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He may seem a surprising source for business advice, but, argues Daniel Goleman, the Dalai Lama is both a futurist and a visionary.

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Psychologist Daniel Goleman (watch his TEDTalk about compassion) has just released a series of conversations about social neuroscience, empathy, compassion and social connection, each one with an expert on the topic - George Lucas on education, socially intelligent computing with Clay Shirky, Naomi Wolf on ethical leadership ... The audio series is available via download [...]

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Many TEDTalks speakers have answered the 2008 Edge Foundation question: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Among the more than 160 essays from leading thinkers - scientists, philosophers, artists - look for Wired's Chris Anderson, Nick Bostrom, Stewart Brand, Richard Dawkins, Aubrey de Grey, Juan Enriquez, Helen Fisher, Neil Gershenfeld, Daniel Gilbert, Daniel [...]

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Daniel Goleman, psychologist and award-winning author of Emotional Intelligence and other books on EI, challenges traditional measures of intelligence as a predictor of life success.

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Your Emotions in PrARTctice - DCTR - ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL

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Locke's Goal Setting Theory of Motivation

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Locke's Goal Setting Theory of Motivation

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Locke's Goal Setting Theory of Motivation

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Self-Awareness Types & Examples | What is Self-Awareness? - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Learn the definition of self-awareness and what it entails. Explore a few different types of self-awareness and several separate examples of…

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Motivation: What moves us, and why? (Self-Determination Theory)

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Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) @ Home: Self Awareness and Self Management (CET)

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Watch The Mind, Explained | Netflix Official Site

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Ever wonder what's happening inside your head? From dreaming to anxiety disorders, discover how your brain works with this illuminating series. Watch trailers & learn more.

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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-7Gfmwm9QL89lrTRQssKxRbmoE3dM4jW?usp=drive_link

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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13IQeW3huzsqeaNhoaIT_gmAdaiELLpfP?usp=sharing

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Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else's position and feeling what they are feeling.

Empathy means that when you see another person suffering, such as after they've lost a loved one, you are able to instantly envision yourself going through that same experience and feel what they are going through.

While people can be well-attuned to their own feelings and emotions, getting into someone else's head can be a bit more difficult. The ability to feel empathy allows people to "walk a mile in another's shoes," so to speak. It permits people to understand the emotions that others are feeling.

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Signs of Empathy

For many, seeing another person in pain and responding with indifference or even outright hostility seems utterly incomprehensible. But the fact that some people do respond in such a way clearly demonstrates that empathy is not necessarily a universal response to the suffering of others.

If you are wondering whether you are an empathetic person, here are some signs that show that you have this tendency:

You are good at really listening to what others have to say.

People often tell you about their problems.

You are good at picking up on how other people are feeling.

You often think about how other people feel.

Other people come to you for advice.

You often feel overwhelmed by tragic events.

You try to help others who are suffering.

You are good at telling when people aren't being honest.

You sometimes feel drained or overwhelmed in social situations.

You care deeply about other people.

You find it difficult to set boundaries in your relationships.

Types of Empathy

There are several types of empathy that a person may experience. The three types of empathy are:

Affective empathy involves the ability to understand another person's emotions and respond appropriately. Such emotional understanding may lead to someone feeling concerned for another person's well-being, or it may lead to feelings of personal distress.

Somatic empathy involves having a physical reaction in response to what someone else is experiencing. People sometimes physically experience what another person is feeling. When you see someone else feeling embarrassed, for example, you might start to blush or have an upset stomach.

Cognitive empathy involves being able to understand another person's mental state and what they might be thinking in response to the situation. This is related to what psychologists refer to as the theory of mind or thinking about what other people are thinking.

Empathy vs. Sympathy vs. Compassion

Uses for Empathy

Being able to experience empathy has many beneficial uses.

Empathy allows you to build social connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, you are able to respond appropriately in social situations. Research has shown that having social connections is important for both physical and psychological well-being.

Empathizing with others helps you learn to regulate your own emotions. Emotional regulation is important in that it allows you to manage what you are feeling, even in times of great stress, without becoming overwhelmed.

Empathy promotes helping behaviors. Not only are you more likely to engage in helpful behaviors when you feel empathy for other people, but other people are also more likely to help you when they experience empathy.

Potential Pitfalls of Empathy

Having a great deal of empathy makes you concerned for the well-being and happiness of others. It also means, however, that you can sometimes get overwhelmed, burned out, or even overstimulated from always thinking about other people's emotions. This can lead to empathy fatigue.

Empathy fatigue refers to the exhaustion you might feel both emotionally and physically after repeatedly being exposed to stressful or traumatic events. You might also feel numb or powerless, isolate yourself, and have a lack of energy.

Empathy fatigue is a concern in certain situations, such as when acting as a caregiver. Studies also show that if healthcare workers can't balance their feelings of empathy (affective empathy, in particular), it can result in compassion fatigue as well.

Other research has linked higher levels of empathy with a tendency toward emotional negativity, potentially increasing your risk of empathic distress. It can even affect your judgment, causing you to go against your morals based on the empathy you feel for someone else.

Impact of Empathy

Your ability to experience empathy can impact your relationships. Studies involving siblings have found that when empathy is high, siblings have less conflict and more warmth toward each other. In romantic relationships, having empathy increases your ability to extend forgiveness.

Not everyone experiences empathy in every situation. Some people may be more naturally empathetic in general, but people also tend to feel more empathetic toward some people and less so toward others. Some of the factors that play a role in this tendency include:

How you perceive the other person

How you attribute the other individual's behaviors

What you blame for the other person's predicament

Your past experiences and expectations

At the most basic level, there appear to be two main factors that contribute to the ability to experience empathy: genetics and socialization. Essentially, it boils down to the age-old relative contributions of nature and nurture.

Parents pass down genes that contribute to overall personality, including the propensity toward sympathy, empathy, and compassion. On the other hand, people are also socialized by their parents, peers, communities, and society. How people treat others, as well as how they feel about others, is often a reflection of the beliefs and values that were instilled at a very young age.

Barriers to Empathy

Some people lack empathy and, therefore, aren't able to understand what another person may be experiencing or feeling. This can result in behaviors that seem uncaring or sometimes even hurtful. For instance, people with low affective empathy have higher rates of cyberbullying.

A lack of empathy is also one of the defining characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder. Though, it is unclear whether this is due to a person with this disorder having no empathy at all or having more of a dysfunctional response to others.

A few reasons why people sometimes lack empathy include cognitive biases, dehumanization, and victim-blaming.

Cognitive Biases

Sometimes the way people perceive the world around them is influenced by cognitive biases. For example, people often attribute other people's failures to internal characteristics, while blaming their own shortcomings on external factors.

These biases can make it difficult to see all the factors that contribute to a situation. They also make it less likely that people will be able to see a situation from the perspective of another.

Dehumanization

Many also fall victim to the trap of thinking that people who are different from them don't feel and behave the same as they do. This is particularly common in cases when other people are physically distant.

For example, when they watch reports of a disaster or conflict in a foreign land, people might be less likely to feel empathy if they think that those who are suffering are fundamentally different from themselves.

Victim Blaming

Sometimes, when another person has suffered a terrible experience, people make the mistake of blaming the victim for their circumstances. This is the reason that victims of crimes are often asked what they might have done differently to prevent the crime.

This tendency stems from the need to believe that the world is a fair and just place. It is the desire to believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get-and it can fool you into thinking that such terrible things could never happen to you.

Causes of Empathy

Human beings are certainly capable of selfish, even cruel, behavior. A quick scan of the news quickly reveals numerous unkind, selfish, and heinous actions. The question, then, is why don't we all engage in such self-serving behavior all the time? What is it that causes us to feel another's pain and respond with kindness?

The term empathy was first introduced in 1909 by psychologist Edward B. Titchener as a translation of the German term einfühlung (meaning "feeling into"). Several different theories have been proposed to explain empathy.

Neuroscientific Explanations

Studies have shown that specific areas of the brain play a role in how empathy is experienced. More recent approaches focus on the cognitive and neurological processes that lie behind empathy. Researchers have found that different regions of the brain play an important role in empathy, including the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula.

Functional MRI research also indicates that an area of the brain known as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) plays a critical role in the experience of empathy. Studies have found that people who have damage to this area of the brain often have difficulty recognizing emotions conveyed through facial expressions.

Emotional Explanations

Some of the earliest explorations into the topic of empathy centered on how feeling what others feel allows people to have a variety of emotional experiences. The philosopher Adam Smith suggested that it allows us to experience things that we might never otherwise be able to fully feel.

This can involve feeling empathy for both real people and imaginary characters. Experiencing empathy for fictional characters, for example, allows people to have a range of emotional experiences that might otherwise be impossible.

Prosocial Explanations

Sociologist Herbert Spencer proposed that empathy served an adaptive function and aided in the survival of the species. Empathy leads to helping behavior, which benefits social relationships. Humans are naturally social creatures. Things that aid in our relationships with other people benefit us as well.

When people experience empathy, they are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors that benefit other people. Things such as altruism and heroism are also connected to feeling empathy for others.

Tips for Practicing Empathy

Fortunately, empathy is a skill that you can learn and strengthen. If you would like to build your empathy skills, there are a few things that you can do:

Work on listening to people without interrupting

Pay attention to body language and other types of nonverbal communication

Try to understand people, even when you don't agree with them

Ask people questions to learn more about them and their lives

Imagine yourself in another person's shoes

Strengthen your connection with others to learn more about how they feel

Seek to identify biases you may have and how they affect your empathy for others

Look for ways in which you are similar to others versus focusing on differences

Be willing to be vulnerable, opening up about how you feel

Engage in new experiences, giving you better insight into how others in that situation may feel

Get involved in organizations that push for social change

A Word From Verywell

While empathy might be lacking in some, most people are able to empathize with others in a variety of situations. This ability to see things from another person's perspective and empathize with another's emotions plays an important role in our social lives. Empathy allows us to understand others and, quite often, compels us to take action to relieve another person's suffering.

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Empathy allows us to understand and share the feelings of others. Learn why we feel empathy in some situations and not others, different types of empathy, and more.

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An empath is a person highly attuned to the feelings and emotions of those around them. Empaths feel what another person is feeling at a deep emotional level.

Their ability to discern what others are feeling goes beyond empathy, which is defined simply as the ability to understand the feelings of others. Instead, being an empath extends to actually taking those feelings on.

Science is divided on whether or not true empaths-people who can tap into and take on the emotions of those around them-actually exist, though plenty of people claim to have such abilities.

We know that researchers have discovered what they've dubbed "mirror neurons" in the brain, which may help us mirror the emotions of those we come in contact with. And it appears some people may have more mirror neurons than others, suggesting that empaths may exist.

What Are Signs of an Empath?

How can you tell if you might be an empath? Some of the common empath traits include:

There's no doubt some people are more prone to empathy than others. We've all known someone in our lives who was just gifted at reading our feelings, just as we've all known people who seem completely disconnected from the feelings of those around them.

Empaths also tend to have a great sense of intuition. They trust their instincts and often go with their gut when making decisions.

Because they are so attuned to how others are feeling, they may pick up on subtle information or cues that might help guide their decision-making.

People who describe themselves as empaths also tend to care greatly about others. They understand the needs, wishes, and fears that others face, so an empath may strive to make sure that other people have the things they need to feel safe, secure, and happy.

Because of this, people may describe them as tender or warm-hearted. However, this tendency can sometimes make it challenging for empaths to set boundaries with others.

Sensitivity

Empaths are not just sensitive to emotions but tend to pick up on other aspects of the environment. This means they may be more aware of sights, sounds, smells, and other physical sensations that other people might not notice.

As a result, an empath may be more bothered by certain scents or more easily distracted by noises in their surroundings.

Empath Tests

So assuming empathy and other empath traits exist on a spectrum, with some people being highly empathetic and others ( psychopaths) lacking empathy entirely-how do you measure your own? And at what level would you qualify yourself as an empath?

How to Determine If You're An Empath

Different empathy experts have their own quizzes that may help you to answer the question of whether or not you are an empath for yourself. Dr. Judith Orloff's asks, "Do I often feel like I don't fit in?" while self-proclaimed empath Tara Meyer-Robson asks if you have trouble watching the news or find sad movies overwhelming.

What Is an Empath Disorder?

Benefits of Being an Empath

Is being an empath a good thing? There are some obvious benefits to being highly attuned to other people's emotional experiences. If you can tap into the feelings of those around you, you should also be able to better support and care for the people who matter most to you.

Knowing that another person is feeling down, lonely, or scared, even if they don't outwardly show it, puts you in a position of being able to help them through that-gaining their trust and becoming someone they learn to rely on in the future.

This can make you a better partner and friend and help strengthen your relationships.

Being this attuned also means you can spot a liar from a mile away. Empaths don't have to worry about being taken advantage of because they aren't easily tricked or manipulated. And when they are, it's because they ignored their initial instincts about someone, not because they missed the signs altogether.

Challenges of Being an Empath

Of course, there are also likely to be some real downfalls to being this connected to others' emotions. Most literature on empaths suggests they are easily overwhelmed in crowded spaces or at emotionally charged events (like weddings and funerals) because they soak up the emotions of those around them like a sponge. It's not hard to imagine how quickly that could become exhausting in certain settings.

It may also be difficult for empaths to unwind if they are constantly carrying the emotions of others. Empaths may struggle with sleep or maintaining their own mental wellness if they don't find a way to balance the outside inputs they are constantly receiving.

Finally, there may be some people who are uncomfortable with how easily you seem to read them. Not everyone wants to be an open book, and while you may think you are only trying to help, some may find your insights into their feelings and emotions to be invasive and unwelcome.

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Protecting Yourself if You're an Empath

If you relate to the description of an empath, and if you find yourself constantly taking on the emotions of others, it's important to learn how to protect your own psyche and separate yourself from the outside world so that you can breathe, heal, and experience your own emotions.

Find Time For Yourself

This may mean finding time to get away by yourself in nature, where you aren't being bombarded by anyone else's feelings or stress. Or it might mean finding music or a meditation routine that can help you to reset and establish your center again.

Empaths should also work on knowing when and how to build up personal walls so that they aren't always so easily absorbing the emotions of those around them. This won't be easy, as creating boundaries likely doesn't come naturally to empaths who are so driven to help. But establishing healthy boundaries is necessary for everyone's mental health and well-being-perhaps especially for empaths.

You may want to start practicing meditation to best learn how to do this. By focusing your mind and learning to shut out outside distractions, you can begin to strengthen your ability to do the same when the emotional input you are receiving from others becomes too great.

Be Selective With Who You Spend Time With

You will also likely learn over time that there are certain people you are better off distancing yourself from. Because empaths can soak up the feelings of others, spending too much time around toxic personalities can feel like poisoning yourself from the inside out.

Finally, seeking the help of a professional is never a bad idea. If you find yourself feeling constantly overwhelmed or drained by the emotions you experience when you walk outside your front door, you may need to develop some tools to help you work through that.

A trained mental health professional can help you to develop those tools, paving the way for you to become the happiest, healthiest version of yourself possible.

In that way, you can learn how to put those empath abilities of yours to good use when you do have the emotional bandwidth to support and care for those who need it most.

How to Be More Empathetic

If you want to improve your empath abilities, there are steps that you can take to become more empathetic in your everyday life.

Take an interest in others. Start noticing how others behave, including what they say and their body language. Talk to them and listen actively to what they have to say.

Imagine yourself in someone else's life. Empathy is all about being able to see a situation through someone else's eyes. It allows you to truly feel what they must be feeling in their situation. Empaths can do this naturally, but you can also strengthen your ability to empathize by actively thinking about how it would be to be in another person's place.

Open up to others. If you want other people to share their feelings with you, it is important to make yourself vulnerable to others. Talk about your feelings and give others the space to share their emotions in return.

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An empath is a person highly attuned to the emotions of those around them. Learn more about empath traits, how to know if you are one, and how to handle it.