another person's perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It's all through our own individual prisms.”
— Sterling K. Brown