Empathy: Here's another way you can endear yourself to others. Who hasn’t shed a tear during a movie when characters are reunited after a long, painful separation or when a child is violently treated? That is the internal tug we call empathy. It is such identification that moves us to reach out with warmth to help someone in need. The idea is to feel with the other person in her pain. It does not require you to have long speeches ready for the hurting person. It takes just staying by and with this person. A German proverb says, “A shared joy is doubled and a shared sorrow is halved.”
Empathy also stirs an exuberant celebration of someone’s triumph or success.Doing so affirms her personal worth. Understanding another person and being there for her, goes a long way to building deep friendship and out of that relationship you will experience love. When a fellow soldier sits with and weeps with a dying comrade. that is empathy, and empathy is love. When Jesus wept with Lazarus’s sisters over his death, that was empathy, and that was love.
Look for opportuinities to empathize with hurting people. Just a brief caution: don't over do it.
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