Sunday Reflections — Path of empathy
This week, Sunday Reflections walks the path of empathy:
“Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes…” ~ Daniel H. Pink
“What is real to me is the power of our awareness when we are focused on something beyond ourselves. It is a shaft of light shining in a dark corner…Can we imagine, witness, and ultimately feel the suffering of another?” ~ Terry Tempest Williams
“Empathy doesn’t require that we have the exact same experiences as the person sharing their story with us…Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance.” ~ Brené Brown
“The way of being with another person which is termed empathic means temporarily living in their life, moving abut in it delicately without making judgment; to be with another in this way means that for the time being you lay aside the views and values you hold for yourself in order to enter the other’s world without prejudice (…) a complex, demanding, strong yet subtle and gentle way of being.” ~ Carl Rogers
“Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.” ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg
“Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are…” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen
“Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.” ~ Maya Angelou
“When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good. . . . When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard.” ~ Carl Rogers
