How Empathy Can Reduce Your Anger

Jim, a 42-year old engineer was teaching his eight-year-old son
how to fly a radio-controlled airplane. As the airplane was
taking off, Jim instructed his son to push the control stick on
the radio to the right. He did and the airplane turned to the
right.
This was repeated several more times until the airplane turned
full circle toward the son, ready to land. “Push the stick to
the right,” said Jim. This time, however, the plane turned left.
“Push the stick left,” Jim said. Now the plane turned right, as
if it suddenly had a mind of its own.
“I’m confused,” said the son. “How do I know which way to push
the stick when the plane behaves differently depending on if
it’s flying away from me or toward me?”
“It’s simple,” said Jim. “Simply imagine you’re in the plane
and push the stick accordingly.” This cured the problem.
What a great lesson in empathy – the ability to experience the
world from another perspective, often the perspective of another
person.
As an anonymous English author wrote: “To empathize is to see
with the eyes of another, to hear with the ears of another, and
to feel with the heart of another.”
Why is empathy important? The real world bottom line is that
lack of empathy leads to poor communication and a failing to
understand others. Lack of empathy leads to all sorts of
problems in our world. Nations go to war, people are killed,
couples divorce – all for a lack of empathy and understanding.
It is natural to become angry when frustrated or irritated with
people who do or say things at variance with our worldview.
To manage anger, it often helps to see our anger as a
combination of their behavior and our lack of empathy. While we
cannot control other’s thoughts, feelings or behaviors, we most
certainly can increase our empathy skills.
To control our anger with increased empathy, three basic skills
are required: listening, self-awareness and acceptance.
Empathic listening is a type of listening that goes further
than ordinary listening. This type of listening uses another
person’s point of view to see the world as others see it. It
provides a higher level of understanding of how others feel.
Self-awareness occurs as you better understand your own
thoughts and feelings. You are then better able to understand
the thoughts and feelings of someone else. The more open we are
to our own feelings, the more skilled we become at reading
someone else’s feelings, and generally the less angry we feel
toward them.
Acceptance, on the other hand, is the ability to see that
others have a right to their “ridiculous” feelings. We must
allow people to have feelings without telling them how they
should feel. We cannot stop others from having feelings.
Empathic people understand that feelings are difficult to
control. When we accept others as they are, it simply means that
we understand that they are doing the best they can at the time.
Remember, if they could do any better, they probably would.
Acceptance of others’ feelings is not easy when people act
differently than we do. We all have difficulty with those who
are different. By learning the skill of empathy, we will be
better able to understand ourselves and others.
Here are five simple rules to be more empathetic.
1. Pay attention to the feelings that others express. Watch for
both verbal and nonverbal clues. Try to understand the message
behind the words and actions.
2. Place the feelings of other’s ahead of your own. Put aside
your own needs and ideas long enough to listen to another’s
point of view.
3. Communicate your understanding. Respond or give answers to
the messages you receive to show you understand them.
4. Do not interrupt. Let speakers finish what they are saying
before you talk.
5. Ask for more information. If you still don’t understand, ask
more questions until you fully understand.


Source: http://www.isnare.com

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