You can start practicing the skills of assertive communication by paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and needs and respecting their value. Then start doing the same for other people. Check yourself when you are tempted to invalidate someone’s experience or heart. Listen to understand in a conversation—especially to understand what a person is feeling and what they need.
Empathy
C.S. Lewis
This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.
Brian Johnson
Love leans in first. It listens long enough to understand why. It hears what a person fought through to get to where they are. It listens until it can hear with empathy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don’t do, and more in light of what they suffer.
Ed Stetzer
We do not need to sacrifice our revulsion of sin, but rather reframe how we see those caught in its power. We know the corrosive yet alluring power of sin that entangles this world (Hebrews 12:1), and we know the freedom and relief that come from being reconciled to the Father. We need to use that understanding to demonstrate an empathetic love to the lost, ensuring that they know they can approach us with confidence that they will receive the mercy and grace that was first shown to us.