Empathy
The Goal: Empathy means identifying and caring about others. To do this successfully, we need to be tuned into our own emotions, as well. The goal of the activity below is to have an opportunity to notice your own emotions. Most people rarely stop to consider the emotions they are experiencing, except when those emotions become intense. This is a self-empathy check-in.
Skills
Step 1: Choose a two-day period and stop briefly at identified times of day to notice and note the emotion(s) you are experiencing. Use the chart format below to record the emotion and what you were doing at the time (e.g., eating breakfast alone, reading a book, dealing with a difficult customer).
Self-Empathy Check-In Chart
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time of Day | Emotion Noted | What I Was Doing | Emotion Noted | What I Was Doing |
| 9AM | ||||
| 12PM | ||||
| 3PM | ||||
| 6PM | ||||
| 9PM | ||||
Step 2: Reflect on what you notice about the emotions you wrote down. What patterns do you see? What did it feel like to stop on a schedule to notice what you were feeling? What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about empathy?