Learning Challenges: Empathy

This week I did a Learning Challenge focused empathy. I learned that there are four qualities of empathy: 1) perspective taking, 2) the ability to take the perspective of another person, 3) staying out of judgment, 4) recognizing emotions in others and communicating.

Brene says she likes to think of empathy as a dark hole where someone finds themselves when they are stuck or overwhelmed, and then someone else comes down and says they know what it's like down there and you're not alone. I think that is a great analogy.

When someone opens up to you, the best thing you can do is just listen and not offer advice or sympathetic responses. Offering advice and sympathetic responses is the easy way to go, but listening and choosing to remember a time when you were in a similar spot is difficult and can leave you just as vulnerable.

Brene Brown: On Empathy.