“It's Been 4 Years And I Still Cry”: 40 Life Events You’ll Never Fully Grasp Until They’re Yours

We asked Dr. Luster about why someone might potentially have trouble empathizing with others. He explained the situation to us, first noting that he was focusing just on empathetic responsivity in neurotypical people: individuals without issues that might otherwise make empathy less accessible.

"Empathy has several aspects to it. The first has something to do with 'lived phenomenology,'" he explained to Bored Panda, meaning an individual who "has lived through something similar may have more 'relatedness' sociologically and psychologically to the person who is perhaps describing an event they went through."

He continued: "This can be seen in some recent research where nurses report high levels of clinical empathy in their day-to-day interactions with patients. Their exposure to a variety of things makes this more feasible and accessible."

According to Dr. Luster, when we see a lack of empathy, it may be due to other factors such as emotional triggers, age, or relationships. "For example, someone on the internet may lack empathy due to any one of these factors and may be more prone to a deficit in empathic feedback to respond more productively," he told Bored Panda.

"In the real world, empathic feedback is necessary for the empathizer to fully relate," Dr. Luster said. He added that, otherwise, the distractions he mentioned earlier may greatly influence how a person responds. "Empathic feedback helps transform information in sensorimotor regions of the brain."

We also asked Dr. Luster about someone 'practicing' to be more empathetic if they feel like they have a hard time connecting with others. He explained that this is directly related to empathizer feedback: "That aspect we require to encode and decode from our environment is needed, and when lacking, makes it harder to empathize."

He suggested that people think of this mechanism as a 'resource box.' "You can add to it! So perhaps a way one can learn to strengthen those areas of sensorimotor conduits is to add to that box by educating themselves on a few things before judging. Many people may work unconsciously off of a confirmation bias based on unbalanced effects."

Dr. Luster gave an example of how this works. "If, for instance, I had trouble empathizing with someone from another religion, another generation, etc., instead of working off of any bias I may have because of bias-based elements I have taken in from my life, I might try learning a bit more about that person, why they believe what they believe, what is it like growing up in their generation, etc.," he said.

"By embracing some cognitive flexibility, and becoming the listener who asks good questions rather than opinionated or judgmental questions, we open the gate to adding to our empathy box. Therapists must practice this ability before ever entering a counseling session. We often do the work on ourselves well before therapy with others so that we are open and allow trust and safety to enhance the sessions for clients. But this is not exclusive to us, and anyone can begin to practice this kind of adaptive flexibility. It's not easy, but with practice, empathy can begin to grow."

Empathy forms the foundation for kindness and understanding. At its core, it’s your ability to imagine someone else’s experiences as if they were your own. Unlike sympathy (responding or reacting to another person’s experiences), empathy is all about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Most of us are hardwired for kindness, but it’s not exactly clear how. WebMD explained that human beings have specialized ‘mirror neurons’ in their brains. They activate when we see and feel emotions. Researchers believe that it’s these neurons that create empathy. However, other scientists think that empathy is purely a construct of our intelligence.

There are two main types of empathy. The first is emotional empathy where we might feel the same things as someone else, feel distressed at what they went through, or feel compassion for them.

Its counterpart is cognitive empathy, wherein we can intellectually understand how someone is feeling. Unlike emotional empathy, cognitive empathy can take time to cultivate and is more of a skill. It centers around learning how to identify emotions and behaviors.

Practice makes perfect. Though many of us are born with a varying capacity for empathy, we can strengthen and hone it like any other skill. If you find yourself less kind, caring, or understanding than you’d ideally like to be, it only makes sense to spend some time working on yourself to improve.

One part of being empathetic is staying curious about the people and world around you. Asking questions, getting to know folks, deepening your relationships with them despite superficial differences—that’s how you gradually improve your empathy.

You can also try doing small acts of kindness for your family, friends, coworkers, and even strangers more frequently. Meanwhile, try to actively put yourself in other people’s shoes in order to connect with their life experiences better. It might be difficult at first, but you’ll eventually turn it into a habit!

What are your thoughts on the topic, dear Pandas? Do you think it’s possible to be empathetic about all possible things even without having experienced them? Or do you think that some events are so fundamentally deep and incomprehensible that even the kindest people in the world might not fully ‘get’ them? Do you consider yourselves empathetic people? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments section, at the bottom of this post.