Radical Empathy

Radical empathy is the term I use to remind myself of the skill of employing empathy in the hardest circumstances.

Empathy is about putting ourselves in someone else's shoes and imagining what it is like to be them within their circumstantial context. We may not naturally do this when that 'other' is on opposite sides of an issue from us.

I've been practicing radical empathy at times when I find myself directing energy into making someone an ‘other.’ The times when I feel most opinionated, most entrenched, and most alienated from someone or some group, I try to explain why they are doing what they’re doing. I actually make a game out of it and see it as a badge of honor if I can do a 180 and relate to someone who is holding an attitude or exhibiting a behavior opposite of what I think I would do.

Note: empathizing with why a behavior is happening is very different from condoning a behavior. The insurrectionists on January 6 are a good example. I firmly believe we have to be able to 'go there,' to a place of empathy, in order to do any true healing. If you put yourself in their shoes, with their life context and set of assumptions and beliefs, then you can understand their anger and indignation. I repeat: this doesn't condone their behavior. But it does help us start to see the deeper problem, in this case of a lack of trust in our institutions.

Radical empathy helps us get closer to the root causes of rifts, which usually do stem from disparate sets of assumptions and belief systems. While it's still not easy, at least then we have a starting point for healing the chasm.

Radical empathy is radical because we usually don't want to do it. We have to go out of our way to put ourselves in someone else's shoes who is doing something opposite to what we are inclined to do. But that's exactly what makes it an essential practice for bridging gaps, whether they be in a team decision or in a polarized society.