Four Alternatives to Empathy: What to do when you can’t find it

If I can be honest, I get angry. More specifically, people get me angry:

• The person at Costco that leaves their shopping cart in the middle of the aisle
• The person that’s driving and texting
• Everyone else on the road.
• The client that doesn’t know the boundary between what’s professional and what’s not.
• The stranger at the party that doesn’t know the boundary between what’s appropriate and what’s not.
• The family member who makes fun of my faith.
• The friend who always talks about themselves.

The Power of Anger

Let me ask you: Do people ever make you angry too? Do people ever make you want to scream and say things that will make them cry and that you’ll regret later?

Now let me ask you this: Does that anger ever prevent you from living your best life? Has it ever prevented you from:

• building a friendship 
• having a healthy and constructive conversation
• serving someone
• sleeping 
• focusing on your family
• reading
• meditating and praying

It’s said that holding onto anger is drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Anger and resentment, in the end, either hurt us or hurts others. And very rarely, contribute to something good and beautiful.

If you can acknowledge that you get angry at times and that anger doesn’t serve anyone, you might wonder how to get rid of that anger more quickly. If anger holds us back from our full potential and can even hurt us and hurt others, then wouldn’t we all do better with less anger?

The Power of Empathy

In film and television, there are many characters that we initially loathed and came to love or at least pity eventually. We hate them at first, want them to die, and then slowly, as their story unfolds, as we come to understand where they came from and how they got to be who they are, our feelings for them change. We start to realize that:

• The Joker isn’t so much a villainous psychopath but a man ignored and abused by society and broken beyond imagination. 
• Saul from Breaking Bad isn’t just a sleazy lawyer willing to do whatever it takes to make a dime, but a man constantly berated by his brother and always feels like a loser.
• Professor Snape isn’t a slippery, Slytherin, Voldemort snake jerk, but a hurt man that was bullied as a child and loved a woman who loved the bully.

Empathy is a powerful force. It can make the vilest monsters into humans.

The Potential of Empathy

What if with every person that made us angry, every person we disliked and hated, we got to know their story— like the Joker?

Would we not improve our relationships and avoid unnecessary conflict? Would we not be less judgmental and more empathetic in our relationships and interactions with our colleagues, bosses, employees, friends, family, and strangers?

Could empathy be the cure to so many of our interpersonal problems?

And if you think they are, you might be wondering how we can do this as much as possible and as quickly as possible.

Four Alternatives to Empathy

There are at least three ways we can foster empathy in our interactions. We can:

1. Have a genuine conversation (e.g., hey, I noticed you said some things earlier, and I want to clear things up)
2. Remember their story/trauma/baggage (e.g., they recently had a loss in the family)
3. Make up a story (e.g., that person cut me off because they’re having the literal worst day in the world).

But what happens when we can’t do those or are unwilling? Here are a few things we could consider:

1. Their worldview – All of us have a slightly different perception of how the world works and how we should live. When we can accept that there just may be multiple and equal alternatives to living, we can be more forgiving to a person.
2. Their values – Acknowledging that we don’t all share the values can help dissolve anger quickly. E.g. some people and cultures do not live by a clock or calendar like some of us do.
3. Their weaknesses – When we can name a person’s weaknesses and make their offenses normal instead of personal, we can be surprised at how calm we can become. 
4. Their strengths – Every weakness has a strength— every vice a virtue. Think about the strengths, gifts, and virtues this person has in light of the character traits that are making you particularly mad at this moment. Not so mad now, are you?

The Empathetic Enneagram

One of the most significant characteristics of the Enneagram, compared to all other personality frameworks, is that the Enneagram is more than just a bunch of traits. The Enneagram includes a person’s worldview, fears, needs, and weaknesses. And contrary to the common conception that the Enneagram, like other personality frameworks, puts people into boxes, the Enneagram humanizes people. The Enneagram acknowledges that no matter what a person appears to be on the outside, they all have their wounds, unmet needs, and fears. Hence, why many people don’t like and avoid the Enneagram!

By knowing each Enneagram type and its traits, we can accomplish more easily the list above. And by doing that, we can more quickly get to healthy conversations, serve people, sleep, be present with people, and more. 

Whether it is true is not what’s most important at the moment. What’s most important is not harboring resentment and anger. 

Of course, we could just say, “don’t take it personally,” or “just don’t dwell on it,” or, my favorite, “don’t be so sensitive.” If not being angry was that simple, why do we get angry so often then? Anger issues are a different subject and may require the help of a clinical therapist. However, the Enneagram is an incredible, quick, and accessible tool for most of our day-to-day anger and frustrations.

And lastly, dare I say it, we might need to at times ask ourselves how we are wrong. Sometimes we can get angry, and it has nothing to do with the other person at all. Sometimes our anger results from unsaid, unrealistic and/or unagreed upon expectations. Hence, why it’s also important to know our own Enneagram type.

Questions for Reflection and Growth

1. Have you got angry at someone this week? Can you use any of the 4 alternatives to empathy, to foster empathy for this person?
2. Is it possible that your anger is rooted in something unsaid, unrealistic, and/or agreed upon? If so, what were your expectations?
3. Is there anyone in your life today you need to forgive and accept and love for who they are?

If you’d like to have a basic description of each Enneagram Type and its worldview, focus of attention, strengths, weaknesses, fears, and areas of growth, you can grab for free my personally designed Enneagram Summary Sheets right here.