Empathy

Empathy is being able to put oneself in another person’s position.

Empathy is important to me because I believe it can solve the root of all conflicts, which is miscommunication. Empathy allows us to feel what others feel and evolve our communication skills by creating a better, more mutual sense of understanding. When we’re able to emphasize with your adversaries, we’re able to better understand their position and thus approach conflicts from a collaborative standpoint that can benefit everyone. Many times we turn situations into a zero-sum game with winners and losers but often this doesn’t have to be the case if we can all improve our empathy. If we can learn to adopts others’ viewpoints more effectively we can better reach conclusions that benefit everyone.

Empathy shapes my current behavior by allowing me to identify the needs of others more easily, which is an essential trait to have in my work with vulnerable populations. Often, vulnerable people suffer from some kind of conflict, whether it be internally or externally. Empathy allows me to better understand their conflict and help them reach a solution that’s best for them. It’s also helped me mitigate conflicts between opposing parties around me because it allowed me to understand both sides of the conflict. I then couple empathy with my value of balance to find a solution that could benefit multiple parties. 

Again, this is value where I strive to improve but one I think I’m naturally aligned with. At times however, I can lose my ability or motivation to understand others’ viewpoints during times of distress which is something I need to work on in order to avoid these situations.