In Nonviolent Communication, when we teach empathy, we often begin with the phrase: “Are you feeling (insert feeling guess) because you’re needing (insert need guess)?” Students of NVC know this sentence is simply a starting point — a way to begin offering empathy that can later become more natural and personal.
What concerns me, however, is that some students may come to believe the formula itself *is* empathy. It is not.
So what *is* empathy?
Wikipedia defines empathy as the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings — to “put oneself in another’s shoes.” Scientists have spent decades studying empathy in humans and primates. In the early 1990s, Italian neuroscientists identified what became known as “mirror neurons” in primates. When researchers monitored the motor cortexes of rhesus monkeys, they discovered that the same neural pathways activated both when a monkey performed an action and when it observed another doing the same action.
Similar findings were later observed in humans. In one experiment, when a person’s finger was pricked, areas of the brain associated with pain also activated in someone nearby observing the event — almost as if their own finger had been pricked.
Empathy, then, appears to be a natural human response to another’s suffering. We are biologically wired to resonate with one another, to feel echoes of what another person is feeling.
The implications of these discoveries are profound. At some level, the brain does not fully distinguish between self and other. Spiritual teachers and mystics throughout history have long spoken about this interconnectedness, and modern science is beginning to illuminate what they intuited centuries ago. As Thich Nhat Hanh said, “We inter-are.”
If empathy is our natural state, why is it sometimes so difficult?
Perhaps we fear that another person’s suffering will become our own. To protect ourselves, we may fall into habitual reactions: fixing, advising, denying, minimizing, or avoiding. If I truly allow myself to feel your pain, I may also have to face my own — and that can feel frightening. Some spiritual traditions would say the ego steps in, disrupting our natural openness and connection.
And yet our bodies remain hard-wired for compassion. We can see this in young children, who often experience little separation between themselves and others.
So how do we return to this natural state of connection?
After many years of teaching and practicing empathy formulas, I’ve found that authentic empathy arises only when I am fully present — with the other person and with myself. It means listening without trying to fix, without agreeing or disagreeing, and without needing to protect myself from discomfort.
Meditation has been a tremendous support in this process. Focusing on the breath, becoming still, and letting go of habitual reactions helps me reconnect with a quieter, more spacious presence. It is comforting to realize that I do not have to *make* empathy happen. I only need to move out of the way enough to let it flow naturally.
One day, while sharing emotional pain with a friend, she simply looked me in the eyes, placed her hand over her heart, took a deep breath, and said, “Ahhhhh.”
It was some of the deepest empathy I have ever received.
There were no solutions, interpretations, or carefully chosen words — only heartfelt presence. In that moment, I felt completely accompanied.
I’m reminded of the Buddhist saying: “Don’t just do something, be there.”
Over time, I’ve come to understand empathy not as a technique, but as a state of presence — a quiet connection to our own inner source, our natural flow of compassion and aliveness. It does not always require words. Sometimes empathy is simply the willingness to witness another person with an open heart.