A Powerful Empathy Exercise

You understand your reasons behind many of the things you do, including the outcomes that you hope will unfold. However, you don’t always know or understand those things in someone else, so it can be easy to assume the worst about them, especially if they do something that turns out badly. If you can’t ask them about how they think, then you can try putting yourself in their position. Think about what you might have been hoping to accomplish if you had done those same things. Even if things didn’t turn out as you’d hoped they would, your intentions were still good and you weren’t trying to hurt anyone or cause trouble; chances are that the same is true for them.

To make this easier, you can do something that you find relaxing until you feel some separation between yourself and your views so that you don’t feel as strongly attached to them as you otherwise might. This, in addition to thinking of someone else’s views as if they were your own, will help you put yourself in their shoes and understand why they think the way they do. You’ll then have completed a powerful exercise in empathy and you’ll have a much better understanding of those around you.

Through trying to understand the other person’s perspective, you’ll likely find it much harder to get angry at them for doing something that turned out badly. Instead, you’ll probably find it much easier to think well of them and recognize that they wanted something good to happen even if that’s not the way it worked out. In addition to helping you focus on solving the problem at hand, this will also give you much more mental peace and allow you to save your energy for more important matters later on. I’ve found great success with this when I’ve managed to do it and I hope it serves you as well as it’s served me.

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