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6 ways to teach yourself empathyWhen was the last time you took a walk in someone else’s shoes?

By Roman Krznaric

From Reader's Digest May 2014

"Curiosity expa nds our empathy when we talk topeople outside our usual

social circle."

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All of a sudden, the word “empathy” is on the lips of scientists and bus iness leaders, education experts and political activists.Empathy is not jus t a way to extend the boundaries of your moral universe. According to new research, it’s a habit we cancultivate to improve the quality of our own lives.But what is em pathy? It’s the ability to step into the s hoes of another, aiming to unders tand their feelings and perspectives, andto use that understanding to guide our own actions. That makes it different from kindnes s or pity. And don’t confuse it with theGolden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As George Bernard Shaw pointed out, “Do not do untoothers as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” Empathy is about dis covering thosetastes.The good news is that empathy can be learned. In my new book, Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution (Random Hous e), I’vehoned s ix key habits that highly empathic people (HEPs) bring into their daily lives. So what does it take to teach yourself empathy? Habit 1:Switch on your empathic brainThe recent big buzz about empathy stems from a revolutionary shift in how scientists understand hum an nature. The old view

that we are esse ntially self-interested creatures is b eing nudged firmly to one side by evidence that we are also Homoempathicus , wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid.Over the last de cade, neuroscientists have dis covered that 98% of us have the ability to em pathise. They have als o identified aten-section “empathy circuit” in our brains which, if damaged, can curtail our ability to understand w hat other people are feeling.Evolutionary biologists like Frans de Waal ha ve s hown that we are social a nimals who have naturally evolved to care for eachother, just like our prim ate cousins . And psychologists have revealed that we are primed for em pathy by strong attachmentrelationships in the first two years of life.

A good wa y to start swi tching on your empa thic brain is sim ply to make a mental n ote every time you notice an ins tance of empathic thinking or action in yourself or others. Maybe you will s pot your boss managing to see s omeone el se’s point of view,or obs erve em pathic cooperation between your children. Think of it as becoming an “empa thy detective”. Habit 2:

Make the imaginative leapHighly empathic people make a concerted effort to imagine thems elves in other people’s situations, like an actor who occupies the personality of their stage character.Making this im aginative leap can be boosted by “empathic listening”. “What is ess ential,” says Marshall Ros enberg, psychologist and founder of Non-Violent

Comm unication (NVC), “is our ability to be present to what’s really going on within – to the unique feelings and needs a person is experiencing in that very mom ent.” HEPslisten hard to others and do all they can to grasp their emotional s tate and needs, whether it is a friend who has just been diagnos ed with cancer or a spouse who i s ups etat them for working late yet again.We all know, ins tinctively, that empathy is a great tool for m aintaining healthy relationships. Just think of all those times you’ve been arguing with your partner and thought,Why can’t she understand what I’m feeling? What are you asking for? Em pathy of course. You want them to s tep into your shoes, if only for a m oment.That’s why it’s worth practising em pathic listening in your relationships . Next time things are getting tense with your partner, focus intently on listening to their feelings andneeds – without interrupting (and this m ight just induce them to return the favour). You mig ht even ask them to tell you about their feelings and nee ds. It’s amazing how doingthis can prevent a niggling annoyance from turning into resentme nt or a full-scale argument. Ultimately, mos t of us jus t want to be listened to and unders tood. Habit 3:Seek ex periential adventuresSo you think ice climbing and hang-gliding are extreme s ports? Then you need to try experiential empathy, the m ost challenging – and p otentially rewarding – of them all.HEPs expand their empathy by gaining direct experience of other people’s lives, putting into practice the Native American proverb, “Walk a m ile in another man’s moccasinsbefore you criticise him.”The writer George Orwell is an inspiring m odel. After several years as a colonial police officer in British Burma in the 1920s, Orwell returned to Britain determined to dis cover

what life was like for those living on the social margins . So he dressed up as a tramp with s habby shoes and coat, and lived on the streets of East London with beggars andvagabonds. The result, recorded in his book Down and Out in Paris and London , was a radical change in his beliefs, priorities, and relationships. He not only realised thathomeles s people a re not “drunken scoundrels” – Orwell developed new friendships, s hifted his views on inequality, and gathered some s uperb literary material. It was thegreatest travel experience of his life. He realised that empathy doesn’t just m ake you good – it’s good for you, too.We can each conduct our own experiments. If you are religious ly observant, try a “God Swap”, attending the s ervices of faiths different from your own, including a meeting of Humanists. Or if you’re an atheist, try attending different churches! Spend your next holiday volunteering in a village in a developing country.Next time you are planning a trip, don’t ask yourself, “Where can I go next?” but instead “Whose shoe s can I stand in next?” Habit 4:Practise the c raft of conversationHighly empathic people have an insatiable curios ity about strangers. They will talk to the person sitting next to them on the bus , having retained that natural inquis itivenesswe all had as children, but which s ociety is s o good at beating out of us. They find other people more interesting than themselves but are not out to interrogate them,respecting the advice of the oral historian Studs Terkel: “Don’t be the examiner, be the interested enqui rer.”Curiosity expands our empathy when we talk to peo ple outside our usual social circle, encountering lives and world views very different from our ow n. Conversations withstrangers can really help challenge our ass umptions about people, so we get beyond our snap judgm ents about them based on their appearance or accent. It’s also a great

cure for the chronic lonelines s that affects one in four Westerners. No wonder happines s guru Martin Seligman identifies it as a key character strength that can enhance lifesatisfaction.Cultivating curiosity requires more than having a brief chat about the weather. It involves talking about the stuff that really matters in life, like love, death or politics. Set yourself the challenge of having a conversation with one s tranger every week. All it requires is courage. Habit 5:Travel in your ar mchair

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If all of this is sounding a bit strenuous, you can always throw a little “armchair empathy” into the mix. This is about reading books and watching films that catapult our imaginations into other people’s lives that are vastly different from our own. Think of a mo vie like City of God , which reveals the violent world of two boys growing up in theshantytowns of Rio. Or the novel To Kill a Mockingb ird , with its class ic line, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until youclimb ins ide of his skin and walk around in it.” In fact, there has been an avalanche of recent neuroscience and ps ychology research showing that entering other people’slives through books and films is one of the best ways of learning to empathise.It isn’t always eas y to find the most inspi ring and powerful empathy books and film s, which is why – alongside my new book – I’ve just founded the world’s first onlineEmpathy Library at www.empathylibrary.com . You’ll find the very best novels, non-fiction, kids’ books, feature films and video shorts all about em pathy. Habit 6:Inspire a revolutionEmpathy isn’t just s omething that happens between indi viduals. It can also flower on a mas s s cale and s tart shifting the contours of society itself. Many of those w ho tookpart in the Occupy Movement and Arab Spring were motivated by empathy – empathy for those whose lives had been ravaged by the financial crisis , or who had sufferedpolice brutality. An important way to boos t your empathy levels is to join with others to take action on empathy-related is sues that matter to you – whether it’s child poverty or the fate of future generations whos e lives will be affected by our addiction to hi gh-carbon lifestyles. Even taking part in your local choir or playing five-a-side football are waysto engage in commun al activities that break down the barriers between people and prom ote a more empathic world.Empathy will mos t likely flower on a collective scale if its s eeds are p lanted in our children. That’s why HEPs support efforts s uch as Canada’s pioneering Roots of Em pathy,which has benefited over half a mil lion s chool kids. Its unique curriculum centres on an infant, whose development children obs erve over time in order to learn emotionalintelligence – and its resul ts include signi ficant declines i n playground bullying and higher levels of academic achievement.So now you’ve got some ideas for growing your empathy, let me leave you with a question. Who in your life do you need to develop more em pathy with – and how m ight yougo about doing it?

Click here to watch Roman Krznaric’s 2013 TedxAthens Talk based on his recent book Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution