Ask before offering advice or reassurance.

Never question the beauty of what you are saying because someone reacts with pain, judgment, criticism. It just means they have not heard you.

People do not hear our pain when they believe they are at fault.

With empathy, I'm fully with them, not full of them — that's sympathy.

Time and again, people transcend the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically.

We are compassionate with ourselves when we are able to embrace all parts of ourselves and recognize the needs and values expressed by each part.

People have been trained to criticize, insult, and otherwise communicate in ways that create distance among people.