When we hear the other person's feelings and needs, we recognize our common humanity.

Tragically, one of the rarest commodities in our culture is empathy. People are hungry for empathy, They don't know how to ask for it.

If you have an image of someone cutting off a relationship, it's the cutting off that will lead to your suffering. If you see the action as their need being expressed, then the message is within them, not you. Any interpretation you put onto another person's message (such as passive-aggressive, withholding, etc.), you will pay for because of how you took it.

In empathy, you don't speak at all. You speak with the eyes. You speak with your 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 with what's alive in you.

When I am angry I have a judgment and an unmet need.

If we wish to express anger fully, the first step is to divorce the other person from any responsibility for our anger.

Interpretations, criticisms, diagnoses, and judgments of others are actually alienated expressions of our unmet needs.