Empathy.
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
The ability to understand, be aware of, or be sensitive to, the feelings and thoughts and experiences of another.
The capacity to feel what someone else feels without them explicitly communicating their experience.
Empathy.
The way you step into the "shoes" of someone else to see life from their vantage point.
What do you get from empathy?
From empathy, you get human connection.
How does it feel when someone understands you?
How does it feel when someone does not understand you?
So, you want to understand people better, do you?
Well then, if you want to do that, then you must understand yourself better.
Because you are only able to understand others as well as you are able to understand yourself.
We exist in a world that can be designed to disempower us.
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In this disempowered world, sometimes, your focus is not on you...
Your focus is not on who you are being.
Your focus is not on how you show up.
Your focus is not on who you are.
Your focus is on your environment.
Because at some level, maybe you do not feel safe.
Maybe, just maybe, on some level, your hope is diminished.
Perhaps I am wrong.
Whatever the case, I am reminded of a story from the Humans of New York project.
This photo blog has reached millions and millions of people.
The photographer is known for his photo work and thoughtful captions.
He normally sparks a conversation with the people in the photos and shares a story, or a small piece, about them.
He was asked to travel on behalf of the United Nations. I am reminded of one of his descriptions.
From Humans of New York, in a photo taken in Dohuk Iraq, during wartime:
"I normally go into my conversations with a set of proven questions to ask, that I find will elicit a wide variety of anecdotes from people’s lives: happiest moment, saddest moment, things like that. But with people fleeing war, it is absolutely impossible to discuss anything beyond the present moment. Their circumstances are so overpowering, there is absolutely zero room in their minds for any other thoughts. The conversation immediately stalls, because any topic of conversation beyond their present despair seems grossly inappropriate. You realize that without physical security, no other layers of the human experience can exist. “All day they do is cry for home,” she told me. (Dohuk, Iraq)"
While this is the extreme scenario, many people live in some version of war.
War of the mind.
War of environment.
War of thought.
Because after all... how can you feel safe if you see a world full of school shootings, violence, robbery, hatred, and corruption?
Or, perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps you do not see that world.
The world you choose to see affects how you build your self-awareness which affects your empathy.
I say "build self-awareness" because self-awareness is not something we are born with.
It is built.
It is created.
If you want to build empathy, you must build your self-awareness.
Because how you see and engage others is most often rooted in how you see and engage with yourself.
