Empathy With Yourself: How To Get In Touch With Yourself

How are you today? How are you feeling right now? Do you need something? What do you long for? Empathy with yourself is an exercise in well-being and mental health that people often tend to neglect. Still, looking into yourself is the first step to empathizing with others. Consequently, it forms the basis of any enriching relationship, both with yourself and other people.

However, people often neglect this ability, even though it is very important. In fact, there is nothing more important than knowing how to understand others, put yourself in their shoes and act accordingly.

However, the best way to be empathetic is to be emotionally self-aware. In addition, only empathetic people are able to recognize their own needs and feelings and respond to those who are able to achieve true happiness.

What does it mean to have empathy with oneself?

Having empathy with yourself is the ability to connect with yourself in a loving and respectful way. In fact, “affection” and “respect” are extremely important here. Even if you are used to talking to yourself and connecting to your inner self, you probably do not always do it properly. People tend to be quite negative about themselves.

To criticize and wear yourself out with that kind of inner dialogue gives more chaos than calm. This is very negative. This lack of self- empathy actually leads to stress and anxiety. As a result, you become one of those who give more to others than you offer yourself.

Although Daniel Goleman did not write about self-empathy in his book Emotional Intelligence , he included the term ” emotional self-awareness “. This means monitoring your inner states, preferences, intuitions, needs, and when and where it occurs.

The keys to developing empathy with oneself

Godfrey T. Barrett-Leonard is a professor of psychology at Murdoch University (Australia). He conducted a study on having empathy with himself. In the study, he explained that the task of every psychotherapist during therapy is to train the patient in this basic and essential ability.

This is because many people spend much of their lives neglecting their emotions. In fact, many people simply become so engrossed in their own surroundings that they forget how to access their own feelings, thoughts and desires. However, restoring empathy with oneself should always be a priority.

How to achieve it.

Observe without judging and take care of yourself

Having empathy with yourself requires that you notice and acknowledge that you are here. You must realize that there is a part of you that suffers, feels sad, gets excited and feels hope. This means that you can observe yourself without judging or criticizing yourself to feel the way you do.

Stop putting yourself last. Take care of yourself in a direct and unbiased way. It gives you the opportunity to make changes. These changes will increase the feeling of well-being.

Talk to yourself as if you were your best friend

If you do not speak respectfully to yourself, then who will? If you can not communicate lovingly with yourself, how can you expect others to do so? Having empathy with yourself requires that you speak to yourself as if you were your best friend.

Emotional self-awareness is nurtured by understanding and the ability to listen and embrace who you are. See yourself as you are and do not be ashamed of who you are.

Forgive yourself today, tomorrow and forever

If it is to be useful, genuine and meaningful to have empathy with yourself, it must not stem from rejection or criticism. For example, are you angry with yourself because you always seem to end up making the same mistakes? Do you feel that you have missed out on important opportunities? Are you dissatisfied with yourself for not being brave enough to do certain things?

These feelings stop you from exercising a healthy and restorative empathy with yourself. Therefore, you must forgive yourself. You deserve it. Forgive yourself for your mistakes, because you lacked experience. Forgive yourself for letting people hurt you, because you did not have a crystal ball to know it was going to happen.

Give yourself the forgiveness you deserve. Then you can heal and feel with yourself as you should.

Life is a challenge

Anger, rage, fear, disappointment, anxiety, worry… life will always be a challenge and it will always put you to the test. When things go wrong, it is normal to experience complicated emotions. But if you neglect your inner self and ignore what you feel, think, need and care about, you will feel helpless, lose control and become stressed and anxious.

Having empathy for yourself means enduring all the turbulent emotions you sometimes experience. In fact, accepting what you feel and giving yourself the love you need is the ideal way to initiate change. Then you can go from instability and turbulence to balance and calm.

Alfred Adler said that empathy is the ability to see through the eyes of others, listen with some other ears and feel with another heart. Remember, however, that you cannot achieve this properly unless you first get to know yourself, listen to yourself, and fill your heart with love for yourself.