4 Tips For Speaking Honestly And Empathy

How to speak honestly and empathize? Honesty is a fundamental value when relating to other people. Nobody likes to know they’ve been tricked or betrayed. Inevitably, this results in a loss of trust in the person who has lied.

However, when it comes to being honest, not everything is allowed, especially considering that the feelings of others are at stake. Therefore, honesty and empathy are two concepts that should go hand in hand.

In today’s societies, individualism, competitiveness and a poorly understood independence prevail. Because of this, we sometimes assume that sincerity is the best policy, but we forget the consequences our words can have on others. How to be frank and empathetic at the same time? That’s what we’ll detail below.

What is honesty?

Honesty is the ability to align thoughts, words and actions. In this way, the person expresses what he considers to be true and, in the same way, acts according to what he thinks and speaks. In honesty, there is no room for lies, falsehood or dissimulation. There is also no room for empty words or promises that will not be kept.

An honest person is real and true and expresses that truth even if the consequences are not favorable. It is a personal value closely related to integrity and respect for oneself and others.

What is empathy?

Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes so that we can understand their thought process in order to identify the emotions they experience. To have empathy is to be considerate of the other’s internal and emotional world, it is to do the exercise of seeing beyond our own perspective and adopting the position of who is in front of us.

An empathetic person does not judge, lie or humiliate because he understands the repercussions that these acts can have for the other person. Stopping to feel this pain as if it were yours, the person chooses the path of understanding, touch and human warmth.

How are these values ​​related?

While at first glance it may seem that honesty and empathy are two terms with little in common, in fact their conjunction is essential in daily life. That is, either one, without the other, can lead to negative consequences.

For example,  excessive empathy leads to lying in order not to harm the other, what we know as “white lies”. This, although it can prevent conflicts in the short term, ends up generating feelings of guilt and a feeling of betrayal in the other when the lack of honesty is discovered.

On the other hand, sincerity without empathy is not functional either. Being direct and honest without considering the emotional aspect can cause us to be perceived by others as rude, impolite or tactless. As a consequence, we may experience social rejection or interpersonal conflicts.

4 tips to speak honestly and empathize

Ultimately, honesty and empathy must go hand in hand if we are to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships. However, it is  not always easy to apply these two concepts at the same time; for this reason, we propose some keys so that this can be done.

1. Respect

When communicating with others, we must remember that respect must always prevail. Respecting the other implies considering them worthy of knowing the truth and, therefore, being honest with them. However, it also means taking your feelings into account, as no one deliberately harms a person they respect.

2. Work assertiveness

Assertive communication is essential. Sometimes the fear of being rejected or that our opinion will be unwelcome leads us to lie to try to please. Therefore, it is necessary to increase self-confidence and learn to express yourself assertively.

Likewise, if we get carried away by aggression and cannot control our impulses, we can hurt the other person with our words. Remember, to assert our point of view, we don’t need to underestimate the other’s.

3. Use constructive language

To convey an unpleasant message to another person, the best thing to do is to use constructive language. What does that mean? Knowing how to choose the right words and offer proposals and solutions instead of criticizing or judging.

4. Taking care of non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication carries even more weight than words when it comes to delivering a message. Thus, aspects such as the tone of voice used, body posture and the time and place chosen to communicate an idea can make a difference. It is convenient to pay attention to these aspects so that the interlocutor does not feel attacked or threatened.

Speak with honesty and empathy to live well

Values ​​define us as people and are demonstrated through our actions and interactions with others. Speaking honestly and empathically in daily life may be an effort at first, but in the long run it will bring us higher levels of personal and social well-being.