Coach as Instrument: When We Don't Empathize

This Week's Attunement 

“We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.”
— Pema Chodron

Most of us tend to believe that we are empathetic people. And most of us are...some of the time. And often, when an empathetic (or empathizing) response is called for, we do something else (that's right, even us coaches). It's not because we are "bad" or "wrong" or "immoral ." It's because we are humans raised by other humans.

I've been studying what gets in the way of our empathizing for the last decade or so. And I've identified four main reasons we tend not to empathize.

1. We don't recognize the emotions of the other person. We miss the signals in the words, gestures, or facial expressions of the person that indicate they are having an emotional experience. Perhaps because we are distracted by our own distress.
2. We don't accept or agree with the other person's perspective. Perhaps we can't see why they would feel the way they do, or we believe we would feel differently.
3. We don't accept or care about the other person's emotions. Perhaps we are judging them in some subtle way. (You might be thinking, that's not me! And consider the question: "Who is it hard to empathize with or feel compassion for?" Most of us can think of someone it's hard to empathize with, and some judgment we have about them that gets in the way of our activating empathy).
4. We can't feel the feelings of the other person. Perhaps we tend to distance ourselves from our own distressing feelings and so we step over distress in others. (I see this quite a lot in coaches)

Most of us aren't aware that we aren't empathizing when we aren't empathizing. It's in our blindspot. And often, it's in our blindspot because WE weren't empathized with in those ways. So we simply miss the need for empathy in the other person because that need wasn't met for us.

What do we do if we want to empathize more and live a more connected life with more intimacy in our relationships?

We can learn where our empathizing blindspots are, become aware of them, and then make different, more empathizing choices. If you'd like to learn more about your empathizing blindspots, check out our WE-Q Profile and Debrief Experience.

Until next week!