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  • So, what is empathy and why is it very different than sympathy?

  • Empathy fuels connection.

  • Sympathy drives disconnection.

  • Empathy is very interesting.

  • Teresa Wiseman is a nursing scholar who studied professions, very diverse professions where people have four qualities of empathy.

  • Perspective taking, the ability to take the perspective of another person or recognize their perspective as their truth.

  • Staying out of judgment, not easy when you enjoy it as much as most of us do.

  • Recognizing emotion in other people and then communicating that.

  • Empathy is feeling with people.

  • And to me, I always think of empathy as this kind of sacred space when someone's kind of in a deep hole and they shout out from the bottom and they say, I'm stuck, it's dark, I'm overwhelmed.

  • And then we look and we say, hey, I'm going to climb down.

  • I know what it's like down here and you're not alone.

  • Sympathy is, ooh, it's bad, uh-huh, no, you want a sandwich?

  • Empathy is a choice and it's a vulnerable choice because in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling.

  • Rarely, if ever, does an empathic response begin with at least.

  • I had a, yeah, and we do it all the time because you know what?

  • Someone just shared something with us that's incredibly painful and we're trying to silver lining it.

  • I don't think that's a verb, but I'm using it as one.

  • We're trying to put the silver lining around it.

  • So I had a miscarriage.

  • At least you know you can get pregnant.

  • I think my marriage is falling apart.

  • At least you have a marriage.

  • John's getting kicked out of school.

  • At least Sarah is an A student.

  • But one of the things we do sometimes in the face of very difficult conversations is we try to make things better.

  • If I share something with you that's very difficult, I'd rather you say, I don't even know what to say right now.

  • I'm just so glad you told me.

  • Because the truth is, rarely can a response make something better.

  • What makes something better is connection.

So, what is empathy and why is it very different than sympathy?

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