Page 41 - Effective communication Skills by Dale King

how to empathize with yourself. The first step in learning empathy is to learn

to accept and understand your own emotions. Having this ability is essential
for having a healthy life, and it creates a foundation for empathizing with
others.

While this may come off as touchy-feely, it is important and practical.
Learning how to empathize with yourself means that you know how to accept
and understand the things that you feel and why you feel them.

If you find that you are angry, you should recognize “I feel angry” and then
understand the reasons for that anger. You should feel fine with feeling that

emotion, and not try to stifle or ignore them.

Basically, if something horrible happens to you, you should be allowed to
feel upset about it. You have to give yourself permission to feel sad. For
some reason, people have this idea that we must all act happy at all times, or
that their problems aren’t as important as things that other people are going
through, so you end up feeling selfish when upset or sad.

This isn’t true, though. Your problems are important because you are

important. If something happens to you that makes you feel sad or hurt, then
express those feelings and allow yourself to feel as such. You should never
keep these feelings all bottled up.

Of course, it is also important to improve your situation in order to get rid of
whatever it is that is causing you to feel sad. You can feel sad if need be, but
you shouldn’t have to stay sad.

And while everybody will get mad from time to time, if it feels as if you are
angry or sad all the time, you may want to think about talking to somebody

about it. A doctor is able to heal physical ailments, so a counselor can help
you to heal emotional ailments, and you should never feel shame for having
to ask for help.

This is true for more than just understanding emotions, as well. The point is
though; you have to give yourself permission to experience all of the feelings
that you may experience. When something bad happens, feel sad. You should
also feel comfortable letting your family and friends know how you are

feeling, even if it isn’t a positive feeling, or even if you aren’t sure why you
feel the way you do. Fundamentally, you need to be able to accept that your
emotions are simply a part of who you are, and just like you have to accept