Cognitive: “Simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking.”
Emotional: “When you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious.”
Compassionate: “With this kind of empathy we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed.”
I do not have emotional empathy. I don't feel what other people do. I can see and possibly put into words with someone else is feeling or thinking, I can adopt their perspective. I also feel a need to help, but that's part of my personality type. I'm not very good at knowing if they want help or not, and i'm not good at asking if they do. I also don't physically feel someone else's pain. I awkwardly watch and imitate/mimic so I can "be social correctly", but I have no personal attachment to their dilemma.
differentiating between that and sympathy -
"Dr. Brene Brown’s TED talk on empathy. She explains that sympathy is to see someone in a deep hole, but remaining on higher ground and talking to them from above. The sympathetic person may also try to simply put a silver lining on the other person’s situation instead of acknowledging the person’s pain."
i'm awkward with sympathizing. i'm a good listener, that i know. and i can give advice or some feedback that i feel makes sense based on my knowledge or experiences or things i've read or heard, but then i just go on my way and almost always forget about it. probably why people trust me easily. I'm not one to repeat what they say to someone else.
put myself in someone else's shoes? um.. i don't have much success with trying to put myself in someone else's situation, but I have tried. I just have a hard time imagining me being in the same spot, going through the same thing. (probably because my brain is very literal, and if I don't have their life, and their experiences, then there's no way I can understand anything about what they're going through or what they're feeling.)
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