Brené Brown on Empathy

In this video, Brené Brown discusses the concept of empathy and how it differs from sympathy. She explains the four qualities of empathy as identified by nursing scholar Teresa Wiseman, and emphasizes that empathy is about feeling with people and creating a connection. She also highlights the common mistakes people make when trying to express empathy, often resorting to sympathy instead.

So, what is empathy and why is it very different than sympathy? Empathy fuels connection, while sympathy drives disconnection. Empathy is an interesting concept. Teresa Wiseman, a nursing scholar, studied various professions where empathy is relevant and identified four qualities of empathy. These are perspective taking, the ability to take the perspective of another person or recognize their perspective as their truth; staying out of judgment, which is not easy when you enjoy it as much as most of us do; recognizing emotion in other people; and then communicating that. Empathy is about feeling with people. To me, I always think of empathy as this kind of sacred space when someone's in a deep hole and they shout out from the bottom, saying, "I'm stuck. It's dark. I'm overwhelmed." And then we look and we say, "Hey, I'm down here too. I know what it's like down here. And you're not alone." Sympathy, on the other hand, is more like, "Ooh, it's bad. Uh, no. You want a sandwich?" Empathy is a choice, and it's a vulnerable choice. Because in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling. Rarely, if ever, does an empathic response begin with "at least." And yet, we do it all the time. Because you know what? Someone just shared something with us that's incredibly painful, and we're trying to silver-line it. I don't think that's a verb, but I'm using it as one. We're trying to put the silver lining around it. For example, if someone says, "I had a miscarriage," a sympathetic response might be, "At least you know you can get pregnant." Or if someone says, "I think my marriage is falling apart," a sympathetic response might be, "At least you have a marriage." Or if someone says, "John's getting kicked out of school," a sympathetic response might be, "At least Sarah is an A student." But one of the things we do sometimes in the face of very difficult conversations is we try to make things better. If I share something with you that's very difficult, I'd rather you say, "I don't even know what to say right now. I'm just so glad you told me." Because the truth is, rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection.