I was standing in the airplane aisle the other night, grabbing my suitcase from the overhead bin, when a woman ran up behind me, pushed me out of her way, and then ran past me. 

“What the hell, lady?” was the first thought that crossed my mind. Then a sea of negative emotions washed over me – shock, annoyed, pissed. 

Then I looked up and saw what happened next: the woman was bent over two rows ahead of me puking her guts out. 

Empathy then came crashing to my shore. “Oh, you poor thing. Ugh, how awful and embarrassing. I’m a horrible person for thinking bad about you. How can I help?”

Isn’t it amazing how we can feel negativity based on someone else’s behavior, and then just like that – in an instant, with understanding – we can do a 180 on our entire emotional state?

Empathy Can Be Hard to Demonstrate

Now, you’d think that I – a person who’s committed their career to leadership development – would naturally go to empathy first. I mean, I wish I did.  And while I’m hopeful I’d eventually get to empathy from this situation, this experience presented an important reminder:

We never really know what’s going on with the people around us.

And here’s the more difficult truth: we never see the one second later scenario, where we observe the motivation behind their less-than-best behaviors. It could be that they’re airsick.  Or, it could be that they’re spouse is battling cancer, they’re caring for their mom who has dementia, their child has mental health issues, or they’re in the midst of an expensive lawsuit.

We just don’t know. 

And, yes: we’re often innocent bystanders, and sometimes casualties, to a range of disappointing behavior demonstrated by others. Without context and understanding, we can experience anger and frustration when we feel like we’re not being treated fairly in a situation.

All these negative emotions are easy to feel – they’re like the low hanging fruit of emotions. I know. I’ve picked them before. And they can be absolutely delicious if we want more anger, bitterness, and drama in our lives.

Develop Empathy through Awareness, Understanding

But with awareness? Understanding? Suddenly we’re connected as humans. Suddenly we extend grace, dignity, and, ultimately, forgiveness. I don’t know about you, but I want to experience more of these emotions in my life. Empathy truly is the key.

So, here’s where my head is today:

• Don’t trust initial reactions to other people’s poor behavior. Most people are really good and don’t intend to harm us. Often they’re so overwhelmed by their own situation they don’t have the capacity to connect to the world around them. Rather than judge, which is something we all do so quickly and thoughtlessly, seek to be curious and extend grace.
• We can have a rapid change of emotions on any given day – it’s our choice. While we might easily get hijacked by negative emotions, with presence and awareness we can talk ourselves into our better emotions – the ones that bring us happiness and joy. It’s within our power to influence our emotional state.
• Managing our emotions comes with presence. This is a tough one for all of us, but so key: what can we do to offload the busyness and hurriedness in our life to give ourselves more capacity to get to those better emotions, faster? This is something I’m working on right now.

There’s a beautiful word for this type of self-management – equanimity.  It means that we can keep our composure, our mental state, despite what is going on around us.  Here’s to a better future for both you and me as we continue to seek empathy for others and be less hijacked by the emotions that lead us to the places we don’t want to go.