Reply to S/O: Does talking about negative emotions help you?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Also, you don't have to always feel empathy to no be an a$$, my coworker who is an a$$ is going through a bad divorce, I think he deserves it, but when I talk to him I act like "john lennon died"... or "im talking to my friend who is a widow". 
[/quote]

I think this gets at my question about validation. It sounds like you respond to your co-worker's feelings about a bad divorce with the same kind of compassion as you would someone grieving over Uvalde or John Lennon dying -- even though he is an ass who deserves what he's getting. That was my disconnect, I think. I'm not really wired that way, and that sort of validation might be beyond me. (Whereas, I can certainly feel compassion for someone grieving over sad world events even if I'm not personally feeling those things as deeply.) [/quote]

9:25 here and I think the issue for you is, specifically, judgment.

Judgment is the enemy of empathy. If you are judging, it is not possible to empathize. So what you are saying is that you could never empathize with the co-worker going through a divorce if you judge him to be at fault for the divorce. I don't necessarily think that's bad (I don't think you have to have empathy all the time, for everyone) but if this is frequently a problem for you, even with people you like a lot more than a jerk co-worker who is getting what he deserves, then the problem is likely that you spend a lot of time in judgment of others, even your spouse and friends.

Letting go of judgment can be hard but it's necessary to connect and support others. It's also, I think, good for you. If you sit in judgment of others a lot, you are likely also pretty judgmental towards yourself. Learning to let that go and be more accepting and flexible can make your life better in a lot of ways.[/quote]

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