Vijay Shetty posted a diagram of what empathy is on LinkedIn. As he states, many people think empathy means to feel sorry for someone. That’s absolutely not true. Nobody likes others to feel sorry for them. It’s often demeaning and judgmental.
Empathy actually is:
1. Sensing other people’s emotions.
2. Imaging how someone feels.
3. Imaging what someone is thinking.
4. Mirroring someone’s feelings.
5. Identifying how someone is feeling.
6. Understanding another person’s feelings.
7. Seeing things from another point of view.
8. Really listening to what others have to say.
9. Feeling another person’s tragedy.
10. Being able to walk a mile in someone’s shoes.
If we had more empathy and less sympathy, there would be much more connection between us as a human race.