empathy

Some of us manage to think bigger, brighter, deeper thoughts. Some of these thoughts already shape the kind of research we do. Some of them will prove to be right, and our understanding of our home will deepen. Our home, one day, will be less of a mystery to us.

Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences guide us to wisdom.

The novelist defines the story with the following example: If you are told that the king died and then the queen died, that is a sequence of events. If you were told that the king died and then the queen died of grief, that is a story that he was interested.

Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see.

Empathy is a creative act. It is the act of imagining ourselves not only in another's shoes, but perhaps inhabiting their very heart and soul.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

Until you truly let go, until you truly form humility, can you find empathy and in that empathy you find contact and in that contact you find out who you truly are, and who the people are around you.

Blessed are those with cracks in their broken heart because that is how the light gets in.

Because of the value placed on individual materialistic success in our society, we are surrounded by people primarily interested in getting something from others. Their attitudes are characterised by selfishness and a lack of empathy for others.

I believe in love. I believe it transforms, transports, and transcends. I believe it fine-tunes goodness, solidifies strength, ripens resolve, eradicates rage, alleviates stress, and elevates empathy.

Look for the person everyone hates, and love them.

In social life we hardly stop to consider how much of that daring spirit which gives mastery comes from hardness of heart rather than from high purpose, or true courage. The man who succumbs to his wife, the mother who succumbs to her daughter, the master who succumbs to his servant, is as often brought to servility by a continual aversion to the giving of pain, by a softness which causes the fretfulness of others to be an agony to himself,__s by any actual fear which the firmness of the imperious one may have produced. There is an inner softness, a thinness of the mind's skin, an incapability of seeing or even thinking of the troubles of others with equanimity, which produces a feeling akin to fear; but which is compatible not only with courage, but with absolute firmness of purpose, when the demand for firmness arises so strongly as to assert itself.

Audiences will admire your character__ strength but connect with them through their weakness.

IT IS NOT ABOUT SYMPATHY OR LIKEABILITY, EITHER. EMPATHY IS ABOUT THE TRANSLATION OF FEELING.

It must be an odd person indeed that can say for certain they are normal.

Hearing has consequences. When I truly hear a person and the meanings that are important to him at that moment, hearing not simply his words, but him, and when I let him know that I have heard his own private personal meanings, many things happen. There is first of all a grateful look. He feels released. He wants to tell me more about his world. He surges forth in a new sense of freedom. He becomes more open to the process of change. I have often noticed that the more deeply I hear the meanings of the person, the more there is that happens. Almost always, when a person realize he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, "Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it's like to be me.

The internet and online communication is the window into your world - but real life, in person communication / connection is the door.

Surprisingly, it is often when wandering through the emotional carnage left by the worst of humankind that we find the best of humanity ad well.