Thursday, October 13, 2011

Empathy or identifying with other people



The ability to place yourself in someone else's shoes, emotionally, is essential for anyone who wants to be charming and attractive. Empathy is that quality which enables you to identify with someone else, to put yourself in their place, to intrinsically understand their wishes and desires.

It's a kind of sensitivity that allows you to adapt to the current mood, to the state of mind of the other person.

You know the chameleon? It's that animal which can take on the colour of the environment it's in, to make it easier to defend itself from its enemies. It's a survival mechanism. Wherever it finds itself, the colour of its skin adapts to the colour of the surroundings.

A person who has developed great empathy is a bit like an emotional chameleon, adapting to the way his interlocutors feel and think.

He tries to place himself in the other person's shoes, by thinking: what would my point of view be, if I had the same life (education, strengths, weaknesses, likes, work, family, etc.) as this person?

Finally, allow spiritual and emotional love to enrich your life. Love can take many forms.

You can love humanity in an impersonal way, from the bottom of your heart, by expressing loving thoughts.

Every being in the world will then seem like a spiritual brother, and you will be able to take a more genuine interest in them.

Even if you don't say anything, express love for all those around you every day: friends, members of your family. Even silent emotions are powerful Psychic Forces.

If you open your mind and your heart, you will be able to create an emotional harmony that will charm your interlocutor...

Exercise 1: Think of a recent situation when you were in conflict with someone. Remember a few details of this encounter. Now, try to see things from the other person's point of view. Considering what you know of their life, their education, their strengths, their weaknesses, their likes, etc., what would you think if you were in their shoes? Does this make it possible to see more "eye to eye"?

Exercise 2: Think of a recent situation where you would have liked to have made a better job of expressing your feelings of friendship for someone. Considering what you know about their life, how else could you have gone about getting your feelings across to this other person?

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