How to Respect Boundaries When Offering Empathy

Once you have learned the structure and vocabulary of offering empathy, you might find that you offer it frequently. Your experience most of the time is that this creates connection, helping the other person feel seen and heard. Sometimes though, the other person may experience your empathy guess as a boundary crossing. You might see tension in their face. Perhaps they turn away and change the subject. Or, on rare occasions, they communicate directly that your empathy guess was unwanted and “crossed the line.” Let’s look at three things to keep in mind and attend to as you refine your ability to offer empathy and respect boundaries: noticing what’s happening in you, attunement, and context.

Noticing what’s happening in you

First, ask yourself what was going on for you when you made that empathy guess? Did you have an agenda for the other person? Were you trying to change their ideas or emotions? Were you trying to show them how competent you are at offering empathy? Were you trying to push processing along so you could get to something else? Were you trying to keep the peace?

Empathic presence is grounded in self-connection and is empty of your own ideas or agenda for the other person. You consciously set aside your own feelings and needs while offering empathy, trusting yourself to come back to them later. Empathy comes from a consciousness of attunement. This means you focus your attention on the other person’s experience with caring and curiosity. When you have learned the structure and vocabulary of empathy, you might find yourself going through the motions of empathy without the consciousness of empathy. When this happens, a sensitive receiver will notice the incongruency. They may suspect manipulation or feel pain because, while your words address something tender in them, your presence is not holding that tenderness with warmth and respect. 

When you notice this is the case, simply say it aloud and apologize. It might sound something like this, “I’m sorry. I just offered that empathy guess, but I wasn’t really present. I care about you and want to be present for you. I notice that right now I am distracted with my own need for rest. Can we come back to this after dinner?”

Attunement

Attunement is the process of attending to another with curiosity and warmth for the purpose of offering care. When attunement is not clear, you can offer empathy about something that the other person is not wanting contact around. Attunement to others is fundamental to being human, and, at the same time, it is a skill or ability that can be cultivated and refined. Whenever you are with other people you are either attuning or tracking for threat. Whether consciously or unconsciously, you are tracking body posture, gestures, behavior, facial expressions, tone of voice, words, and more. To the extent that you are in a reactive state, you are more likely to misinterpret what you are tracking and to become vigilant about looking for threat rather than attuning. 

As human beings we constantly fluctuate along the continuum of reactive and nonreactive. Small amounts of reactivity can interfere with your ability to attune. So even when you are making your best effort to embody the consciousness of empathy and offer empathic presence, you might “misattune.” One concrete way to think about this is that the other person is giving attention to a particular level of feelings and needs alive in them. With attunement and empathy, you are following their lead by noticing what is up for them in the moment and making a guess about what that is. When you make a guess that contacts more vulnerability in them than they are in contact with themself, it will likely land as a boundary crossing for them.

You can prevent this to some extent by starting with empathy guesses that tend to trigger less vulnerability. Feelings and needs that are more commonly expressed in everyday life and more socially acceptable tend to be experienced as less vulnerable. Some examples these feelings include: confident, pleased, satisfied, frustrated, irritated, disappointed, bummed out, and stressed out. Some examples of needs include: respect, honesty, trust, rest, choice, and fairness.

You can also bring more conscious attention to what you are tracking and responding to. Consciously look for signs that someone is open and receiving your empathy guesses. Here are some common signs of openness and receptivity: 

• Tension releases in the shoulders, back, hands, or face

• Body posture shifts towards you

• A long exhale

• More vulnerability is shared

• Head nodding

• Eyes closed and sitting back

• Eye contact 

• More attention to feelings and needs

You can also refine your attunement skills by reflecting on dialogues that went well and making a list of what you noticed and responded to. Or, if you have someone to practice with, you can practice saying what you are observing aloud.

Context

When you are beginning to offer empathy more regularly in your life, it can be easy to underestimate its power to access someone's heart and a sense of vulnerability. Part of maintaining respect for boundaries is attending to what level of vulnerability the context supports. The context that is perceived as supportive can vary from person to person. For example, some folks can share more vulnerably while they are walking with you, whereas others want to sit still and maintain eye contact. For the most part though, the greater the vulnerability, the more a supportive context will include a quiet, private space and a predictable amount of time.   

You can speak directly to the importance of context in the moment and help maintain a boundary. It might sound something like this, “I would like to listen more and offer more empathy, and it doesn't seem like our current environment supports that. Would you like to set up another time to talk?”

You can only do the best you can do to offer attunement and empathy. You can't control how it will land for another person. If you are alerted to having crossed someone's boundary, you can examine the three areas above to see where something may have been amiss. Even when your intention, attunement, and the context all seem to line up, the other person's experience is valid just as it is. If they are open to it, you can ask them to share how you might better respect their boundaries in the future. 

Practice 

 Take a moment now to reflect on a situation in which you offered empathy and it stimulated disconnect or a sense of boundary crossing for the other person. Examine the three areas above and identify what might have contributed to that disconnect.