Quotes About Empathy

He let me tell my story in whatever way I needed to today.

You know what three words are even more romantic to me than 'I love you'?" "You look beautiful?" he tried. "No," his wife said. "I understand you.")

You can have compassion without forgiving.

more real in his life is allowing him to let others be more real too.

Above all, I didn't want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion — an apt phrase, given John's worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people's feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty.

Wendell once pointed out that we talk to ourselves more than we'll talk to any other person over the course of our lives but that our words aren't always kind or true or helpful—or even respectful. Most of what we say to ourselves we'd never say to people we love or care about, like our friends or children. In therapy, we learn to pay close attention to those voices in our heads so that we can learn a better way to communicate with ourselves.

During my training, a supervisor once told me, "There's something likable in everyone," and to my great surprise, I found that she was right.

We may want others' forgiveness, but that comes from a place of self-gratification; we are asking forgiveness of others to avoid the harder work of forgiving ourselves.

There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses?

Just because she sends you guilt doen't mean you have to accept delivery.

There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest.

Will you see the human in my being?

Is Boyfriend unhappy with something in the relationship that he's afraid to tell me about? I ask him calmly, my voice softer now, because I'm mindful of the fact that Very Angry People aren't Very Approachable.

In therapy we aim for self-compassion (Am I human?) versus self-esteem (a judgment: Am I good or bad?).

Before you speak, ask yourself, What is this going to feel like to the person I'm speaking to?

What makes therapy challenging is that it requires people to see themselves in ways they normally choose not to. A therapist will hold up the mirror in the most compassionate way possible, but it's up to the patient to take a good look at that reflection

Years later, when I've done thousands of first sessions, and information-gathering has become second nature, I'll use a different barometer to judge how it went: Did the patient feel understood? It always amazes me that someone can walk into a room as a stranger and then, after fifty minutes, leave feeling understood, but it happens nearly every time. When it doesn't, the patient doesn't return. And because Michelle did, something had gone right.

The therapy room seemed to be one of the only places left where two people sit in a room together for an uninterrupted fifty minutes. Despite its veil of professionalism, this weekly I-thou ritual is often one of the most human encounters that people experience.

Sometimes the changes you want in another person aren't on that person's agenda—even if he tells you they are.

A second quality of mature spirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance.

although, as the saying goes, "Before diagnosing people with depression, make sure they're not surrounded by assholes"),

A therapist will hold up a mirror to patients, but patients will also hold up a mirror to their therapists.

It's well documented that touch is important for well-being throughout our lifetimes.

You are not the best person to talk to you about you right now. There is a difference, I point out to them, between self- blame and self-responsibility, which is a corollary to something Jack Kornfield said: 'A second quality of mature spirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance.