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Metaphors of Empathy
Empathy is like?
What is a metaphor of empathy? Empathy is like?
Standing in someone else's shoes.
Looking through someone else's eyes.
Strings tuned to the same frequency.
Marshall Rosenberg:
Empathy Is Like Surfboard Riding;
"Empathy, I would say is
presence. Pure presence to what is alive in a person at this moment,
bringing nothing in from the past. The more you know a person, the harder
empathy is. The more you have studied psychology, the harder empathy really
is. Because you can bring no thinking in from the past. If you surf, you'd be
better at empathy because you will have built into your body what it is about.
Being present and getting in with the energy that is coming through you in the
present. It is not a mental understanding."
Question: "Is it speaking from the heart?"
Rosenberg: "What? Empathy? In empathy, you don't speak at all. You speak with
the eyes. You speak with the body. If you say any words at all, it's because
you are not sure you are with the person. So you may say some words. But the
words are not empathy. Empathy is when the other person feels the connection
to with what's alive in you."
Empathy is like going on a journey with the other person, a
journey where neither of us knows where we are heading and where we will be
when we arrive.
Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is
like trying to watch grass grow. — Neal Maxwell.
Empathy is like a bear hug, a blanket of security and makes us
feel special and safe.
Empathy is like reading someone else’s story: being one with the
characters and events and feeling the emotions of the main character. It is
living life with others with a certain mindfulness: observing, listening, and
understanding.
Empathy is like a sixth sense in that it presents us with
emotional information.
Empathy is like jazz. Jazz requires listening to the experience,
rather than just. hearing the instruments
When empathy is at its best, the two
individuals are participating in a process which may be compared to that of a
couple dancing, the client leading, the therapist following: the smooth,
spontaneous back and forth flow of energy in the interaction has its own
ascetic rhythm (Raskin and Rogers, 1989, p 157)
Like two
galaxies coming together. Or Two souls coming together.
Edwin Rutsch
Like a
cornucopia, Edwin Rutsch
Social Glue that binds us together.
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