36,780
edits
Line 27: | Line 27: | ||
Since empathy involves understanding feelings or the capacity to feel the emotional states of other people, the way emotions are characterized in one's personal experience is how the emotions will be characterized for others having similar experiences. The ability to imagine oneself as another person in their position and be able to feel what they may be feeling in those circumstances,(standing in another persons shoes) is a sophisticated imaginative process which develops [[Compassion]]. | Since empathy involves understanding feelings or the capacity to feel the emotional states of other people, the way emotions are characterized in one's personal experience is how the emotions will be characterized for others having similar experiences. The ability to imagine oneself as another person in their position and be able to feel what they may be feeling in those circumstances,(standing in another persons shoes) is a sophisticated imaginative process which develops [[Compassion]]. | ||
Humans seem to make the same immediate connection between the tone of voice and other vocal expressions and inner feeling. Empathy is distinctly different from sympathy, pity, and emotional contagion. Sympathy or empathic concern is the feeling of [[Compassion]] or concern for another, and the wish to see them better off or happier. Pity is feeling that another is in trouble and in need of help as they cannot fix their problems themselves, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob) imitatively "catches" the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognizing this is happening.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy Empathy]</ref> | Humans seem to make the same immediate connection between the tone of voice and other vocal expressions and inner feeling. Empathy is distinctly different from sympathy, pity, and emotional contagion. Sympathy or empathic concern is the feeling of [[Compassion]] or concern for another, and the wish to see them better off or happier. Pity is feeling that another is in trouble and in need of help as they cannot fix their problems themselves, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob, group consciousness) imitatively "catches" the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognizing this is happening. | ||
The goal of spiritual development is to be fully present and aware to emotional states and to choose the emotional states one expresses, in stead of being at the whim of the undisciplined emotional states generating from the [[Pain Body]]. o<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy Empathy]</ref> | |||
==References== | ==References== |