“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.”

– Alfred Adler

Day Twenty Four: Empathy

Do you feel empathy easily for others? If so, do you also feel it towards yourself? Often I feel empathy for others, for example if someone makes a mistake at work, but when I’m in the same situation, I beat myself up about it. If we are giving that kindness to others, why not give it to ourselves?

I’m going to remind you of yesterday’s challenge again – I asked you to work through a checklist of questions whenever a negative thought comes up. One of these questions was: ‘What would I tell a friend if s/he was saying this about her/himself?’

To build your self-esteem, it’s important to come out of your own head and into one of your friend’s shoes. If your friend made a mistake at work, I bet your reaction would be ‘Everyone messes up sometimes, it’s not the end of the world. You’re amazing most of the time and this just shows you’re human.’ It wouldn’t be what you might say to yourself: ‘You’ve messed up big time, you’re useless and nobody at work will respect you now.’ 

Today’s task is to tap into that empathy that you show so lovingly to others, and to share it with yourself, even if that does mean stepping outside of your own self for a moment!

Next, we allow…

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