28.0 The Power of Empathy

28.1 What is "The Power of Empathy"?

Empathy is often displayed by people-oriented individuals. Empathizing others do wonders when done right, where it involves sharing what others are going through in their lives. It requires us to be accepting, emotionally open and wanting to listen attentively to others. To understand how empathy works, we need to understand its two core elements: acceptance and understanding.

28.2 The Cores of Empathy

To empathize is to create human connections. How do we create human connections? It is through acceptance and understanding.

28.2.1 Acceptance

Acceptance is the act of accepting an individual - not only towards others but also towards him-/ herself. It displays the perception of accepting an individual's mentality, personality, activities and habits.

28.2.2 Understanding

Understanding is the act of listening to an individual - not only towards others but also towards him-/ herself. Understanding others requires attentive listening; to listen well, be emotionally open, and visualizing how it would be to put ourselves into their shoes. Understanding the self requires a lot of self-reflection where questioning the self is needed; to self-reflect requires a lot of "why" and "what", and directing the questions to all aspects affecting our lives.

28.3 The Two Views

There are two views of empathy. One is unconditional empathy and another is conditional empathy.

Unconditional empathy often is displayed in parenting when one values the element of acceptance over understanding. Conditional empathy often is displayed in management when one values the element of understanding over acceptance.

28.4 The Poison of Empathy

Empathy is a powerful social skill. It creates and builds human connections. However, we must be mindful of its poison - being judgemental. Judgemental is the one core that breaks human connections. Judgemental breaks both elements of acceptance and understanding as it crates barriers.

There are many approaches on how to handle judgemental either by diminishing it or preventing it. Two general examples are:

1. be mindful that god is the All-Knowing and ultimately possesses the right to judge his creations; we - the creations - do not possess the right over one another to judge. Be mindful of our status as servants.
2. be mindful that we are never superior to others because when one is great in a subject, it is only natural that there are others who are greater in the subject. Be humble to all people.

I hope this topic benefits you as much as it has benefited myself, wa la hawla wa la kuwatta ila billah. Insha'Allah, the next topic will be posted in the near future.