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Building Empathy “Muscle”
Carolyn Ryffel, M.A., CPTD
Intercultural Business Communication Trainer, Coach and Consultant (Specialist in building effective business communication skills across cultures)
For me, empathy is a cognitive process of learning – about me and about you – and unlearning what I think I know. Empathy is often contrasted with “sympathy” and “compassion”, but I think the better contrast is with “judgment” and “assumptions” that are formed from my own experience: judgment about good or bad and my assumptions that I know your world.
Therefore, empathy requires curiosity and removing the lens of my experience to understand yours more fully and openly. Bringing my empathic self to you conflicts with my natural inclination to offer advice (“Why don’t you...”), to calibrate a reaction from my standpoint (“I’m sure that wasn’t what...”) or to take action (“I can arrange...”).
In my experience, empathy also has a physicality to it, a letting go that initiates from inside of me. My body softens and my mind opens to create a spaciousness for you. I give you my full presence. All of this can feel very clumsy, uncomfortable, and hard to sustain – at first.
But as learning professionals, we’re all about skill building for sustainable behavior change, and we love a challenge! So, I offer you these cognitive and somatic practices for building your empathy “muscle”. Integrate these practices into low-risk situations in your daily routine so you are prepared for when the stakes are high.
Practices to Build Your Empathy “Muscle”
Practice silently counting to 10 and deepening your listening. Remember, it’s not about you.
Practice tensing all your muscles. Then release them and feel the physical experience of letting go. Become still and present.
Practice softening and creating spaciousness. Inhale deeply, lengthen the exhale, feel your front soften, and visualize expanding the space in front of you.
Get comfortable with discomfort. Sit with it and get familiar with your reactions to it.
Practice “seeing” someone else’s world. Establish what you think you’re seeing and then ask, “How might I be wrong?”
Cultivate your curiosity about others and their worlds – and about yourself and yours.
Empathy is a cognitive and physical process of engaging with others by letting go, creating spaciousness, “sitting” comfortably in discomfort, and
maintaining curiosity. Let’s start practicing!
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