Awareness & Empathy
The first step toward positively relating with others starts within you!
In lesson one we talked about emotional regulation. Now we will add two other skills that help build your emotional intelligence: Awareness and Empathy.
Awareness
Researchers Miller, Corrales, and Wackman (1975) indicate that the success of communication depends on the internal state or mindset of the people involved. They listed four clear levels of awareness: 1. topical, 2. self, 3. partner, 4. relationship. The two types of awareness we will focus on are self and partner awareness.
We need to pay attention to our internal state, which includes our physical location, what we are feeling, and what we are thinking. Our internal state has a direct impact on our behavior. If you find that you are feeling impatient or annoyed with someone, pause and check in with your self-awareness.
Are there any annoying or distracting noises in your environment? Are you too cold, too warm, hungry, or thirsty? Have you had a stressful or unpleasant interaction with another person recently? Was your last interaction with this person a negative one that you have not processed through yet? Did you perhaps see that this person left a mess or didn’t do something they said they would do?
Each of these things can impact how you feel towards a person and how you choose to behave toward them. It can aid conversation and understanding to be honest with the other person about why you are struggling with the interaction. When we take a moment to check in with our self-awareness and look for the deeper emotions we are feeling and why, we are better able to respond in more intentional ways that align with our core values. You can refer back to lesson one for a thorough list of emotions.
As we become experts of our own self-awareness and we are able to notice what external and internal stimuli impact us (environment and people vs thoughts and feelings), we will be able to use this well-honed skill to be more aware of what kinds of things might impact our partner.
As you learn more about another person, you can recognize when and what might be making them uncomfortable, anxious, or tired. Learning more about someone happens through self-disclosure, which we will learn about later in this lesson, and observation.
Being aware of our partner means paying attention to their verbal and non-verbal communication as well as learning and practicing empathy to understand their internal state.
Empathy
Empathy springs from a deep inner understanding of someone else’s experience or feelings. Watch the following video to learn more about empathy:
Once we are able to take the perspective of another, it is important that we communicate or reflect back to them our understanding of their deep feelings and situation. Reflecting back what we understand about them helps to build connections and give them a chance to correct or expound on our understanding. The increased connection with someone through empathy improves relationship satisfaction and opens the door for more understanding.
Watch the following clip and notice the different approaches that Joy and Sadness take.
Remember from lesson one on emotional regulation, we learned that our emotions give us information about ourselves and we shouldn’t fear them. In this video clip Joy is being very positive and trying to help Bing Bong. However, Bing Bong needs to be more deeply understood first, and Joy seems to be afraid of his deeper feelings. Sadness is not afraid.
She is willing to feel sad with him and give him time to be understood. It didn’t take very long and he was ready to move on and help. Try practicing empathy with someone this week. Instead of rushing to the next thing or trying to keep the interactions all positive, be curious, and let someone share a bit more about what they are feeling. This is best practiced with some everyday annoyances and not large life altering traumas. Start small and get better at reflecting back the feelings you recognize in someone.
Awareness and empathy are emotional intelligence skills that take intention, diligence, and practice. It is worth it to study more about these and practice them so that our relationships with partners, family, and others will be improved.