This is episode five of The Alphabet of Happiness 26-Day Boost, celebrating Klaudia Mitura’s new book: The Alphabet of Happiness. Each day, Klaudia brings you a simple, uplifting tip you can use in under five minutes.
Today’s focus is E for Empathy.
Klaudia explores why understanding and feeling with others is essential for happiness and building strong relationships. Learn how empathy helps you connect, collaborate, and make others feel truly seen and heard—and why it’s linked to lower loneliness and greater joy.
Get involved:
⭐ Get a quick summary of each happiness principle—follow along as we reveal a new letter every day!
🏆 Join the competition: Share your thoughts on each principle, tag me (@Klaudia Mitura on LinkedIn / @thehappinesschallenge_klaudia on Instagram), and tag a friend for a chance to win one of three signed copies of The Alphabet of Happiness!
Hello Happiness seekers. I'm Klaudia Mitura, Work Psychologist and certified Chief Happiness Officer.
To celebrate my brand new book the Alphabet of Happiness, I have launched this 26 day boost packed with science backed happiness habits. One for every letter from A to Z each day I'm bringing you a simple uplifting tip you can use in under five minutes.
This is also our joyful countdown to the big Book Launch Party Designs Museum in London on October 31st. Would love you to be part of that.
You can reserve your spot@thehappinesschallenge.co.uk book and don't forget to tag me in your posts on LinkedIn or Instagram for a chance to win one of the three signed copies of the Alphabet of Happiness. You can also get some summaries of all the letters and all the tips I'm sharing.
Sign up to my substack newsletter, the Happiness Challenge and today letter is E for Empathy which is all about aiming to understand other people perspectives and to feel with people, not judging their experiences and having the courage to really acknowledge their feelings. You may be asking, okay, what does empathy even have to do with happiness?
And we know that empathy inspire us to help collaborate and make people around us feel seen, heard and understood. It is absolutely a crucial ingredient that we need for happy relationships.
Research shows that people who show less empathy towards others may find it harder to make friends and may experience higher chances of loneliness.
But even though empathy is crucial to building happy relationships in the Alphabet of Happiness, I was very much interested to answer the question of how to find balance in being empathetic, because I don't actually think it's that straightforward. Empathy exists on a spectrum. It's modulated by our genetics and upbringing.
On one end of the spectrum, we might be hyper empathetic and overly tuned to people's emotion, and that's exhausting as well. In contrast, on the opposite side of a spectrum, we might be unable to empathize as easily with others as we too and today's action.
I really encourage you to practice empathy by refraining from giving advice. And I know, oh my goodness, I know how much we love to give other people advice.
But I guess judging other people's situations as silly, unnecessary, immature might be very easy. You know, why are you worrying about this? That's not a big problem, that's not a big deal.
But genuine empathy withholds its judgment because it recognize our diversity in experiencing emotionally charged situations. It also refrains from jumping to conclusions and giving advice by offering some quick fix solutions that are based on our lived experiences.
Instead, if we want to show people genuine empathy, we need to be acknowledging their feelings and truly listening. So it's saying things like well I've been there and that hurts. Or it sounds like you are in a hard place right now. Tell me more about it.
Or look, I'm really here for you. Tell me what you need. Tell me your story.
I hope you have found this idea very useful and I really encourage you to think how much advice you giving, maybe even unsolicited advice. And actually, is it worth pausing to really hear what people saying, really see how people are feeling?
My book is packed with lots of small practical gems like that, so you can grab your copy from any key retailer and from Amazon to Guardian Bookshops.
But as already mentioned in the beginning of today's episode, tag me in your post about this hack about what I'm sharing on this podcast and you will enter into a prize draw to win one of the three signed copies of the Alphabet of Happiness. So thank you so much for listening. Hope you have enjoyed this and I see you tomorrow for the next letter. Bye.
