How can we develop empathy through storytelling?

I am a genocide survivor of the Cambodian Killing Fields. I was born in a concentration camp, the same camp where my father was executed and where my older brother died of starvation and illness. My family and I came to America as refugees in the early 80s where we were placed in Brooklyn NY, at the height of the crack epidemic and when gang violence was at its peak. When I was 7 years old I walked into a crossfire of a drug deal gone wrong and was shot.

Several years ago my life was turned into a short documentary called?Against the Odds ?and adapted into a theater production titled?Tales from the Salt City ?at Syracuse Stage an equity theater in Upstate New York. The reaction that I received from many of my childhood friends, people that I consider like family, coworkers, and even the small group of people that mentored me throughout my life was astonishing. I realized these people knew very little about my life, but through my storytelling project, we learned more about each other and thereby created a more meaningful relationship.

We have created a culture where people don’t talk about their personal life at work, with their neighbors and friends. We introduce ourselves to strangers with our job titles and credentials versus sharing our interests, hobbies, ideas, and passion. It is the nuance of our personal experiences that makes us unique and interesting, not our titles and credentials. In order to create positive change in our society and confront community violence, we must be willing to share our stories and embrace the personal experiences of others. It is the power of empathy that helps all of us to develop deeper levels of rapport and trust with people in our community.

“Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.”?—?Dayananda Saraswati

Our stories are powerful tools that can be used to confront social problems. When a personal story is being shared we unconsciously create an emotional connection with the storyteller and empathize with their experience. While we cannot empathize with everyone’s situation and experiences, we gravitate towards certain elements and information from the story itself; like dates, events, images, names, and places that resonate in our own lives. This allows us to better understand the emotional makeup of the person that is sharing their story with us and therefore, helps us develop empathy toward people that were once strangers.