A word that weaves through most relationship skills programs is “empathy”, the ability—a developed skill, actually—to vicariously put yourself in another person’s shoes and try to see from their point of view, their world, their perspective.
People are more familiar with the word “sympathy”, which means to “feel for” someone, particularly if they’ve experienced a loss of some kind. However, “empathy” means something quite different. The Oxford Dictionary defines empathy as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Another way to say it is empathy means to “feel with” or “feel into” as in “feel into the other person”, which has powerful impact both for the empathizer and the person being empathized with.
Empathy is a powerful state of mind, but it’s not something we try to pound into ourselves, it’s something we want to cultivate and let out—it’s our capacity to have compassion and concern for ourselves and others. Empathy is really an internal motivator to be a caring person who is genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of others, as well as one’s own wellbeing.
In this episode, Valeria Teles interviews Bento Leal.
He is the bestselling author of the book: 4 Essential Keys to Effective Communication in Love, Life, Work—Anywhere, discusses some of these key communication and relationship skills from his own perspective and experience in their use and value, and they all revolve around this primary skill of empathy.
Bento Leal is a Relationships Skills Trainer and Bestselling Author who has taught marriage and relationship skills classes and parenting skills classes to more than 2500 couples and singles at family resource centers, community organizations, churches, substance abuse recovery programs, county jails and federal prison throughout California. In 2017, he published his first book “4 Essential Keys to Effective Communication in Love, Life, Work—Anywhere!” It continues to be an Amazon Best Seller in several categories and has sold more than 60,000 copies to date.
To learn more about Bento Leal please visit his website https://bentoleal.com/
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Podcast Page: https://fitforjoy.org/podcast
** Bio intro and outro one by Heidi Lynn Peters.
