Productive relationships are impossible without compassion and compassion requires empathy. Empathy shouldn’t be confused with sympathy or pity. Empathy is a vicarious experience which wires one’s heart and mind to another and is the structure on which compassion travels from one soul to another through the portal of the present moment.
Also, one must be thankful. Thankful for just being lucky enough to be here. Gratitude opens up the proper amount of awareness so the structure of empathy can be installed.
And, none of it can happen unless each individual is fully present in the moment with the other. Dragging along baggage from the past and projecting it on to another or forcing another to live with you in a future fantasy won’t work. Relationships – for that matter, anything based in reality – can only happen now.
So, it all starts with being grateful. It all starts now, in the present moment. And, it’s all contained within compassion, supporting compassion’s transmission. But, without that "empath structure" to connect one to another, it all dissipates as nothing more than wishful thinking.
Unlike other intuitive skills, empathy is something which can be taught and learned the same way one learns the words to a song or a new language. Immersion is the best way. Then continuous practice and never giving up. Once empathy is successfully established, there’s a place for thankfulness to take hold and compassion to grow.
But, without basic empathy? Ego-centrism, delusion, grasping, isolation, and hatred will reign.
Kinnaird 