When Empathy Strikes
[Music]
i had a number of jobs before i became
an empathy coach and educator
i worked at a tattoo shop i was a high
school english teacher
i managed a pizza restaurant across all
of these jobs
i formed relationships with really
diverse people
i’d find myself on a street corner at 2
am
learning to make jewelry from one of the
regulars at the pizza shop
or at the world on wheels roller skating
with my favorite students
i suspected the quality of these
relationships made me better at my jobs
so i went back to school to research
this idea
i learned that a critical influence on
how we work
across sectors is a phenomenon our
bodies are biologically equipped for
empathy i investigated how scientists
study empathy
and discovered that it has quantifiable
outcomes across a broad range of
disciplines
designers and engineers use empathy in
every design thinking framework
the layout of your car the way your
phone is designed
these all began with a formal
empathizing process
negotiators use empathy to resolve
conflicts between
world superpowers and rival gangs
the medical profession implements formal
empathy training because it improves
patient outcomes
and reduces malpractice claims we
saw examples of empathy when medical
professionals put their faces on badges
at the beginning of the pandemic to help
them connect with covid patients
i use empathy to help organizations
improve culture and outcomes
but something has recently shifted
i started getting calls about
divisiveness
and fractured relationships like the
university leadership
class that had different ideas about
race and racism
but was unwilling to engage about their
experiences
or my friend who had different political
ideas
than her dad and as a result it was
driving their
previously close relationship apart
people were now calling me to get my
help to use empathy
to bridge divides
now empathy isn’t agreement it can’t
make your aunt kathy vote for your
favorite presidential candidate
but empathy can lead to an understanding
that opens doors divisiveness closed
the challenge is to get to empathy
we have to be willing to let go of
judgment and that isn’t easy
we enter conversations with an agenda
this shuts down our empathetic biology
in order to get to real empathy we have
to be willing to listen
and connect empathy has been defined in
a lot of different ways
but the ways that best capture all the
functions
and rewards of our physiology include
a focused attention on the other person
without distractions or judgment an
accurate interpretation of that person’s
perspectives
and emotions and a reciprocated
emotional response this
compels the physiological state of
empathy
and makes it feel really good we have
facial muscles that engage and send a
message to our brain
neurobiology chemical reactions
even memory making all networks of
processes that all happen and and compel
this process of empathy
now whether you make a conscious
decision to empathize or just get caught
up in the moment
empathy begins with present body
awareness
we connect without
distraction or judgment and this
begins an understanding of the other
person’s
emotional state we
understand emotional states through
mimicry of facial expressions
that are revealed within the fraction of
a second
our facial muscles imperceptibly and
unconsciously engage in the same places
as the facial muscles of the people with
whom we’re empathizing
and this sends a message to our brain
about the feeling that they’re feeling
so if the corners of your mouth get
tight
and your brow furrows i’m going to do
the same thing
and if your shoulders slump and you turn
away i’ll do the same thing
anything that stands in the way of my
mimicry
of your body language or your facial
expression
whether it’s a distraction or the
challenges of virtual conferencing
technology
or elective procedures that change the
way our facial muscles engage
this can impede our empathetic
connection
mimicry of your voice body language
facial expression all allows me to start
to
share the feeling that you have
mirror neurons are another part of our
empathetic
circuitry anything you
communicate lights up as a lesser shade
in my brain as if i was experiencing it
too
so if you are in pain
my mirror neurons engage in the same
places
as if i were in pain when i hear the
sound of a strong emotion
or vocal inflection my mirror neurons
engage in the place as if i was
experiencing
the source of that sound mirror neurons
are another way
that we experience emotion through
mimicked emotional response
next come the chemical reactions that
compel us
to participate in empathy dopamine and
serotonin
are neurotransmitters that are released
in our brain
and they influence engagement and
emotion
and energy dopamine
engages our pleasure center and
serotonin gives us a sense of well-being
oxytocin which is the connectedness
hormone
is released into our bloodstream
and we get this sense of pleasure a
flush of euphoria
this may engage our parasympathetic
nervous system and this incites logic
and helps us to avoid any sort of
biased thinking it’s going to impede our
fight or flight response
to questions or comments make us less
defensive
make us more willing to trust this is
going to create
a somatic tag in our medial prefrontal
cortex
which just means that we’re going to
have a positive memory
associated with this entire experience
so moving forward
we’ll remember this as a positive
emotional
shared memory psychologically
we’re building an in-group of
us this creates pathways for
easier future synchronicity even if we
were bonding over a
negative emotion or experience
now you’ve probably experienced more
impactful examples of empathy than any i
can describe for you
a colleague with entirely different life
view
who you learned from not because you
agreed
but because you could respect someone
with whom you disagreed
an unexpected fondness you felt for
someone
who you met briefly and
you just clicked a stranger in need
someone you met just once it’s sometimes
easier to move to empathy with the
people we know the least about
when there’s no history
empathy has the power to bring people
together in a lot of different spaces
but it’s a cross-divisiveness that feels
most
urgent right now this is not to suggest
that you can empathize with everyone
all the time but there is tremendous
possibility and power in the times that
you do
the most powerful examples of empathy i
have seen
are when two people of irreconcilable
ideas
have formed deep affection and respect
for one another
in spite of those ideas we have the
physiology
we need to empathize and it feels so
good
because it’s critical to human survival
we have the power to bridge divides and
it is as much a part of our biology as
laughter
we’re happier healthier more optimistic
more effective
when we use empathy to connect with
people
who are different from us if we
reject the possibility for connection
across divides
we let go of the
complete capacity of our physiology
and the breadth of our humanity
in a time of ever-growing divides
empathy
is the only bridge
you