How to build emotional intelligence/empathy?

I'm going to go out on a whim and ask how one builds emotional intelligence and empathy?

I've stated in a number of threads that I struggle when it comes to empathizing with other people. I have low emotional intelligence (EQ) despite having a high IQ. I am a logical person who is good with computers and technical things, yet I suck at understanding people.

I am desensitized to feeling a lot of emotions for most people at this point due to the amount of emotional trauma and neglect that I've been through. I am naturally a cold person who struggles to connect with people. Because of my lack of emotional empathy for people, there have been times that I've noticed where I've upset people without knowing how I did so or why they're upset. I get frustrated with people easily if I feel like they aren't listening to me or they are slow at understanding me. If somebody is rude to me for any reason, I assume they want to start conflict with me and I feel like beating them up like they are an object that I'm trying to repair.

In person, I am generally quiet and stoic around other people. I wear all black and often times feel like I intimidate other people without meaning to. I almost never smile because I'm almost never happy. I might fake a smile in a professional setting but doing so takes a lot of energy out of me. I mostly have a serious look on my face the vast majority of the time because it is easier to not putting any effort at maintaining facial expressions than faking emotions that I lost the ability to feel.

I wouldn't mind learning how to feel certain things for other people again. I don't particularly want to be like I am now, despite it being advantageous in a business setting. At one point, I was an emotionally sensitive person. Being more in tune with people's feelings would be nice.

I just don't know how.

I'm guessing you've taken an EQ test to know your EQ is low?

You actually come across as very insightful in your posts and your 3rd paragraph reveals a deep insight into yourself. I think many people with low EQ do not have the insight into their own behaviours so you have a head start there. I would suggest that when you find yourself acting on your frustrations you stop yourself and try to imagine the situation from the others perspective. Empathy is mainly understanding the other persons view point, being in their shoes, in fact it is quite a logical process in that way.

It's interesting you say you used to be more sensitive, it sounds like you made a choice (albeit maybe unconscious one) to switch off that side to protect yourself. So you are not starting from nothing, you are reconnecting with another part of yourself.

Well, first, you have to open up and make connections with people. How that is done is beyond me. Making connections is a foreign concept in my book.

"Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capability of individuals to recognize their own and other people's emotions, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one's goal(s)."

We first learn this as babies/toddlers, taught by our families. Some folks don't get taught this correctly and go awry right from the start.

Some people have processing disorders, and that is where this goes wrong for them.

Then others, like me, have emotional disorders, and I go wrong only in the last part, about how to regulate emotions to adapt or achieve goals.

From what you have said, Darkness, it sounds like you are injured from abuse and closed yourself off. You sound severely depressed. Have you tried an antidepressant? If you were once a smiling person, but now never smile, something happened to you that changed you.

After what I've had to deal with in the past regarding having a bunch of medicine shoved down my throat that I didn't need as a method of abuse, I refuse to ever take a psychiatric drug ever again because I don't trust them. In fact, I consider them all a scam not that much different from the placebo effect.

I've tried so hard to imagine things from other people's perspectives. When somebody annoys, upsets, or triggers me, it is borderline impossible for me to see past my own hurt and frustrations. I've tried mindfulness in the past among other things, but nothing seems to ever work for me.

Me being like this might be the primary reason why I feel like I'm not worth being loved or cared about. People want somebody who they can connect with and can empathize with. If I can't connect with people emotionally, why would somebody ever care about me when there are probably 10 times the people in this world who have empathy? How can I compete without resorting to lies and fabrications to lure people in? I can't be genuine without scaring people do to my lack of empathy. Somebody could be talking about something that might make most people upset, such as a starving child, for example. Yet my usual response to a topic like that would be on along the lines of "ya whatever" and I'm pretty sure that I scare people because I'm like that.

Maybe I should start learning how to apply masks to my daily routine like the sociopaths and narcissists of the world? I don't know how I can possibly change and connect with people at this point or if I am even capable of doing so.

To build emotional intelligence and empathy, spend time helping, and listening to, those who are less fortunate and/or marginalized.

https://www.greatschools.org/gk/arti...mpathy-skills/

I found this and had so much empathy, I copy/pasted it for you.

((((Hugs))))) Empathy comes from being able to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes, feeling what they are feeling and experiencing what they are. This takes practice, but it can be developed. I agree that you have shown a lot of insight into yourself and it's very admirable that you wish to make some changes. It does seem like you shut down emotionally to protect yourself, which is a natural defense mechanism to past abuse. Opening yourself up to feeling again is making yourself more vulnerable again, but it's possible to be empathetic while also protecting yourself emotionally. You can try to just understand how a person is feeling and show them that you are sympathetic.... words like "I understand how you feel" or "I get it", and "I hear you" are indicative of hearing the person and showing your empathy. Practice practice practice.... it'll come if you work at it. (((((hugs again)))))

What you say makes sense. I just don't know if I'm ready to be vulnerable. I still have trouble dealing with being hurt and rejected by people. When somebody hurts or rejects me in any way, I get angry and feel like lashing out. Something as simple as seeing a girl that I like with other guys, somebody criticizing me without knowing or understanding me, or somebody not responding to me when I talk to them, are examples of the small stuff that tends to set me off.

It is too overwhelming for me to deal with this on my own right now. I probably shouldn't have made this thread because it might be years before I'm ready to heed some of the advice provided to me here. I can't deal with such strong feelings in the moment when something comes up so I avoid situations that would trigger me, even if it means isolating myself from other people.

I might just have to continue committing to starting my online business and making really good money so that I can use money and power to hide how emotionally fragile and insecure that I am. Doing so seems better than risking being hurt any further by other people or hurting others because I am triggered from something that I shouldn't be triggered from. Doing this seems better than being alone anyways.

Did you say that you are in therapy? This is something you can work on with a therapist. If it's too overwhelming, then do what you need to do right now to take care of YOU. I understand how you feel about being sensitive to rejection, criticism and hurt. I am similar in that way and am very sensitive as well. This you can also work on with a therapist, to develop a thicker skin around others' painful or hurtful comments or actions. These things we need to let slide over us and not take them inwardly so that we're feeling bad. Words can be like daggers, but only if we allow them to be. People can be hurtful, and sometimes without even intending to be. Have compassion when this happens. They may be hurting too and lashing out. You never know where a person is coming from or what may be going on for them in their own lives. And rejection is hard to take all around, but I try not to take rejection personally. That is also about developing a thicker skin and self-love. You're terrific just as you are, and if some don't see that, so be it. Their loss. I hope you find a sense of peace around this for yourself. Sounds like self care is necessary, so do what you need to do in order to look after yourself. (((((hugs))))))

Wow Darkness....sounds a lot like I was. Growing up my dad's behavior very much indicated that he had ASD. he had no idea how to emotionally or socially connect with anyone. My mom was good with that & in her low self-esteem, she didn't connect with anyone either. My parents had no friends.

I always thought something was missing with me when I saw all the other kids around me in school connecting with each other but I had no idea what IT was that was missing. I think I sort of had the capability but having no idea what or how to make it happen & I only connected with one good friend growing up.....so I knew a little about connecting with her.

In college, I was focused on degrees & practicing my flute so really never connected with anyone not even guys I dated because there were none I was really interested in in that way.

Ended up getting married to a guy who go figure, looking back at his behaviors & inability to connect emotionally or socially showed the same ASD characteristics & behaviors as my dad.

In my computer engineering career working with all guys mostly, I felt the need to keep a professional distance so.

With our daughter I thought I just didn't have normal motherly instinct. I was much better connecting with her as she got older because that was logical (oh my, a female Spock)

Fast forward from there to 10 years ago after 54 years of living like that & yes, when someone screwed up & made my life difficult it was war.....I left that whole environment & moved to a small town 2100 miles away. A chance to start my life over after a totally bad marriage for 33 yeArs & 21 years of living on a home I now know well enough to saw was emotionally neglectfull even if it wasn't their fault.

It was a slow start but I made friends that first year & continually have made more. I find that when I do first meet people I keep a distance until I know them. This community is full of loving & caring people who connect with others around them. By doing things with them & feeling their connection it was easy to connect back when I felt safe with them. It was a serious learning curve & I felt like I could trust these people well enough to feel safe connecting & caring back to them the way they cared about me. I actually remember one time here even with my special dog, we were laying on my bed & I remember thinking wow, this is what LOVE & caring really feels like & that same type of feeling connection I started to experience with the people I had become close friends with here. A feeling with people I had never experienced before.

It is definitely possible to develop emotional connection but honestly is the people around you aren't connecting emotionally it's impossible for you to do all the connecting. It is a 2 way street.

I always stopped to help people along the road or help people who needed help without having any emotional connection because I wanted to make sure they were ok & knew I was capable of doing that & I was good at listening to most people, analyzing the situation & offering a solution....that is not emotional connection. I also have more compassion than empathy because I don't feel what they feel but I understand how they are feeling. Had the abilityntonturn it on & off depending on the situation but it was tied mostly to my logical mind.

If its reallybsometiphing you want to develop, I strongly suggest surrounding yourself with truly caring people cause I'm guessing that you have never been around that kind of people if you life has been similar to mine.....once you learn how it's easier to feel that way toward others but I still feel a distance until I start to feel a connection from them but I'm open to feeling it where I never was before. I built walls

About psych meds. I had such horrible reactions to every med I took I realized they would kill me before they ever helped. I quit psych meds years ago. Only reason I was drugged out on Seroquel after a trauma I went through was because I couldn't sleep with all the nightmares. Time has healed.....I quit that med as soon as I moved away & the nightmares quit with the move also.

I haven't read the previous posts, forgive me, I wanted to ask how you are around, or how you view animals.

This may seem unrelated, I can assure you it isn't. I am not being flippant it's a genuine query.

(I will go back and read through the post, just wanted to ask before I forgot....awful awful memory. Sorry.)

As the others have said it is possible to learn empathy and it takes time. You seem to put a lot of thought into your posts. My feeling is that you do have some empathy but don't know how to express it. Keep up the good work.

I like animals a lot more than people. I consider dogs to be the only beings capable of loving a human unconditionally and I have a soft spot for cats.

In fact, when I had to give up my last cat because I had just moved out on my own and I was unable to afford to take care of her, I cried myself to sleep a few nights in a row.

Does that answer your question?

Idk how to advise you to build/improve those things but the fact that you do have EI/Empathy at some level is reflected in your posts. Your response about animals is just further evidence that you do have it. I think you're just tired of being hurt and rejected. I saw another post of yours where you came up with some solutions to some of the challenges facing you. Your posts show you growing and developing. That's great. You'll get there. I believe in you.

Thanks. It just takes so long to build these things and doing so is so overwhelming when I have so much else going on, you know?

It seems like about the only type of people that I mix with are other outcasts like myself. For example, I have a couple of acquaintances that I've met at school that are rather over the top:

One is this dude who makes his own death metal and is this anarchist who thinks that the government is plotting against him. He was in my government class and almost got in trouble for talking about the Illuminati and how they really run the government. The professor was all like "hey kid in the Disturbed shirt, what is an authoritarianism?" and he was all like "a government like the one we have now that wants to control everybody". If nothing else, he makes for some interesting conversation.

Another example is this dude who used to live in California as a medical cannabis dealer. He wants to learn web development because he thinks that cannabis should be legal everywhere and he wants to make web sites for activists who are trying to legalize it and he wants to work for a company that is into cannabis legalization to help them promote themselves via the internet.

I always have had a tendency to attract outcast type people in my life. I've been friends with a girl who is a self proclaimed vampire who likes to suck people's blood, a self proclaimed ninja who hides ninja weapons in his car and place to use against people who try to rob or harm him and wants to move to Japan to train in Ninjutsu, a guy who wants to be a professional race car driver and has an obsession with classy mafia type people and drives a Mercades, and a hacker who admitted to using a hack to cause a bully from his high school to catch their computer on fire and burn down most of his house.

Maybe one day, I will improve my ability to connect with people emotionally and find a girl that could love me for who I am. I just don't see that happening any time soon.

I guess I am an outcast at all and I should just mingle with my own kind.

I relate to some of the things you say about yourself, and on a regular basis I have the experience of not understanding why something bothers someone or not relating to their feelings. I have fairly low empathy levels, though not sociopathic and I don't have Aspergers or anything like that. I know I can feel empathy, but I feel it most of the time for people I don't know vs people standing in front of me who are telling me something sad or people I know who are going through something.

Like, one of my co-workers has been diagnosed with cancer and has been off work for 2 or 3 weeks now--I'm losing track--and she does all the customer service-type stuff that neither me nor my other co-worker want to do. And my predominant emotion/thought process is just irritation that I'm having to deal with these damn customers and just wanting her to come back and do this crap. Honestly, I think my other co-worker feels the same way (because I heard him mumble one day that he can't wait for our co-worker to come back while he was doing one of her unpleasant tasks), and I have long suspected he and I have some similar issues, which I think are common in people in our fields (i.e. we're both tech-y/tech geek types). I was probably disappointed and upset for a good hour this morning when/after I pulled into the parking lot and saw her car wasn't there because I was hoping to not have to deal with people. But I can be watching an E:60 story on ESPN about someone I don't know and will never know who has cancer, and they're telling this person's story and about some sports team that did XYZ for this cancer patient who is a big fan, and I will start crying. It's so weird, lol.

I guess, for me, in general I just feel like most people don't deserve my empathy. It's like what I just wrote on another thread in this section about having a "treat others the way you get treated" mindset, and like you've said about things that have happened to you and how it has affected you. The way others have treated me throughout life--and I was a very sensitive person when I was younger--just makes me feel like why should I care about other people when no one outside of my family has ever seemed to care about me (and only certain members of my family, not all). I don't care about animals, either, so I don't know what that other person's theory was when he/she responded to you--I don't think people should hurt them, but I also don't like them (except for thinking Canadian geese are intriguing) and animal lovers tend to irritate me. I love babies, even though I don't want any--I probably have the most feeling for babies.

On the point I mentioned about not understanding/relating to how other people feel a lot of the time...for years now, I have learned a ton about people through Google. I just think of questions I have about people, different social situations, feelings, psychological/emotional issues, etc, and just google them. I literally type in "why does [X] bother people?" and end up going to different articles, blog posts, and forums/message boards to read what people say about these questions. I can't say I can put myself in people's shoes after I do that, but at least I can start to get the logic of it or have that knowledge to help me know what to expect next time/know not to do/say something. Basically, it's understanding on an intellectual level, if not emotional.

What is the reason you want to build emotional intelligence and empathy?

it's interesting looking back on the past 10 years that have just seemed to fly by....working on those changes in my life noticeably after 2010, it's like looking at myself & realizing wow, where did that come from. That long time it takes flies by especially when you have so much going on in your life. It grows almost unnoticed then wham, you realize just how far you have come looking back. Little kids don't think how hard it is & how long it takes to learn to walk....they just do it.

Because I want to improve the quality of my interpersonal relations with other people and possibly my own quality of life.

The thing is, from what I know you, you're between 2 seats - one is being an entrepreneur above all, and one is a need to feel belonging.
They are all important, but no matter the emotional intelligence, the interactions will differ.

To feel belonging requires acceptance of weakness and strengths and being happy just from being with that person. The more mutual it is, the longer it will hold. Shared activities are a bonus from this point. It could be eating together, playing video games together. Heck, it could even be opening a business together though you'll probably need a high and mutual level of trust to do that.

To be an entrepreneur is different. It requires you to successfully interact with people so that those interactions will serve your interests. But serving your interests is not enough. You need to show your customers an interest and convince them to take it, believing it will serve them well.
For example, I met an entrepreneur who's opened an house-cleaning company and is currently the sole worker. He told me he's implementing on hiring young people, for a salary above minimum. If I were a teen I would gladly go for that work, as it's quite a win when it comes to general workplaces, which are almost always minimum-waged.

That is some of my intelligence.

You're right. Currently, my entrepreneurial goals are my main focus in life. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't be allowed to have friends too.

Besides, emotional intelligence is good for business relationships as well as personal ones, so I don't see why I should have to pick one life over the other entirely. Yes, I would have to act differently around different people, but that's what I've always done to begin with.

True. However the life of an entrepreneur, at least in the beginning, are very busy, and can occupy the mind enough to keep you away from most relationships.
Though it may depend on what kind of personal relationships you're seeking. I personally am in contact with various people. I hardly constantly talk to people, but I consider most of them my friends, since we're overall friendly together.
How about befriending businessmen/women?
I befriended an entrepreneur. It's not like we meet every weekend for beer or bowling, and we hardly talk. but I gave him advice and he expressed willingness to hire me if he can successfully come up with his technological innovations.

You're right. The next 2-3 years are going to be extremely busy for me; especially if I commit to staying in school and working a regular job alongside building my upcoming online business.

I should probably just give up even trying for any type of closeness with another person until I accomplish my current entrepreneurial goal. If I keep my mind busy 24/7 than I should be able to avoid feeling lonely and depressed most of the time.

I'm also not going to bother with therapy any time soon. I simply don't see the point in spending so much money on therapy every month when I could be saving or reinvesting that money into my business ventures or purchasing knowledge that would actually help me achieve my goals. Not to mention, traveling to get to a therapist is going to be difficult for me until I get my driver's license and as such, I would rather move to a new apartment that is in walking distance of the college and plasma center that I go to so that way I don't have to spend even more money on car payments, insurance, and tags.

I am destined for greatness. Unfortunately, it is lonely at the top.

I am skeptical that you are going to be able to bury these feelings.

What if you build an hour or two each week of helping others into your schedule? It won't cost money and I predict that it will be good therapy for you.