I was raised without understanding empathy correctly. You did a really good job describing what it really is.
It’s being able to express your, and receive others’ realities.
For me what really helped understand empathy was by recording myself (made some YouTube videos) and watching myself back during editing.
That gave me the objective experience of me and it was very useful to remap my perception of me to the reality of others experience objective experience of me.
There were a lot (less now) of assumptions about how I thought people received me, and watching a recording of me tore those down. Tore down the subjectivity of my self-perception.
I think we get anxious at the idea of watch out ourselves on video, or *gasp* listening to our own voices played back 🤣 exactly because we know we’ll have to face our true selves. And yeah, it sucks at first. But then you realize you’re just being childish and there’s such great value in it.
Being anxious avoidant made me avoidant of my self-perception and that greatly limited my ability to interact with others; I never realized that until I grew out of it.
Everything you said is true. Getting a better grasp on my reality has let me better share my, and receive other’s realities.
That let me understand we each have a separate, but valid reality. Socializing is sharing realities.
A limited, or undeveloped, empathy unintentionally leads us to narcissism - overdeveloped ego.
Developed empathy empowers us to find, acknowledge, and enforce our boundaries and having our own boundaries helps us to empathize with (respect) others’ boundaries.
It was never obvious to me that I lacked good boundaries or even knew what they looked like. Much less how to defend and confront them. And even less how others had their boundaries.
Boundaries define the limits of how we let our own realities interact with others. That’s very important for socializing. But you can get by faking it (masking) for a lifetime and never know the power of grasping empathy.
Would be interested to know what lead you to realize/learn this
Thanks so much for your comment Woodams! I love the video story. That feels like something that is repeatable and useful for pretty much anyone. Appreciate you sharing. I grew up in an...emotional household. So I've always been very attuned to how I make others feel and how others make others feel. But like a lot of us, I didn't really start to understand how people perceive me until my 30s, and just through random comments here and there I realized my perception of myself was distinctly different from others' perception of me. I'm still a work in progress which is why I love simple tools that cut through the noise (like assessments and like your YouTube story).
Thank you for sharing that’s incredibly helpful for me and I’m glad you liked the video reflection I mentioned.
I’m appreciative you mentioned you growing up emotionally attuned. Something I’ve noticed from some of my friends is that some are like me - emotionally distant (neglected) - and others are emotionally overtuned (people pleasing).
Maybe it’s just the way life is experienced, but part of growing was accepting that there are any number of ways I could have been raised better, and any number of ways to be raised worse.
I was upset for a long while of my parents emotional distance, and was waiting for them to “get it” while anger brewed softly.
Sharing our stories, and listening to others stories helps gain perspective how normal it is to be different, and how we’re raised isn’t as deterministic on who we are as much as we like to think.
Certainly, it sets your footing before we embark. But at some point we must accept that we have embarked, and our direction is up to ourself.
It’s easier to blame before we accept ourselves as we are.
Once we accept who we are as we are, we’re able to change.
Accepting who we are and accepting we can’t change others life path is the real start of self-actualization, because we begin to drop the things you can’t control, take ownership of what we can control, and realize our wisdom to understand the difference.
I’m 32 and this started last year for me. Starting to wonder if this is prime time for realizing empathy? I know some people that haven’t gotten there though 😬
Apologies for typos, on my phone 😁
One final thought actually, empathy can be hard to reach because we only experience our own reality.
Especially if we don’t reflect and accept our own hurt and insecurities, it is tough to acknowledge others have the same hurt and insecurities because we never experience their reality of their hurt.
This is why communication is so major, especially in relationships. It’s not possible to feel what others feel, it must be communicated. Communication depends on listening, comprehension, and empathy of the listener.
If we haven’t listened to ourselves yet, it’s pretty much impossible to properly listen to others.
E M P A T H Y
I was raised without understanding empathy correctly. You did a really good job describing what it really is.
It’s being able to express your, and receive others’ realities.
For me what really helped understand empathy was by recording myself (made some YouTube videos) and watching myself back during editing.
That gave me the objective experience of me and it was very useful to remap my perception of me to the reality of others experience objective experience of me.
There were a lot (less now) of assumptions about how I thought people received me, and watching a recording of me tore those down. Tore down the subjectivity of my self-perception.
I think we get anxious at the idea of watch out ourselves on video, or *gasp* listening to our own voices played back 🤣 exactly because we know we’ll have to face our true selves. And yeah, it sucks at first. But then you realize you’re just being childish and there’s such great value in it.
Being anxious avoidant made me avoidant of my self-perception and that greatly limited my ability to interact with others; I never realized that until I grew out of it.
Everything you said is true. Getting a better grasp on my reality has let me better share my, and receive other’s realities.
That let me understand we each have a separate, but valid reality. Socializing is sharing realities.
A limited, or undeveloped, empathy unintentionally leads us to narcissism - overdeveloped ego.
Developed empathy empowers us to find, acknowledge, and enforce our boundaries and having our own boundaries helps us to empathize with (respect) others’ boundaries.
It was never obvious to me that I lacked good boundaries or even knew what they looked like. Much less how to defend and confront them. And even less how others had their boundaries.
Boundaries define the limits of how we let our own realities interact with others. That’s very important for socializing. But you can get by faking it (masking) for a lifetime and never know the power of grasping empathy.
Would be interested to know what lead you to realize/learn this
Great post
Thanks so much for your comment Woodams! I love the video story. That feels like something that is repeatable and useful for pretty much anyone. Appreciate you sharing. I grew up in an...emotional household. So I've always been very attuned to how I make others feel and how others make others feel. But like a lot of us, I didn't really start to understand how people perceive me until my 30s, and just through random comments here and there I realized my perception of myself was distinctly different from others' perception of me. I'm still a work in progress which is why I love simple tools that cut through the noise (like assessments and like your YouTube story).
Thank you for sharing that’s incredibly helpful for me and I’m glad you liked the video reflection I mentioned.
I’m appreciative you mentioned you growing up emotionally attuned. Something I’ve noticed from some of my friends is that some are like me - emotionally distant (neglected) - and others are emotionally overtuned (people pleasing).
Maybe it’s just the way life is experienced, but part of growing was accepting that there are any number of ways I could have been raised better, and any number of ways to be raised worse.
I was upset for a long while of my parents emotional distance, and was waiting for them to “get it” while anger brewed softly.
Sharing our stories, and listening to others stories helps gain perspective how normal it is to be different, and how we’re raised isn’t as deterministic on who we are as much as we like to think.
Certainly, it sets your footing before we embark. But at some point we must accept that we have embarked, and our direction is up to ourself.
It’s easier to blame before we accept ourselves as we are.
Once we accept who we are as we are, we’re able to change.
Accepting who we are and accepting we can’t change others life path is the real start of self-actualization, because we begin to drop the things you can’t control, take ownership of what we can control, and realize our wisdom to understand the difference.
I’m 32 and this started last year for me. Starting to wonder if this is prime time for realizing empathy? I know some people that haven’t gotten there though 😬
Apologies for typos, on my phone 😁
One final thought actually, empathy can be hard to reach because we only experience our own reality.
Especially if we don’t reflect and accept our own hurt and insecurities, it is tough to acknowledge others have the same hurt and insecurities because we never experience their reality of their hurt.
This is why communication is so major, especially in relationships. It’s not possible to feel what others feel, it must be communicated. Communication depends on listening, comprehension, and empathy of the listener.
If we haven’t listened to ourselves yet, it’s pretty much impossible to properly listen to others.