An Inclusive Approach To Embrace Our Shared Human Inner Values.
EMPATHY CONCERN
You have to really see the person, pay attention. If you see the person then naturally empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises and if that person is in dire need then empathic concern can come.
"You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act”- Daniel Goleman.
How do you feel when you see a very close friend, family member or your pet having feelings such as sadness, rejection, hurt or pain. You straight away leap forward to help them because you can empathize with them. This concern can be extended to the entire mankind. All of us are aware of the saying’ walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ this saying summarizes empathic concern.
When you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes it means you are paying attention and trying to feel how the other person feels. For a moment you make that pain and hurt your own. And from it automatically a concern to end the suffering of the other person arises. This is not just a human concern but scientific studies have proved that empathic concern is abundantly see in other mammalian species and it extend beyond the limitation of one’s own species. If a dog can empathize with the pain of a horse, why can humans not extend this concern to all humanity?
Empathic concern is the foundation of Compassionate acts and building a good life for oneself and others too.
If you would like to know more about empathic concern please read below
Empathetic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like.
Empathetic concern is often and wrongly confused with empathy. To empathize is to respond to another's perceived emotional state by experiencing feeling of a similar sort. Empathic concern or sympathy not only include empathizing, but also entails having a positive regard or a non-fleeting concern for the other person.
Empathetic concern is like an activating agent in a chemical process. Its presence or absence makes or breaks interactions.
Ann Flanagan Petry (Positive Organizational Development Consultant, coach and author)
Empathic concern is a constellation of emotions—sympathy, compassion, tenderness, and soft-heartedness—felt for another in need. The key word is ‘for’. Empathic concern is not feeling with a person (although sharing another’s feelings can promote empathic concern); nor is it being distressed by a person (as when a baby’s crying distresses a caregiver), or sharing the distress of another (as in emotion matching or catching). Rather, empathic concern involves warm emotional responses such as sympathy and compassion, often accompanied by sadness and distress, for another person. These emotions are elicited by, and oriented toward, the perceived needs of another person. One experiences empathic concern for another because this person’s well-being seems threatened (Batson, 2011aBatson, C. D. (2011a). Altruism in Humans. New York, NY:Oxford University Press.
BRIAN N. FRY (AUTHOR) AND JASON D. RUNYAN (ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AT INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY)