4. Speaking Shame

3. Reaching Out

2. Practicing Critical Awareness

1. Recognizing Shame and Understanding Its Triggers

Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to someone you love.

I agree to practice empathy, screw it up, circle back, clean it up, and try again. Make that commitment to yourself, your team, your friends, and your family. You have no idea how much it means to someone when you circle back and say, “You shared something hard with me, and I wish I had shown up in a different way. I really care about you and what

Again, the difference between empathy and sympathy: feeling with and feeling for. The empathic response: I get it, I feel with you, and I’ve been there. The sympathetic response: I feel sorry for you.

Empathy Skill #5: Mindfulness

empathy is first: I take the perspective of another person, meaning I become the listener and the student, not the knower. Second: I stay out of judgment. And third and fourth: I try to understand what emotion they’re articulating and communicate my understanding of that emotion.