The Empathy Trap: When Good Intentions Hurt Communication
Feeling Other People’s Feelings? Read This Before You Ruin a Relationship
One of the most narcissistic* people I’ve known took the Strengthsfinder test and got a low score on empathy. “That’s wrong,” she said. “I feel other people’s feelings all the time. They’re always ruining my mood.” (Bear in mind this was a strengths test).
Like most people I’ve met who describe themselves as empaths or highly sensitive (myself included, before I learned what I’m sharing here), she made a mistake in how she reads people. If you, too, tend to find yourself overwhelmed by how you feel others’ energy, the good news is that there’s a relatively easy way to stop that—and it doesn’t make you any less empathetic (if that’s something you want to be).
The mistake people make is to perceive others’ moods, actions, words, and so on and then attach their own meaning to them before asking any questions. It’s like reading a text in a bad mood and assuming the sender is annoyed with you when really, they were just busy. It’s a form of projection with some potentially extremely frustrating results. Projection turns well-meaning attempts to read another person and improve a relationship into a situation where the other person feels constantly (and often incorrectly) judged for existing. If you’re highly sensitive and have been told people feel like they need to walk on eggshells around you, you might be doing a little too much projection in your relationship-building.
This is how I’ve seen this play out in academic working environments: A grad student is overwhelmed by the combination of work, study, and family life. They start to appear less enthusiastic when talking about their work in lab meetings. The highly sensitive advisor picks up on the loss of enthusiasm and decides that the student is losing interest in the project and isn’t dedicated enough. Then, projecting this feeling of disinterest onto the student, the advisor starts to tell the student s/he doesn’t think they’re committed to the project, that they need to be 100% dedicated to succeed, that maybe they’d be a better fit for a different career path or lab. They might also add extra responsibilities and work to the grad student’s already long to-do list in an attempt to get them refocused and passionate about their work… but this just adds more stress. The student never lost interest, they just needed some help balancing things a little better… but with the advisor’s response and additional work, they actually do start losing some enthusiasm, their confidence starts dropping, and they’re spending all their time trying to fix a problem that only ever existed in the advisor’s mind until they projected it into reality.
Don’t want this situation?
As soon as you notice that you’re picking up on someone else’s mood and it seems to be negative, make a note of that and then push it to the side. Try not to ascribe any reason to it, and definitely recognize it as something that is separate from you. I have a somewhat complicated relationship with the word ‘boundaries’ in the context that many people use it (usually, it gets thrown around in ways that feel vague or overly rigid), but in this type of situation, it’s definitely appropriate to think about it as setting a boundary—a line that separates “my feelings” from “feelings I’m picking up from others”. Doing this will prevent you from uttering a phrase that I promise will do more harm than good every time… “You’re making me feel like you think xzy.” Nobody wants to hear that. You will almost certainly be wrong, and the other person will feel judged, not understood. I know your goal is to be helpful, so this isn’t what you want!
Before jumping in with your interpretation, ask yourself: Do I know this, or am I guessing?
Think about some questions you can ask the person about how they’re feeling. Forget about how their mood is affecting you. Focus on them. Ask the questions that fill in the blanks you have so that you can connect how the person is presenting with how they actually feel and why they feel it, not why you think they feel it. Once you have this understanding, while still maintaining that boundary between “my feelings” and “their feelings” so you’re not letting someone else’s negative feelings ruin your day, you can practice actual empathy with sufficient information that allows you to be helpful and not a frustration that adds to whatever they’re experiencing.
TLDR: Notice someone’s mood, ask questions to understand the reasoning, and then be empathetic. Do not notice the mood, think you’re being empathetic by imagining what they feel, and then tell them how they’re coming across as if it’s fact. The first one is a relationship-builder. The second will damage trust.
In the example I used above, if the advisor had asked the student if anything was affecting how they show up in lab meetings, they might have found out that the meetings are very close to the time the student has to drop his kids off at school before work and he’s always feeling rushed to get his presentation together, for example. The advisor could have helped the student organize focused time the day before meetings so that he could focus on getting his materials together without being disturbed by anyone.
Most conflict comes from poor communication. When highly sensitive people rely on assumptions instead of asking questions, they can bulldoze relationships… all with the best intentions in the world.
Ask first. Project less. It helps more than you think.
*That’s a description, not a diagnosis or criticism. The internet has somewhat ruined this word. She’s narcissistic, probably not a narcissist. I like her.