Empathy is the experience of understanding another person's viewpoint by placing yourselves in their boots. It helps us understand the feelings of the other person. This allows us to see their pain and hopefully compel us to lend a helping hand. There are various empathetic skills we can learn to help us improve.
The attitude of an empathetic person is a state of mind. Make sure you don't judge people instantly, thinking that you've understood that person completely. Give your biases the benefit of the doubt. What they are showing to the outside world is just a mask. Make sure to always keep that in mind. Don't go with what you see. Keep an open mind. See people in new lights than what they appear to be. Listen to the impulses and opinions you make and question them for the base reason. Cut down on the internal monologue as much as possible.
Indulge in people as much as you indulge in yourself. For example, when we make a mistake, we tend to come up with reasons like "I couldn't help it", "Circumstances made me do it", but when someone else does something similar, we take it as a character flaw. Thus next time, before you judge someone, take a second, and give them the benefit of the doubt. The quality of self-love decides how well you can adopt such an attitude of an empath. If you usually feel superior to people, most likely the empathy you are feeling is shallow.
Empathy is mostly instinctual. It is a tool that helps us understand the mood of people through their facial expressions, their eyes, their tone, their posture etc. But we must keep in mind people are not always in sync with their tone and posture. Do not try to understand people's logic. Humans are emotional creatures. There's always emotion behind every one of our intentions. Our mirror neurons are usually the ones helping us understand people better, and thus empathy is seen more with those who are excellent mimics. The reason is that people crave emotional rapport. When you mirror them subtly, you create a hypnotic effect and this appeals to their narcissism.
We create images of people in our head through our first impressions of them when we meet them for the first time. This image gets updated the more we interact with them and get to know them better. We also project certain qualities onto someone based on our upbringings. For example, a woman may find a crying man to be sensitive and be attracted to him, whereas another woman may find it repulsive. Thus to know someone better, we must also know ourselves better. The best way to get to know someone better is to ask questions. You can also try to understand them emotionally through the various interactions. But be careful as complete narcissists can stimulate your desire to get closer and yet keep you at an arm's distance which will drive people crazy
Thus we can see that empathy is almost invaluable as a tool, but can also do more harm than good. We have to have full conscious control over the empathy we feel for someone. It can be compared to money. We need to budget our spending so that we don't end up on the streets. A smart approach is required for empathy as well. The good and bad are two sides of the same coin. Empathy can be used for some really good work, but at the same time, it can also make you really stupid. You need to develop the intelligence to know the difference.
"You should be suspicious of anyone who wants to change others without changing themselves. Evil is within you because you are not all you could be. The line between good and evil runs down the middle of the human heart."-Jordan Peterson. Sometimes, when it comes to empathy, it's better to use the head and not the heart. Being empathetic as long as giving someone something doesn't make us sacrifice something we cannot live without. Do the right amount of help, else people will just end up taking advantage of you. We must consider the long term effects of our actions. Control empathy and not the other way around.
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