“Empathy stimulates positive emotions to form everlasting connections while sympathy promotes divisive separation”
Every year, the freshman at my school have an assembly to distinguish empathy from sympathy. Empathy requires relating to that person on some level, it means joining them in the dark, it means saying I’m glad you told me and trying to relate rather than but it’ll be fine because. It makes people feel like they can tell you things without you trying to tell them how you feel or condescendingly judge them from a higher position. It lets people know that they aren’t alone and there are other people that have gone through similar problems or can relate in other ways to what they are saying. It provides a friendship as opposed to isolating someone further. Practice empathy today, and every day!!
XOXO. S.