Featured Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay
Do you feel heard and understood by your loved ones, your partner, your family members or closest friends? Do they feel safe with you to share their vulnerable experiences and emotions?
Let’s explore what stops us from having empathy and what skills are required for true empathetic listening.
Empathy is about the ability to take another person’s perspective and feel their emotions to comprehend at the deepest level what an experience is like for them. Empathy is not about analyzing their situation based on our beliefs and perspective but about the other person’s individual emotions based on their perspective on the situation.
Cognitive empathy allows us to understand what someone else is going through on an intellectual level. Emotional empathy is the ability to relate to and feel their emotions. With Compassionate empathy, also called empathetic concern, we are able to put our feelings of understanding into helpful actions. That doesn’t mean giving unwanted advice or solving problems for the other person that they are capable of solving themselves, but we can demonstrate our willingness to help.
Here is an example to illustrate the three levels of empathy. Tina has lost her mother. She is sharing with her friend Laura. Laura begins with cognitive empathy. She has a close relationship with her own mother and would be devastated to lose her, but she knows that Tina hasn’t spoken with her mother in many years and hasn’t forgiven her for what happened during her childhood.
Using primarily her intellect, Laure takes the educated guess that Tina is grieving but might also have a range of more complex and difficult feelings. So, she lets Tina take the lead in the conversation while she listens without preconceived notions or judgments but with respectful curiosity, acceptance, and openness. To her surprise, Tina is angry that her mother died before they could resolve their issues. Gradually, she begins to feel the emotions Tina is experiencing. She feels her hurt, sadness and pain. She can relate to those emotions because she has experienced how a sudden goodbye can leave us without closure. Tina also feels overwhelmed because she has no other siblings and must take care of her mother’s affairs on her own, a new experience that she isn’t prepared for. After reflecting those feelings back to Tina and normalizing them, she moves into compassionate empathy by offering to help Tina organize the funeral and clean out her mother’s apartment if Tina wants that.
To listen with empathy, we need to set aside our own preconceptions and listen without an agenda. Instead, we are too often busy
- deciding whether we agree or disagree with what the other person is sharing when our opinion does not matter, only theirs does
- thinking whether their account is reasonable and if we trust their recollection or conclusions
- making a judgement on the rationality or appropriateness of their experience or reaction
- trying to find an overreaching theory to put their experience into a box
- listening to only things we already know or understand
- wanting their unpleasant emotions to stop
- thinking about solutions for their problems
None of the above is our job as the empathic listener. What is required of us is to immerse ourselves in the world of the other person and to witness their experience. They decide what meaning a situation has for them.
“Empathic listening… is hard work! It requires us to be sensitive, alert, and respectful.” (Patrick King, “Train Your Empathy”, 93) It is also our job to be accepting, supportive and encouraging. To do that, there are, according to Patrick King, three essential skills:
- Maximum Attention
- Radical Acceptance
- Deep Curiosity
Maximum Attention
As human beings, we all want to be seen and heard. When somebody is fully present with us and witnesses our experiences with genuine interest, whether joyful or painful, we feel that the other person cares and that we matter.
So, as the listener, we need to practice being fully present without letting our minds wander to the past or the future and without getting distracted by our thoughts and judgments. King compares this to meditation, always gently bringing our mind back to listening, observing, and noticing. That way, we can walk in the other person’s world and fully understand their perspective and experience.
Radical Acceptance
We also long to be fully accepted. We have a primal drive to belong and to feel safe, and we can feel whether others have an open heart towards us and are accepting us the way we are.
As the listener, it is not our job to appraise, evaluate or judge but to seek understanding. Our opinion or perspective on a given situation is not relevant. Only awareness and unconditional acceptance are called for. We are not asked to evaluate whether something is true for us, how we would feel in the same situation or—worst of all—if a conflict is our partner’s fault. Only what is real and true for them, what they experience and feelings are, is of relevance.
Acknowledging what they are going through sends the message, “You are worthy of attention. Your feelings matter, and I care enough to dive into your world.”
Deep Curiosity
We operate from the perception that we are the centre of our own universe and feel less alone when we are understood from our worldview.
Empathy is impossible without honest curiosity. As the listener, don’t ask questions because it’s polite or because you want to seem like you are paying attention.
“Curiosity is about more than asking questions—it’s about having a sincere desire to understand someone else’s heart, mind, and complete experience. It requires imagination, a hunger to learn, and an open mind.” (Patrick King, 205)
As questions to bridge the gap between you and the other person. Have the attitude that there is a unique and fascinating world inside of their heads and that it is a privilege to get a glimpse of it.
Direct why questions can have the effect that the other person feels they need to justify themselves. Instead, ask questions that are a gentle invitation to share because they create space in which the other person can expand as much as they feel comfortable.
- Tell me more.
- What happened then?
- How do you feel about this?
- What do you mean when you say…
- How are you making sense of this?
- Has this happened before? How did you cope with it?
- What do you think you want to do?
- What do you need right now?
Listening Actively
Beyond the attitudes of maximum attention, radical acceptance, and deep curiosity, listening is an active process. Being quiet and letting the other person talk is not enough. According to research, a significant portion of communication (between 70%-93%) is nonverbal. The words used in a conversation account for a small percentage of the overall message. Researcher Albert Mehrabien’s formula indicates that 55% of communication is conveyed through body language, 38% through tone of voice, and only 7% through actual spoken words. These figures highlight the importance of nonverbal communication in conveying meaning and emotions.
Nonverbal communication consists of facial expressions, posture, gestures, eye contact and the use of space. I often see in my sessions that having a passive listener, especially one with a stoic facial expression, causes the speaker to make negative assumptions and leads to conflict.
Listening requires showing the speaker that we are not just paying attention but also that we feel with them. So, even if you have learned not to show your thoughts and emotions through your non-verbal communication, make an effort. For example, nodding goes a long way in demonstrating that you are present and listening with interest. Smiling—if appropriate to what the other person is telling you—is encouraging and inviting. Showing surprise on your face demonstrates you are a captive audience. Matching their emotions without overdoing it also creates a connection.
Drop everything and face the person. You are giving them the message that they are important enough to be your focus at this moment. Look them in the eyes. Maintaining eye contact releases oxytocin, creating feelings of warmth and closeness. The speaker can read your acceptance and affection in your eyes. However, depending on your relationship or personal preferences, be mindful of eye contact. When you get the signal that the other person is having a hard time because they experience the eye contact as too intrusive, use it less intensely.
Photo by Antonio Friedemann on Unsplash
Patrick King names three other techniques for active listening:
Mirroring
Mirroring, copying or repeating the body language, posture, pace or tone of voice, facial expressions, or literally repeating what the other person has said. For example:
Person A: I am so upset.
Person B: You are upset?
Warning: Don’t be too obvious. Mirror subtly and observe how this is received. If it feels that your mirroring of posture or words is not welcome, only adapt to the same energy they have. If they are excited, you adapt to speaking faster and in an upbeat tone; if they are sad or somewhat depressed, meet them at that pace and activation level. Our voice reflects our emotional and physical state, and as you adapt to theirs, you get a firsthand experience of what they are feeling.
Reflect back positive and harmonious body language, but be very careful when the person is displaying, for example, anxiety or panic. When you feel yourself getting anxious, take a step back internally, breathe deeply, and consciously lower your voice. Speak softly and slowly in short, calm sentences. Then, the speaker will often begin to mirror you.
Paraphrasing
You slightly rephrase what the speaker has said without adding anything, for example
Person A: I did so much for my brother over the last few years, and now that he has a new girlfriend, he has just tossed me to the side and cannot even be bothered to return my phone calls.
Person B: You are saying he has still not returned your calls because he is too wrapped up in his new relationship?
Warning: Resist the temptation to add your interpretation, assumptions or judgments. Do not offer solutions or advice. Your goal is radical acceptance of what the speaker is going through. Let them arrive at a new level of understanding of what they are experiencing and find their own solution to the problem.
Reflecting on the emotional content
Person A: Such an ungrateful, self-centred idiot! I have had it with him. Next time he wants something from me, I won’t return his calls either.
Person B: It sounds like you are really disappointed. Do you think you feel unappreciated and taken for granted because you raised your little brother?
Warning: Check if you captured the emotional state of the speaker correctly. The emotion of anger, which is a protective response or secondary emotion to feeling more vulnerable feelings, might stand out through the tone, volume, posture and movements of the speaker. However, underneath anger, more vulnerable feelings are hidden; in this case, for example, feelings of being ignored, unimportant, excluded, unappreciated, and disappointed.
If you and your partner want to learn how to listen and respond to each other with empathy,
reach out for a free Zoom consultation.