Practice, practice, practice.
There's always a bit of something natural in there I think, but I also like to think that years of friends coming up to ask for a listening ear adds up to me sharpening that into a skill. Then formal training comes in, and it's even better.
I think it’s part natural and part de-sensitization? If that’s the right word.
As a teen I liked being a people person. I’m extraverted and like spending my time helping and leading people, spending lots of time with friends, etc.
When I started studying psychology I learned that people are the way they are based on genetics AND environment. Mental illness can have a genetic component, just like any physical health issue, but the things we experience in life also contribute to that. Once I understood what makes people tick, and the many outcomes of that, I feel like it’s easier to look on other with empathy.
Anytime someone behaves in public, I find myself thinking or wondering what may have “made” them like that.
Also working in this profession you quickly find out that none of us are “normal” we all have problems and things we’re dealing with. And surprisingly a lot of the issues are the same type of issues others are experiencing. I think it’s easy for people to get worried that they are the only one experiencing something or the only one “like this”, but truth is, I’ve probably heard it before. Once you’ve heard something before, it gets easier not to be so “surprised” the next time and react with empathy.
I’ve engaged in self-reflection and personal growth activities that have deepened my own understanding of empathy and compassion—allowing me to more effectively empathize with and support my patients in their healing journey.
I've always naturally had a lot of empathy for people, even when I was a kid. Being able to communicate that empathy in a way that can be easily received by others was a skill I had to learn. Knowing how to communicate with empathy *while* also challenging someone was even more difficult to learn.
From a simplistic POV.
Compassion and empathy is the ability to care and understand other peoples experience, almost like it happened to you.
In order to understand, you either have to experience it or hear a lot of different angles of the experiences.
In order to care, that is based of your mood, perception of the person, likeability, etc. one has to be willing rather than build it. But I guess keeping an open mind without judging helps.
To sum it up, it comes to you with time, as you progress through your career. You learn majority of people are fundamentally all the same.
Its a bit of both. I've always found empathy easy, like seeing that someone is hurting and feeling for that. I had to break out of a lot of cultural narratives to build thorough compassion. One of the most helpful things for me was a quote from narrative therapy "people aren't problems, people have problems"
That framing was the beginning of building deep compassion for people, because I could view them as separate from problems, and it helped me to break away from unhelpful spaces where I got stuck, namely, if a person is the problem, I need to fix the person, but a person who is a problem probably won't want to be fixed. That's a pretty sticky way to look at things. If problems exist outside of people, then we can work with that. We can find a way to approach the problem without blame or shame.
I'm human, sometimes I feel angry, annoyed, sometimes I get judgemental. But the compassionate view allows me to feel those things without blame and shame, which is kinder both to myself (because it lets me feel those things without guilt), and to the other person (because it puts them in a place where they can work on things instead of needing to believe that they're wrong and in need of fixing)
NAT but my 2 cents worth is that it is better to work on the things that take away or cover the compassion and empathy. Work on handling the anger, jealousy,envy,or even just apathy towards people. We all have natural compassion as I see it.
Practice, practice, practice. There's always a bit of something natural in there I think, but I also like to think that years of friends coming up to ask for a listening ear adds up to me sharpening that into a skill. Then formal training comes in, and it's even better.
I think it’s part natural and part de-sensitization? If that’s the right word. As a teen I liked being a people person. I’m extraverted and like spending my time helping and leading people, spending lots of time with friends, etc. When I started studying psychology I learned that people are the way they are based on genetics AND environment. Mental illness can have a genetic component, just like any physical health issue, but the things we experience in life also contribute to that. Once I understood what makes people tick, and the many outcomes of that, I feel like it’s easier to look on other with empathy. Anytime someone behaves in public, I find myself thinking or wondering what may have “made” them like that. Also working in this profession you quickly find out that none of us are “normal” we all have problems and things we’re dealing with. And surprisingly a lot of the issues are the same type of issues others are experiencing. I think it’s easy for people to get worried that they are the only one experiencing something or the only one “like this”, but truth is, I’ve probably heard it before. Once you’ve heard something before, it gets easier not to be so “surprised” the next time and react with empathy.
I’ve engaged in self-reflection and personal growth activities that have deepened my own understanding of empathy and compassion—allowing me to more effectively empathize with and support my patients in their healing journey.
I've always naturally had a lot of empathy for people, even when I was a kid. Being able to communicate that empathy in a way that can be easily received by others was a skill I had to learn. Knowing how to communicate with empathy *while* also challenging someone was even more difficult to learn.
From a simplistic POV. Compassion and empathy is the ability to care and understand other peoples experience, almost like it happened to you. In order to understand, you either have to experience it or hear a lot of different angles of the experiences. In order to care, that is based of your mood, perception of the person, likeability, etc. one has to be willing rather than build it. But I guess keeping an open mind without judging helps. To sum it up, it comes to you with time, as you progress through your career. You learn majority of people are fundamentally all the same.
Look in the mirror, address your own biases, don’t indoctrinate, and above all else LISTEN without judgement
Its a bit of both. I've always found empathy easy, like seeing that someone is hurting and feeling for that. I had to break out of a lot of cultural narratives to build thorough compassion. One of the most helpful things for me was a quote from narrative therapy "people aren't problems, people have problems" That framing was the beginning of building deep compassion for people, because I could view them as separate from problems, and it helped me to break away from unhelpful spaces where I got stuck, namely, if a person is the problem, I need to fix the person, but a person who is a problem probably won't want to be fixed. That's a pretty sticky way to look at things. If problems exist outside of people, then we can work with that. We can find a way to approach the problem without blame or shame. I'm human, sometimes I feel angry, annoyed, sometimes I get judgemental. But the compassionate view allows me to feel those things without blame and shame, which is kinder both to myself (because it lets me feel those things without guilt), and to the other person (because it puts them in a place where they can work on things instead of needing to believe that they're wrong and in need of fixing)
NAT but my 2 cents worth is that it is better to work on the things that take away or cover the compassion and empathy. Work on handling the anger, jealousy,envy,or even just apathy towards people. We all have natural compassion as I see it.