Amy Christensen’s Reviews > Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience > Status Update

In the research and clinical practice community everyone is trying to answer this question: what’s the most effective way to be in connection with and in service to someone who is struggling, without taking on their issues as our own?

How we, the collective, use language matters as much as, if not more than, arbitrary definitions that don’t center lived experiences - quote

Compassion includes action. It’s not just feeling, it’s doing

[Compassion is] a relationship between equals - Pema Chodron American Buddhist nun

Book: The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron

In fact, PITY is the NEAR ENEMY of compassion - quote

“Far enemies” are the opposite of emotions or experiences - the far enemy of compassion might be cruelty. What’s interesting is that near enemies are often greater threats than far enemies because they’re more difficult to recognize - quote

Pity involves 4 elements: a belief that the suffering person is inferior; a passive, self-focused reaction that does not include providing help: a desire to maintain emotional distance; and avoidance of sharing in another person’s suffering.

…we need to dispel the myth that empathy is “walking in someone else’s shoes.” Rather than walking in your shoes, I need to learn how to listen to the story you tell about what it’s like in your shoes AND believe you even when it doesn’t match my experiences - quote

The minute I try to put myself in your place rather than try to understand the situation from your perspective, our empathic connection unravels. Either I get sucked into the vortex of my own emotional difficulties, or, because my experience doesn’t match yours, I doubt what you’re telling me.

Empathy is not relating to an experience, it’s connecting to what someone is feeling about an experience - quote

Emotional resonance

We can’t connect with someone unless we’re clear about where we end and they begin. If there’s no autonomy between people, then there’s no compassion or empathy, just enmeshment