Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence

“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” – Daniel Goleman

Empathy without humility

“If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you.” – Anand Mahindra

Three components of empathy: Cognitive, Emotional and Compassionate

Renowned psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman have identified three components of empathy: (1) Cognitive, (2) Emotional and (3) Compassionate.

The first form is “cognitive empathy” – simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking.

However, to truly connect with someone, you need to share their feelings. This is where the second form, emotional empathy, comes in. Emotional empathy is when you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious. This type of empathy can also extend to physical sensations, which is why we often cringe when someone else stubs their toe.

To practice emotional empathy with a person who is anxious about the future, you might look inwards to identify a situation where you were similarly anxious about the future. The situation itself need not be identical, as each person is different. What’s important is that the emotions resulting from the situation are felt the same.

Once you’ve used cognitive empathy to understand what someone is feeling and then put yourself in a similar emotional space with emotional empathy, you can also use the insights gleaned from cognitive and emotional empathy to have compassionate empathy.

With compassionate empathy, we not not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but we’re spontaneously moved to help, if needed. It is the balance between cognitive and emotional empathy that enables us to act without being overcome with feeling or jumping straight into a problem solving process, and compassionate empathy can motivate us to help another person.

Empathy vs. sympathy

Empathy the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings in a situation from their point of view, rather than your own. It differs from sympathy, where one is affected by the thoughts and feelings of another but maintains an emotional distance. This short illustrated video from Brené Brown helps to illustrate the difference.

Dr. Brown explains that sympathy is to see someone in a deep hole while remaining on higher ground and talking to them above. The sympathetic person might also try to put a silver lining around things instead of acknowledging the person’s pain. Conversely, empathy is feeling with the person: climbing down the hole to sit beside them, and making yourself vulnerable to sincerely connect with them. The empathetic person will recognize the person’s struggle without minimizing it.

For more from Brené Brown, check out her TED talk on the Power of Vulnerability.

Wanting someone is not the same as loving them

Wanting someone is not the same as loving them.

Attachment says: I love you, so I want you to make me happy.

Genuine love says: I love you, so I want you to be happy. If that includes me, that’s great. If it doesn’t include me, that’s ok; I just want your happiness.

Attachment is like holding very tightly, but genuine love is like holding very gently – nurturing, and allowing things to flow.