What it means to respond with empathy

You don’t have to feel the same way to show you care

A friend is worried about giving a presentation at work. You enjoy speaking in front of people and don’t share their concern. You don’t need to pretend you do in order to give them your attention. You can ask which part of the presentation feels difficult, listen to the answer, and offer suitable support. Having a different experience doesn’t stop you from taking theirs seriously.

In this course, we’ll work with three practical questions: What am I trying to understand? What am I experiencing as I do that? What response would be helpful to the other person? These questions help distinguish understanding, your own emotional response, and the decision to help. This isn’t a personality test or a requirement to feel the same emotion as someone else every time.

A strong emotional reaction alone doesn’t tell you what help is right. If your friend’s concern upsets you so much that you start talking only about your own experiences, their original need gets sidelined. By contrast, a calm question and a brief practice run of the opening might be what they want. But first, find out whether they want to practice at all.

An empathetic response also doesn’t require you to agree with every decision. You can understand someone’s concern while disagreeing with the idea of handing the presentation over to a colleague without agreement. Try to understand their perspective and leave room for them to correct you. Judge whether your response is helpful in light of the specific situation, not by how sensitive you think you seem.