Something I learned much later in life than I wish I had. Real empathy for other people and understanding other people’s choices to do and be in a certain way.
It’s not that I didn’t have empathy, but my level of understanding was just very different from where I am now.
Example
Let me give you an example; I had a girl friend who I knew from kindergarten, so we ware friends for quite a long time. But as we got older and went on with our lives our friendship changed more and more. At first, I didn’t notice, because I was the one reaching out to her at almost all occasions. Then after I while I started noticing that she didn’t call me as often and eventually I concluded that she didn’t reach out to me at all.
This made me feel bad, uncertain, unliked, unimportant etc. Besides that, I felt betrayed and let down. While all those feelings may be true and could be because of her behavior, what I failed to see was the obvious. I was living in an illusion and couldn’t see what was happening because of my vision of the world.
I had to gain a lot more empathy to learn to see that everyone definitely views the world different and also that I should believe people when they are showing me how they are viewing the world and believe them at once! As I look at what was happening now, I can see she was showing me by her actions that she is viewing our friendship very differently form me. I was not that import to her.
And I need lots of empathy to see this as such and don’t be offended or feel upset. She never lied about it and acted as she felt, I was the one that felt differently and acted differently. And I was the one projecting my view and feelings unto this friendship while not seeing things as they are.
What did I do?
With doing lots of self-development I have learned to have empathy for myself and the people around me. I have learned not to project my feelings and views on to others and our relationships. People are always showing how they feel about you with their actions, believe them. And when you see their actions, have lots of empathy for them and you. Don’t judge or try to figure out why things are the way they are, just empathies for being so.
I wish I learned this sooner but I’m very happy to be able to do this now. The quote “it is what it is” pops up in my mind regularly.
Do you want to learn more about you and improve yourself?
