If you can’t wait for the answer, go straight to the end. If you can wait, start here, tick all that apply
You are working in or with a team that keeps mis-communicating
You are working in or with a team where collaboration and co-operation isn’t up to par
You believe that it’s all about the results first
You can do empathy at home, but not at work, or vice versa
You’ve had some feedback that you could do with being more empathetic in at least one domain of your life.
If none apply, you’ve got it taped. Scroll to the end for the answer to the rat question. If you are however a bit curious about how to develop and manage more empathy, stick with me.
It’s widely accepted that empathy is social glue. Daniel Goleman argues it’s one of the key competencies for social awareness. No social awareness, relationships suffer, no co-operation, anarchy ensues and we don’t get much done. Dan Siegel refers to empathy and compassion as the key to our connectedness, both to each other and the planet. If that seems a bit of a leap, I’ll paraphrase. If we develop our empathic skills, we increase our capacity for compassion and concern, we recognise our connection to each other and the world becomes a kinder place.
(Anyone who doesn’t think the world needs to be a bit kinder, feel free to find out about the rats.)
We interpret empathy as the ability to ‘stand in another’s shoes’. Look at bit deeper and it can be broken down into 3 or 5 types of empathy depending upon whose research you go with.
Cognitive Empathy - that which is often the basis for many texts/blogs on how to develop empathy. Essentially it’s the ability to take on another’s mental perspective. This is me being able to put myself in your shoes, to understand your viewpoint and well, empathise. I can see you are upset and I respond by acknowledging your distress with something like “I can see how annoyed this makes you’. There is less of a felt sense with this form of empathy but there is definitely an understanding that others have a different perspective and a willingness to try and know more about this.
Emotional empathy steps it up a level and brings in the felt sense. With this type of empathy I can feel what you feel. Think of a time when you saw someone get hurt. Our bodies respond to others pain with pain of our own. When there is emotional empathy between myself and a friend, I will feel her distress. It might have a different texture or sensation (we can never know whether our pain feels exactly the same) but we do know that if I see her in pain, I will similarly feel pain and often in the same part of the body.
The third type of empathy is empathic concern, the difference here being that we not only understand and feel the pain, sadness, distress or joy of our friend but we are motivated to do something to help them, (or celebrate with them). Empathic concern can be otherwise named compassion.
The science bit - how do we know all of this.
One of the key, now famous studies I imagine, opened up our knowledge in this area was done in Italy. A group of Macaque monkeys were being studied in Italy. Via an MRI scanner, the brain of a monkey had been observed whilst trying to open a nut. In a synchronistic moment, another ‘hungry’ scientist walked in, picked up a nut and started opening it. The monkey sat back and watched - curious I guess. The monkey’s brain lit up as if he were also opening the nut, even through he was merely observing. Scientists were able to re-produce this effect over and over, including in Chimpanzees and Humans and so, mirror neurons were discovered. These neurons form part of what is known as a resonance circuit in our brains, and which extends into our bodies. (Think of how the hairs on your arm might stand up when learn of something distressing that happens to a friend. This is your body resonating.)
We know from studying babies that we enter the world with this system already primed. If you’ve ever been in the company of more than one baby at a time, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the experience of one starts crying, they all start crying. We know from studying young children whose years in wretched orphanages has a major adverse impact on their ability to feel, let along empathise. Their feeling systems shutdown and along with it their empathy. We know that adverse experiences in our early years impacts our ability to relate and build connection with others. Conversely we absolutely know that being raised in loving homes with caregivers attuned to our needs will help us develop the neural circuits for compassion and empathy. As our caregivers bring their love and care to us, so our systems mirror theirs through our mirror neurons - and our bodies resonate with theirs in response.
We also know that our neural circuitry is highly malleable, throughout life. This means that our capacity for compassion and empathy can be turned off, and it can be turned on.
We can ‘learn’ to turn off our empathy.
There are all sorts of reasons why we might intentionally or unintentionally do this. Here’s another tick list.
You believe that results are the be all and end all. You believe it and furthermore the environment you work in encourages you to believe it. This shapes you away from connecting in an empathetic way with other people, which you may or may not believe is important. Connection is a means to an end, you are there and you are not.
You experience too much empathy, get overwhelmed and so, put up barriers - you learn how to shut it all down. This way you maintain a sense of equilibrium in order to get stuff done. (The cost of this is lack of shared meaning and connection.)
Your sense of safety or sense of your own self-worth got threatened at some point - in an big way, or in a small continuous, gnawing kind of way. Eventually, you learn to stop feeling, or at best, to feel and ‘block’ it or keep a lid on it. This is a vitally important protective ‘safety’ mechanism, especially valuable at the time, but when left ‘on’ can get in the way of keeping you from feeling stuff when it’s actually safe and important for you to do so.
It is of course really important that we can keep a handle on our empathy. The classic is those in the medical professions who need to be both empathetic, (studies show patients of Dr’s who demonstrate more empathy have better outcomes) and calm, dispassionate even. We’d all absolutely want a surgeon who could both understand our emotional worries and, dispassionately disconnect from them and their own emotional perturbance as they cut into our skin. If I’m badly injured I want someone who can empathise with what I’m going through but still have the presence of mind to be able to help me right there and then. I don’t want them falling about overcome by their own felt sense of my pain.
Or you may not turn off empathy at all. Instead your relationship with empathy is healthy. You take notice of how others feel, can feel it yourself and when needed, are moved to help. You have the ability to feel and hold the feelings and perspective of another person at the same time as holding your own sense of self. We can say that you know what is theirs and what is yours.
Whatever you ‘ticked’ above we can all practice developing empathy. A quick google search will bring up a list of ‘the 5 things you can practice’ to develop more empathy. Most of these lists include active listening, turning away from distractions, dialling down your opinions, being curious. These are all really important of course… and I want to suggest just one other practice that will help you to develop empathy from the ‘ground up’, to develop something that begins to feel more innate, natural and authentic.
The practice of mindfulness whereby you notice your felt sense taps right into those basic empathetic neural circuits that we were born with. We are seeking to deepen the furrows of our neural circuits in the body making them sharper and faster.
Mindfulness is very much in vogue at the moment, often advocated for managing stress and anxiety. Mindfulness brings us the gift of observing ourselves from a distance, something Dan Siegel calls introception. By mindfully paying attention to what is happening for us internally, in time we create the space to observe our reactions, we create the space to become more choiceful in how we respond.
By adopting a mindful practice that literally asks what are my sensations right now, and what might these sensations be telling me about my emotions right now, we gain all sorts of insights into what is important to us in the moment. We learn to stay in the present moment - a valuable ‘side benefit’. As we continue to explore, staying present to the felt sensations of NOW, we will being to notice we experience sensations which may not actually be 'ours'.
If this is completely foreign to you, think of a time when a friend cried and you had a sensation of wanting to cry along with them. That’s empathy in action. Same with joy. A time when a friend is joyful over something going on for them and your heart could burst with joy with them.
Sometimes it’s OK to cry and laugh along with a friend. It may be so at work too, although imagine a Line Manager learns that the child of a Direct Report is gravely ill. Whilst the empathic emotions of distress, sadness, worry may be present and shared, the Line Manager needs to be able to feel all of this and move to more cognitive, linear thinking as well, in order to be able to provide the caring support the DR needs. It’s a case of being able to do both - be genuinely in touch with the felt sense, and finding out what help the Direct Report needs.
Mindfulness is directed inwards. What is happening within me right now? Am I actually feeling anything right now? If so, what is it, what are the sensations? What is this emotionally? Is this me, is this you? Could you be feeling like this? If this is you, what might you need from me right now, how best might I help, what might be the best response from me to you? If, that is a response is needed at all. How might I bring my very self present to be with you, whilst maintaining my own integrity.
Mindfulness for the sake of more empathy can be practiced anytime. We don’t need to wait until we are with someone else to begin practicing. We can practice it walking down the street. Just noticing how we are and in time, it’ll be there when we also need to know how another person is.
It seems so simple, and, I know it's a big practice. As babies and children we are primed for empathy. In the right environment and circumstances it will develop. As adults, we need to pay more mindful attention to its development. We need to be actively engaged and intentional. Dan Siegel again argues that for it really to work we also need to recognise that we are all connected, connected to each other and to our planet. Our systems are malleable, but to reshape towards more empathy we have to make more of a conscious effort. And, we will each find our own reasons for doing so.
For those looking for the answer to the rat question… here’s what I found.
The following link will take you to details of an experiment which constantly demonstrated that rats are empathic regardless of whether they were part of the same family. https://bit.ly/2CAHyHt
In short, two rats are placed in an arena. One is placed inside a clear tube with a door on it, within the arena. The ‘free’ rat opens the door to release the other rat and it does this consistently regardless of whether the trapped rat is going to be able to enter the arena so that they are together. When a tube of chocolate chips is also placed in the arena, with equal frequency, the free rat would choose to open the chocolate chips or free the trapped rat. Even when the rat had chosen the chocolate chips first, some chips were always saved for the trapped rat, which it then freed.
What do you think?
And why did this catch my attention? It wasn’t just the topic of empathy but rather that for much of last year, the external walls, ceiling and loft of our home became part of a rat run - that is until we worked out how to get rid of them. Now, that revelation may have produced an empathic probably gut based reaction in you - perhaps the sensation is a cramping in the gut, a tightening of the throat, and chest, shortening of the breath and then, disgust, ’yuk’, and, ‘how horrid’. It was.
As an aside, for anyone who is experiencing their own ‘rat trauma’, let me know and I’ll share how we solved the problem - it went on for literally months.
