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Listening empathically in an apathetic world

By Ryan Chan

05 Feb 2025 04:37 AM

[1]

To liken empathic listening to a pond: one must join the ripple of suffering with an unwavering affinity to then culminate into a downpour of compassion. Our empathy—as a testament to our non-local conscious body—is only as bounded as you believe yourself to be.

In our noise-filled world, whether it be light pollution that drowns out the stars, sound pollution that keeps one from sleep, waste on the side of the road that you willfully ignore, or simply the humdrum of neverending thoughts, we seem to be overbearingly pelted by stimuli. We maintain a fickle appearance of hyperconnectivity through the Internet with our friends, family, and acquiantances only a few flicks away. In spite of this, we also find ourselves in what is a loneliness epidemic: dealing with a pervasive senses of anxiety, alienation, isolation, dis-ease, and worry because of the disconnect of online and in-person interactions. When we favor the internet-scape over real life, our life becomes a blur. We start to feel as though our experience is second-rate to the could-be that is the Internet as we constantly attempt to escape boredom, isolation, and our responsiblities in the living world. For the internet is dead, right?

Anyways, enough of these observations and to get to the point: this article will serve as a challenge to you to reflect on whether you actually understand how to empathically listen.

So in order to understand empathetic listening, one must understand what empathy means. From the Online Etymology Dictionary, roots of empathize and empathy are provided:

empathize (v.)
"understand and share the feelings of another," by 1917, from empathy + -ize.
Related: Empathized; empathizing.
empathy (n)
1908, modeled on German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"), which was coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) as a translation of Greek empatheia "passion, state of emotion," from assimilated form of en "in" (see en- (2)) + pathos "feeling" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer"). A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer's ability to project his personality into the viewed object.

Through this example we find there are roots of empathy that means the ability for the viewer to project his personality into the viewed object, thus self-identifying with something that we usually say is other to us. Moreover, something even more remarkable about the origin is its Greek stem, pathos, which derives as to suffer. To pinpoint the exact emotion of empathy, we must travel to compassion. Empathy relates to the Latin roots of compassion: -passio meaning to suffer paired with the prefix, com-, meaning together. In essence, compassion is suffering with. This is what differentiates empathetic listening to any other sort of listening: empathetic listening is based upon compassion or the allowance of another's perspective to enmesh into ours. We feel alone even though we hold the entire world inside our pockets. Could it be that we feel alone because of how Internet use has a greater precedence than our close relationships? That we spend more time engaging with the Internet in order to disengage, forget, and ignore our present circumstances or is it something deeper? Could it be that we have forgotten the language that connects more than disconnects: the universal language of emotion and unmet needs that undergirds conversations?

What makes empathetic listening differ from commensense listening? First, we must understand that the way in which we commonly listen instead acts as a barrier to truly opening into another's experience. To take from Dr. Marshall B. Rosenburg's Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life, he outlines the barriers to empathetic listening:

Figure 1

My friend Holley Humphrey identified some common behaviors that prevent us from being sufficiently present to connect empathetically with others. The following are examples:

One may very well be familiar with these responsess, as not many people understand or even consider other options when it comes to receiving another human being who is hurting or more generally feeling. So how might these well-intentioned responses that we often use block empathy instead of invite it? There must be some sort of response given to another person in order to allow the conversation to go deeper in order to acquiesce the tension in the air, right? Well, a fitting aphorism that fits our puzzle of listening can be attributed here:

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Though on the surface-level these responses seem well-intentioned, what one may realize, if they had not already envisioned themselves in a thought experiment, are that these responses actually block empathy, connection, and compassion by putting the cart in front of the horse. We assume that this is what another person needs from us, and we may not even allow them to process their own emotions by talking over and listening over their suffering and their feelings. Think of those people who enjoy giving commentary over your favorite movie, how would you enjoy that if someone filtered your emotions through this type of commentary? Dr. Rosenburg goes into this further:

Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.
[...]
When we are thinking about people's words and listening to how they connect to our theories, we are looking at people [through the lens of our assumptions, concepts, and words]—we are not with them. [3]

Often times, these modes of thought (Figure 1) are normalized due to our embracing of rationality which alienates others by seeing through a gaze of reason, thus isolating both parties as one identifies with rational judgments. By attempting to fit this scenario (more specifically an emotionally-charged message) into one's own theory, life experience, and overlaying their emotions with assumptions of their underlying needs and desires, you do the complete opposite of what you are intending. This objectifies the other person by disconnecting yourself from their naked emotions by creating a barricade of thoughts, concepts, and abstractions which separate your 'self' from your perceived 'other'. These types of premature responses are not only dehumanizing but disempowering another person's deep emotional needs and desires.

Well... there is a slight caveat: these responses certainly can work if the stars align in such a way that your assumption is right (generally not the case). One typically knows if they've received someone poorly if you read into the ambiance and sense tension lingering in any way, though generally people only see a sitation depending on what one is capable of doing in the situation. Even more remarkable is how people quite literally see our own worlds.[4]

To introduce a new way of understanding listening, let's journey back to Dr. Rosenburg once again who provided another fitting defintion for empathy in the context of empathic listening:

Empathy: emptying our mind and listening with our whole being.[5]

Without being willing to fully unfold into the present moment naked with compassion and allowance, our existence can become shrouded in contraction and affordance: we mentally and thus physically cower into intellectualization, analysis or simply any distraction that will act as a barrier towards emotional connection. Physically, this may manifest as a tightness or stiffness in one's body, averting one's eye contact, or seeing past someone rather than deeply seeing into them.

This bounces us into the value of presence that we is so lacking nowadays: we are constantly looking for the escape hatch, the quick fix, and subverting and repressing our emotions by using our technological 'advanced' devices. We are constantly seeking something other than what we are experiencing now. We look at the homeless and solemnly gaze at them with pity rather than taking action. We look to the forests and remove ourselves from the appaling facts of deforestation and loss of biodiversity since we see it as out of our hands. When we look at something horrific, see it so vividly that we recede from being fully there, we condone what happens NOT because we feel powerless in the face of it but because we don't allow our emotions to arise then and there. To apply this to empathic listening, when we look at someone in pain and subvert their pain by shriveling up in one's me, myself, and I, we condone unlistening, literal and figurative deafness.

So how does one cultivate presence?

To answer this simply, the best way to cultivate presence is simply to sustain your gaze.

Sustaining your gaze simply means these three qualities:

1. Quite literally sustain your gaze and look into a person's incomprehensible complexity and in wonderment of the moment's infinite depth.
2. Not averting your attention and to be rapt into this shared experience with this person.
3. Be there willing to suffer and feel through this with them, allowing them the permission to feel and be understood deeply. (something that is becoming increasingly rare in Western society)

In Buddhist fashion, there is a saying often attributed to Thich Nhat Hanh:

"Often we tell ourselves, 'Don't just sit there, do something!' But when we practice awareness [In this case, empathetically listening], we discover that the opposite may be more helpful: 'Don't just do something, sit there!'[6]

This may seem to be quite disengaging, as the act of just 'sitting there' may intuit to another that you don't know what to say. One might notice how people tend to gravitate towards people who claim to 'not know what to say' when you emotionally open up to another, but it is the act of silence that stills ourselves to become more in tune with another. Silence is what allows for music to be comprehensible. Silence is only awkward when someone exclaims it is or is it that the awkward someone projects their perceived awkwardness into the situation... Anyways, if we train ourselves to 'sustain our gaze' and consciously bringing our attention to what we usually avoid, find disturbing, and upsetting, then a complete transformation takes place.

The next step of empathetic listening is the verbal, mutual confirmation of understanding. Quite literally the 'ability to understand the feelings of another' part of empathy. One of the best ways to carry this out is reflecting back what the other person says by listening to underlying unfulfilled desires and needs beyond what they outwardly announce.

Examples of Reflection:

As one can see, the formulaic of the response typically follows:

Verbal recognition and exchange of their potential feeling or emotion + Verbal recognition of potential unmet need

Which can additionally be followed by:

Verbal exchange of emotion within yourself + Verbal recognitione (though this is really the cherry on top as the first formula can be said to be an adequate response)

Remember that you are purely guessing their emotions, which means that you can or will be wrong! Which is OK because this allows the listener to confirm one's understanding and elicit any necessary corrections. Furthermore, this method of reflecting (also commonly referenced as paraphrasing or mirroring) another's thoughts and feelings will then allow the other party time to comfortably dig deeper into their conscience and reflect on what they've said.

*Note*: This type of reflection is particularly different than simply interjecting: "I understand you.", "I know where you're coming from.", or "I can relate." because it not only allows the speaker to know that you understand them fully but to also put into words what they might be feeling or need at the moment.

Conclusion

The price we pay for being fearful of vulnerability is disconnect. Oftentimes, we find ourselves suffering because our unmet needs are so isolated, unshared, and unspoken and thus implying to one's body they do not matter or are irrational. This only begets more dis-ease, angst, and sorrow. By simply listening in this fashion, it signals to the other that their unmet needs matter even you can't solve their unmet need for them.

To look back on history, sound science has never been convincing enough for people to empathetically listen and to take the adequate action to prevent illness, disease, and suffering. It is only when we are affected so virulently, so relentlessly personally that the problem arrives at our doorstep in which we take action in desperation and fear. It is only when we drop the shell of our ego in which we can completely unfold into the pain of the world and honor it's pain as we listen to its naked, chilling calling that we cannnot ignore.

We live in a dangerous society when most, if not all, when our listening ears have been equipped with pathologizing, misunderstanding, assuming, and pushing away rather than bringing near. This is perhaps an outgrowth of our increasingly isolating and alienating ways of living. That any brief mention of one’s repressed feelings, thoughts, longing, and cries is to be relegated only to the most specialized echelon of therapists, psychiatrists, counselors, and psychotherapists as their patient, not simply as another human.

'Climate induced anxiety', 'eco-anxiety', and ecopsychology has only been formally recognized and taken seriously quite recently (gaining traction in discourse in the late 2000s and early 2010s), which tells the exact tale of how backwards our society is. The ignorance and barriers we willfully take up that devalue any proper response to how we approach our climate precipice makes our current path and predicted healthy, safe future woefully unguaranteed. We repress, bottle up, and ignore the problems that seem to have no solution, as we lose our hope in a better future and fall into deep despair.

We can no longer take it for granted even that our civilization will survive or that conditions on our planet will remain hospitable for complex forms of life.
We are starting out by naming this uncertainty as a pivotal psychological reality of our time. Yet because it is usually considered too depressing to talk about, it tends to remain an unspoken presence at the backs of our minds. Sometimes we’re aware of it. We just don’t mention it. This blocked communication generates a peril even more deadly, for the greatest danger of our times is the deadening of our response.[7]

In hindsight after writing such long-winded article, I must admit I may have complicated empathetic listening. In reality, empathically connecting is much simpler than one may think since it requires little to no thinking; something completely natural and awfully easy to do when one sees things the right way and empties their self of objectification and embodies a deep kind of connection. What is unnatural is our approach of assumption, pathology, and projection by abiding in the minuscule shell of our ego or 'self'. By simply acting as the extension of another body or extending the premise of what one's 'self' entails, empathetic listening comes as easy as opening one's hand, as a branch intertwines to a trunk of a tree or even as you sit on this Earth, perpetually attracted to her by the forces of gravity.

When we realize that our self has no bounds, this allows ourselves to the freedom to self-identify as the entire world or even beyond any such indicator.

Listening as the branch to someone's trunk of which a fragrant flower blooms.

Notes

[1]
Here are the full quotes:
"But only someone who is open to everything, who excludes nothing, even the least explainable, will experience a living connection to others and will, from that, create his own authentic existence. For it is we who assign to our own existence a greater or lesser dimension. Take, for example, the space we inhabit: a narrow strip by the door or a spot by the window. That’s how we make things safe for ourselves. And yet a dangerous insecurity is so much more human, like the prisoners in Poe’s stories who grope along the confines of their ghastly dungeons so that no aspect of their enclosure is foreign to them. But we are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about us. There is nothing that should terrify or torment us. Through a fortunate mimicry of our natural surroundings, we have grown so adapted to life after thousands of years that we can hardly be distinguished from the living forms around us. We have no reason to distrust our world, for it is not against us. If our world has fears, they are our fears. If it has an abyss, it belongs to us. If dangers appear, we must try to love them. And if we will live with faith in the value of what is challenging, then what seems most difficult will become our truest and most trustworthy friend. How could we forget the myths about dragons who at the last moment transform into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses waiting to see us act just once with courage. Perhaps every terror is, at its core, something helpless that wants our help."
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
“However much we are affected by the things of the world, however deeply they may stir and stimulate us, they become human for us only when we can discuss them with our fellows. Whatever cannot become the object of discourse - the truly sublime, the truly horrible or the uncanny - may find human voice through which to sound into the world, but it is not exactly human. We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.”
—Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times
(Back to text ↩︎)
[2]
Nonviolent Communication: a Language of Life, Marshall B. Rosenburg, PhD (Back to text)
[3]
Ibid. (Back to text)
[4]
Seeing mountains in mole hills: geographical-slant perception, Proffitt, Creem, and Zosh
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11554677/
In Proffit's later work, Perception, he wrote: "We project our individual mental experience into the world, and thereby mistake our mental experience to be the physical world, oblivious to the shaping of perception by our sensory systems, personal histories, goals, and expectations." which supports his later conclusion made by him and Drake Baer: "We perceive the world, not as it is but as it is for us." This is something I find to join the ringing death knell of 'objectivity', 'non-judgementality', and 'unbiasedness' as Parker J. Palmer and many others mystics, scholar, and philosophers have realized which our myopic self-referential ways of seeing things. Ringing only for the birth of something less anthropocentric and more ecocentric as we rapidly near our climate precipice.(Back to text)
[5]
Ibid. (Back to text)
[6]
Ibid. (Back to text)
[7]
Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy, Joanna Macy (Back to text)