– What is empathy and how does one feel it?

Question

I’m not sure what empathy is or how to feel it. It’s sometimes left friends and partners feeling frustrated with me when I can’t comfort them in the way they need and it causes me to be upset that I don’t understand it. I want to understand what it’s like.

Edit: tagged as chemistry because I guess technically it’s brain chemistry.

Edit: I’m talking about this issue with my therapist later today.

Edit: just got done with therapy. Turns out I do feel empathy, but it just comes off as not caring because I get frustrated that I can’t always figure out how someone needs to be comforted. I might look into getting tested for autism because it happens a lot.

In: 7230

Answer 1

Here’s a great video. I felt I needed to learn empathy as well as an adult. This started things off for me and made things click. It’s an ongoing process and now that I understand it more, I realize very few people are good at empathy. It’s just not natural for most. But it can be learned and is so important! Good on you for working on it and improving yourself. https://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw