Reflection About Empathy

One thing that I find hard about empathy that was referenced in the book is facial expressions and body language. I am a very expressive person when it comes to facial expressions so every little emotion shows on my face, while I have learned to control my body language. I was talking to a friend recently and they brought up the topic of my body language and facial expressions. They noticed that my body language is very controlled and that I am very aware of how my body language comes across while I am not so aware of what emotions are showing on my face nor do I have very much control over what shows on my face. This is difficult for me while we are doing the exercises in class because I want to show the person that I am listening to that

My family and friends are really good at not having an agenda when they talk to me about my problems and I try to not have an agenda when they are talking to me. A few weeks ago I was talking to my sister about her week and I knew that something was going on, but I also knew that if she wanted me to know what was going on that she would bring it up on her own and if I had tried to make her talk about it she would lose trust in my ability to be a listening ear when she needed it. I think this skill has the power to change a relationship. When we stop focusing on how to fix someone or trying to get them to share information that they do not want to share we open up communication to talk about what is important to them in the moment and we do not have to focus on trying to fix what they are telling us but rather we only need be the person to listen to what they are saying and trust that talking with us they will come up with their own solution or just get it off their

While I would like to think that I am a very accepting person I know that I have judgements in the back of my head that color how I view the world and other people. I think this is definitely a skill that I need to work on more. In my experience, unconditional positive regard is very rare, and I can say that I only know a few people who are actually good at it. One person in my life who has developed their skill of unconditional positive regard is my stepdad. No matter what I tell him or how I act towards him, he is always the same. He accepts the good, bad, and ugly in me and sees the best in me. Through my relationships with him I can see the benefit of Unconditional Positive Regards in therapeutic and even everyday relationships. Much of the time I feel that most of my other relationships are looking for something in me and when I mess up there is very little grace for my failures, mostly because of the fact that unconditional positive regard towards myself is extremely difficult. I also struggle with unconditional positive regard for those close to me, because if you do not have something you cannot give it. I think that is why unconditional positive regard is difficult for me, because I hold myself to such a high standard that I can never really succeed and I inadvertently hold those around me to similar expectations of perfection, or as the book says initial judging thoughts (Cochran 109). I think