Empathy Words

Empathy requires more than feeling what others feel — it requires communicating that you feel it. Generic responses like "That must be hard" barely register. Compare it to: "That sounds genuinely disheartening, especially after how much effort you invested."

The most powerful empathy structure follows three steps: name the emotion, name the cause, name the legitimacy. "You sound exhausted because the deadline kept moving — and honestly, anyone would be." That single sentence does all three.