Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It is a vital aspect of emotional intelligence (EQ) that helps build relationships, improve communication, and foster understanding. However, being empathetic requires more than just saying sorry, even though that expression is a go-to for many people. Instead, empathy involves active listening, understanding emotions, and responding with care and compassion.

Let’s discuss how to show empathy without saying you're sorry and look at a few practical tips to help you improve your empathy skills.

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Empathy is an essential skill for deepening our connections with others, but most of our attempts at empathy fall into one of three traps: blocking, fixing, or sympathizing.

Our best intentions are not enough to ensure our loved ones feel heard and understood. We need to develop—and master—the ability to empathize and show compassion for others. Developing empathy requires practicing and applying critical emotional intelligence skills to validate and comfort our loved ones in their time of need.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Empathy is not one-size-fits-all. Different types of empathy are appropriate for different people, relationships, and circumstances.

If you are struggling to express empathy, your problem might not be that you aren't an empathetic person—it could be that you're accessing a type of empathy that doesn't come naturally to you or that the type of empathy you're expressing isn't appropriate for the situation at hand.

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In our culture, we expect men to be empathetic, but often men have difficulty seeing its value. It's not that they can't learn how to empathize, but it's vital for them first to understand the value of empathy and how it affects their relationships.

A friend shared a social media post last week about how men typically respond to women's emotions. Yep, you guessed it—by trying to fix the problem! Without a doubt, it is the most common response. Most men are bewildered and fail to grasp why a woman would want to TALK about what's bothering them... why not just fix it?

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Without exception and across the globe, people’s lives have been changed by the pandemic and the continuing rebound of families and businesses. And everyone is navigating the dramatic increase in the digital world. Just try to keep teens off of their smartphones! Regardless of the challenge, there is one emotional intelligence skill that can make a difference in all relationships—empathy!

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The adage, “think with your head, not with your heart,” would make you think that emotional empathy (Part I of this series) and cognitive empathy (Part II of this series) cannot coexist. Luckily, that’s not true! When the heart and mind meet in the middle, the third type of empathy comes alive—Compassionate Empathy.

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Welcome to the second part of the in-depth series on the types of empathy. In Part 1, you learned about Emotional Empathy. Now, it’s time to explore Cognitive Empathy. In the next blog, we’ll cover Compassionate Empathy.

To begin, think about all the people in your life. Is there someone you turn to when you need a solution to a problem? Someone who can cut through your emotional mess and help you formulate a plan of action? These go-to problem-solvers often rely on cognitive empathy to make sense of other people’s struggles. 

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“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.” ~Alfred Alder

You may have heard Alder’s description of empathy before, but did you know there are three types of empathy? That’s right! There’s Emotional Empathy, Compassionate Empathy, and Cognitive Empathy, and each one has its uses. This series of posts will explore each type of empathy in depth so you can better recognize and utilize them. Let’s begin with Emotional Empathy.

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