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Areas › Anger › Growing empathy
It does not have to be dramatic. The worry you have never said out loud, the mistake you still think about at night, the thing you are no good at. Say it plainly and then stop talking, and let them do what they do with it. Most people answer with something of their own, and that is the moment you both stop being polite at each other.
They said, 'We cannot water our flocks until the shepherds take their sheep away: our father is a very old man' (Quran 28:23). A plain account of their difficulty is what brings the help, and it is given to a stranger.
القصص
وَلَمَّا وَرَدَ مَآءَ مَدۡيَنَ وَجَدَ عَلَيۡهِ أُمَّةࣰ مِّنَ ٱلنَّاسِ يَسۡقُونَ وَوَجَدَ مِن دُونِهِمُ ٱمۡرَأَتَيۡنِ تَذُودَانِۖ قَالَ مَا خَطۡبُكُمَاۖ قَالَتَا لَا نَسۡقِي حَتَّىٰ يُصۡدِرَ ٱلرِّعَآءُۖ وَأَبُونَا شَيۡخࣱ كَبِيرࣱ
When he arrived at Midian’s waters, he found a group of men watering [their flocks], and beside them two women keeping their flocks back, so he said, ‘What is the matter with you two?’ They said, ‘We cannot water [our flocks] until the shepherds take their sheep away: our father is a very old man.’
Qur’an 28:23read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A clinical article on empathy in conversation sets out the specific moves that make understanding visible, such as saying back what you think you heard and checking whether you have it right. Its subject is what the listener does rather than what the speaker risks. Both halves make the same point: closeness is built out of small concrete moves rather than general goodwill.
John L. Coulehan; Frederic W. Platt; Barry Egener; Richard M. Frankel; Chen‐Tan Lin; Beth A. Lown (2001). “Let Me See If I Have This Right …”: Words That Help Build Empathy. Annals of Internal Medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Trusting someone with something you could lose by is what tells them they are trusted.
Say it to someone who has not used your soft spots against you before.
Underneath both versions sits the same small dread: somebody being displeased with you. That is the thing to practise surviving, and it does get easier.
If you have gone numb around other people's pain, the numbness almost certainly started as protection. It kept you upright at a time when feeling all of it would have flattened you.
Give yourself an instruction you can rehearse. Copy one thing about how the other person is holding themselves, once a day, and notice what follows.