How much do you compromise your authenticity in order to protect feelings? And on the other side, do you want true feedback and to be given the benefit of the doubt that you want and can handle truth? Cognitive Empathy is about trying to understand feelings, not to change or protect the feelings of others.
So yeah, I’m talking about the form of empathy I write about in my book and Marshall Rosenberg writes about. It’s based on cognitive empathy.
“Hey I enjoy the connection of eating with you and at the same time, I’m noticing the sounds of you chewing. I see your mouth open as you eat and it’s disgusting for me. I am having a hard time enjoying my meal and wondering if you would be up for working on that?”
“You say you know what empathy is but you say asshole stuff like this?”
Is there an effective way to authentically inform another person that their behavior is annoying for you without saying something they may choose to take offense at?
I can think of quite a few snarky or snarky-seeming ways to reply to this person who chose to be offended, rather than really listen, understand, and observe their own behavior. How about you?
If we were to stay in empathy, we could say something like:
“Was it painful to hear that the way you eat may bring discomfort to others?”
Here’s a chart I made to show some of the pros and cons of the most common ways to deal with potentially inflammatory situations:
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