Empathy Is Not What They Are Telling You

Empathy has been called some pejorative things lately and what you’ve been hearing is not true of empathy.  Before continuing to read this, please open the following link and watch / listen to Dr. Brene’ Brown explain the difference between empathy and sympathy to see what empathy truly is:   https://bouldercrest.org/resources/brene-brown-what-is-empathy/ .

THIS is empathy!  President Barack Obama said it beautifully: “Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world” (https://www.azquotes.com/quote/593988?ref=empathy).  Why has empathy, a trait of a high quality human, been turned into a dirty word?

Have you heard religious people recently call empathy a ‘sin’?  Gotta say, that’s one of the craziest things I’ve heard in this time of upside down chaos in the United States in 2025! I suppose those who claim empathy is a ‘sin’ have forgotten all about the characteristics of Jesus who taught empathy and lived empathetically.  Have you heard that empathy has come to mean ‘weakness’ in conservative circles lately?  Again, that’s whack. Check out this article with transcript from recent podcasts: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/22/nx-s1-5321299/how-empathy-came-to-be-seen-as-a-weakness-in-conservative-circles.   By the way, if you want to see the Snopes fact-check on EM’s comments about empathy on the 2/28/25 Joe Rogan podcast, here it is: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-empathy-quote/ . Have you heard that empathy is a ‘female thing’? Empathy is not what they are telling you.

For the rest of this blog essay, I’ll let intelligent thinkers and compassionate people share what empathy is:

• “Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives” (Oprah Winfrey).

• “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care” (President Theodore Roosevelt).

• “Empathy works so well because it does not require a solution.  It requires only understanding” (John Medina - molecular biologist and author).

• “Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing” (Marshall Rosenberg - psychologist, author, teacher).

• “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” (Henry David Thoreau - philosopher, naturalist, poet).

• “When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it.  That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems” (Stephen Covey - businessman, educator, author, speaker).

• “Empathy grows as we learn” (Alice Miller - psychologist, psychoanalyst, philosopher, author).

• “There is no greater intelligence than kindness and empathy” (Bryant McGill - social entrepreneur, thought leader, activist, author).

• “When we focus on others, our world expands” (Dr. Daniel Goldman -psychologist, author of Emotional Intelligence).

• “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding” (Albert Einstein).

If all of these deep thinkers know that empathy is a treasured human quality, why would some people recently see it as a weakness, only a ‘female thing,’ a ‘sin’?  By the way, of the 12 people whose quotes on empathy I shared in this essay, 3 are women, so, empathy isn’t ‘just a female thing.’ Please share your stories, thoughts, insights, and suggestions by either commenting below this post if you are reading this on social media, or, if you are reading this through your email subscription, please share, by emailing me, at reimaginelife22@gmail.com.

Thank you for reading and participating in this blog essay; I invite you to subscribe to my blog at www.reimaginelifecoach.com.