(5) The power of empathy - Nonviolent Communication

Empathy is healing. When someone tells us something that they experience as stressful, we often react in an appeasing way. Usually for completely well-intentioned reasons, we quickly want to make the other person feel better. This is so common that we often don't even realize or understand, or admit to ourselves, that the well-intentioned words are experienced negatively. Yet it can be so easy to respond in a really helpful way if we react in an empathetic manner. Instead of laboriously finding comforting words, we can simply tune into the other person's feelings and needs and express them. This ensures genuine understanding. The exciting thing is that this alone is often enough to make us feel better. This gives the person the opportunity to get even more in touch with themselves and perhaps discover even deeper feelings.
In non-violent communication, empathy is the ability to empty oneself, to let go of one's ideas and judgments in order to be able to meet the other person as openly and freely as possible. This openness creates a space in which it is possible to fully engage with the experience of the other person. Being empathic means tuning in to the other person and grasping what is alive in your counterpart on both an intellectual and emotional level. It is explicitly mentioned that it is important NOT to sympathize. Because those who suffer are with themselves and their own pain, not with the other person. Pity makes you helpless. Empathy in the sense of NVC means perceiving the experience of the other person and at the same time remaining absolutely present and with yourself. This form of compassion is incredibly helpful!