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How Does Empathy Improve the Communication Process

by Danielle Wright

When it comes to relationships, the smallest grievances can be resolved with communication.

Unfortunately, many people correlate communication with weakness, vulnerability, and, in some cases, accountability. However, the truth is that people with good communication skills often last the longest in relationships.


Recently, I came across a video of a young woman stating that women who have a lot of friends or are always around people can only experience that because all the people they are around are disingenuous, including themselves. However, I don’t believe that to be true. For the longest time, many men have questioned why most women are unable to keep their female friends. The answer is that she is most likely not a good person or a bad communicator.


Many women, although natural nurturers, are not always the kindest or sweetest towards people they deem as strangers. Women are kindest to their family members, children, and romantic partners. Friendships are not the first on their list. Good communicators can see beyond relationships and titles; they see people as people.


Empathy allows us to put ourselves in someone else’s position and feel what they are feeling. In the case of a man who is financially unstable and a woman unable to understand that, due to social media, everyone believes that earning six figures is now effortless. Also, that all men, upon first laying eyes on a woman, should immediately begin financially investing in her. None of that should be standard, and yet, it’s slowly creeping its way onto a list that the very person with the list cannot sustain themselves. All in all, if women lack empathy for others, then they will never be seen as good communicators.


Let’s put aside relationships and titles; let’s focus on a person and the fact that they have feelings and they're human. Can you see that that person may need some kindness in their life? Someone to smile at them? Someone to hold their hand and uplift or encourage them? Empathy allows us to show compassion for people, not relationships.


When you take accountability by placing yourself in the shoes of another person, you can connect with them spiritually. That spiritual connection enables us to extend grace to people, not relationships. I keep fixating on that because, as women, as I’ve previously stated, our goal is to fix relationships we have with people versus fixing ourselves to have better encounters with people who are just people.


Most of the problems we experience in our lives are caused by us. If you find that you're lonely and cannot seem to meet anyone to share your life or good news with, then it’s safe to say that you're the problem. Maybe you lack empathy for others because no one shows empathy to you, and that is completely normal.


Your feelings are normal. But that is not an excuse to demonize other people whom we see experience success in their relationships, as we do not know what their personality is like, or that of the people around them. Misery loves company, and I was able to deduce that the young lady to whom I mentioned earlier was just grappling with the fact that she is lonely and does not possess a group of friends. She could very well be the problem and the cause of her own unsatisfying lifestyle. Her life choices have led her to the position she is in today.


WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

Having empathy for others does not mean that you should turn a blind eye and allow people to mistreat you, abuse you, use you, or aggravate you. It just means that you should take a moment to recenter and focus on what makes you human and that of others. We all make mistakes, and most of the time when we choose to walk away from someone or something, it’s met with disagreements and outlandish behaviors.


But if we, for a moment, realize that a person’s actions towards us aren’t always about us and that person may just be experiencing something that is not within their control, then that empathy we extend towards them can either allow for a mutual split or a conversation that leads to a more developed and happier relationship.


STANDARDS AND BOUNDARIES

Setting standards and having healthy boundaries is not parallel to spending the rest of your life alone. I know many have stated this, saying that when you have standards and boundaries, then you’re going to be alone with cats. I think this is a foolish statement to make because it only encourages people to want to lack the above to maintain a toxic social life or relationship. Having healthy boundaries looks like having empathy towards others and improving your communication so as not to create turmoil.


When we end things with a person on a bad note, it becomes harder to let that person go. When you argue with a past boyfriend and you break up, you will spend days, months, and even years ruminating on the argument and the person—even if the person was bad for you. Next thing you know you start to miss them. But it’s not them you miss; it’s the feeling that their presence gave you—that dopamine hit that you’re not able to find elsewhere yet.


Usually, when this happens it's because we’ve inadvertently closed ourselves off from receiving love and happiness elsewhere. We feel like there’s unfinished business. Your mind is now replaying the argument every day, and you’re thinking of new things you could have said or done. Then you’re both at a stalemate because seeking closure is demonized, communicating is demonized, and having empathy or showing emotion is demonized.


Everyone is walking around unhealed and unhealthy and destroying the way we are meant to socialize and grow—stunting our development. Forget about what a self-proclaimed relationship guru told you on TikTok & Instagram and start thinking for yourself and doing what makes you feel good. At the end of the day, you cannot control the actions of others, but empathy, accountability, kindness, confidence, and self-awareness will lead you to building a community that is both healthy and happy.

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