Empathy is NOT about sharing someone's feelings...

Empathy is NOT about sharing someone’s feelings, it’s about appreciating someone’s point of view.

Although listening skills are terrific to learn and we will explore them, there is another foundational piece to building satisfying relationships that is a prerequisite. Accurate empathic understanding.


This is different from having a feeling. It’s not sympathy - a condition of feeling pity for another. Sympathy can actually cause a distance between us. It can be one of those “Whew! I am glad it is not me going through this!” moments. It is way different than connecting. We do not need to have a similar experience and feel as if we can relate. Identifying with another’s suffering can actually interfere with empathy. My feelings about an incident may be completely different from yours.


Empathy involves not only paying attention to a person, but actively trying to understand what they are experiencing. As hard as we try, we may find it practically impossible to accurately empathize - but we try!

[Empathy] is one of the most delicate and powerful
ways we have of using ourselves. In spite of all that
has been said and written on this topic, it is a way of
Being that is rarely seen in full bloom in a relationship.
* Carl Rogers, “Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being”

CHALLENGE: Have you confused sympathy with empathy? Have you over-identified with others and in so doing, made it more about your experience than theirs?