Quotes About Empathy

Wendell says that if I've been taking such copious notes during our phone calls, I probably haven't been able to listen to Boyfriend, and if my goal is to be open to understanding his perspective, that's hard to do when I'm trying to prove a point rather than have an interaction in earnest. And, he adds, I'm doing the same thing to him in our sessions.

She'd choose awkward over ignored. "What do you wish people would say?" I ask. Julie thinks about this. "They can say, 'I'm so sorry.' They can say, 'How can I be helpful?' Or 'I feel so helpless but I care about you.'" She shifts on the couch, her thinner frame not quite filling out her clothes.

I wonder why I seem to be more curious about you than you are about yourself?

Will you see my vulnerabilities, my lies, my shame? Will you see the human in my being?

She wasn't willing to look at what she was doing that made it difficult for people to give her what she wanted.

Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room, but it's very hard to give or get outside of it—even for Jen, who is a therapist.

It's impossible to grow without first becoming vulnerable.

You have two ears and one mouth; there's a reason for that ratio"),

To be sure, these comments are meant to comfort, but they're also a way of protecting the speakers from the uncomfortable feelings that somebody else's bad situation stirs up. Platitudes like these make a terrible circumstance more palatable for the person saying the words but leave the person experiencing the adversity feeling angry and alone.

by diminishing my problems, I was judging myself and everyone else whose problems I had placed lower down on the hierarchy of pain. You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seem like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.

impossible to grow without first becoming vulnerable.

AND ALL THE OTHER SOULS WHO GOT LEFT AND CURSED BY THOSE THAT SHOULD HAVE LOVED AND CARED.

You do good mothering.

It's not that you like being sad, but you start to see the value of it. You don't judge sadness so harshly.

the only thing left to do is love

When you get older you think of sadness in a different way. You don't judge it so harshly.

Regrets serve their purpose. You'll see.

It's so easy to see people as less than they are, as less than people.

But their suffering doesn't mitigate yours." "Suffering doesn't make me special. Sooner or later, life knocks everyone down. It's how you deal with the knocks and dings that matter.

People often feel threatened by things that are different. It reflects their ignorance, not your reality.

Love didn't cause grief but healed it. She

When you love that deeply, you'll sacrifice for the other person's happiness. Even if it means that you have to be unhappy. That's real love, when you can let go of your loved ones so they can be what they need to be.

There are three ways to argue with a woman. None of them work. —Dutch Callahan

when he was a little kid he'd had trouble understanding why those poor children in China were more important to them than he was.