Exercises — Chapter 21: Empathy and Compassion — Seeing Through Other Eyes

These exercises work at both the perceptual level (what do you notice about others' experience?) and the relational level (what do you do with what you notice?). Some ask you to examine your own compassion patterns. All require a degree of honest self-reflection.

Part 1: Understanding Your Empathy Profile

Exercise 21.1 — The Three-Component Assessment

The chapter distinguishes cognitive empathy (perspective-taking), affective empathy (emotional resonance), and empathic concern (caring motivation). These can be present in different proportions.

Rate your natural tendency in each area (1 = low; 10 = high):

Cognitive empathy (perspective-taking) - I can usually identify what someone else is thinking or feeling, even when they don't say it explicitly. - I find it natural to consider situations from other people's perspectives. - I adjust my approach based on my understanding of what the other person is experiencing. Rating: ___

Affective empathy (emotional resonance) - I tend to feel what people around me feel — their distress becomes my distress, their joy lifts me. - I find it difficult to stay calm when someone close to me is very upset. - Sad films, difficult news stories, and others' suffering affect me viscerally and often for some time after. Rating: ___

Empathic concern (caring motivation) - When I become aware that someone is suffering, I am strongly motivated to help. - I follow through on caring impulses rather than telling myself I'll do something later. - I notice when someone needs something even when they don't ask for it. Rating: ___

(a) What is your profile? (e.g., high cognitive, moderate affective, high empathic concern)

(b) How does your profile affect your close relationships — what does it produce that is valuable, and what does it cost?

Exercise 21.2 — Empathy vs. Sympathy Audit

Review three recent interactions in which someone you know was distressed or struggling.

For each interaction: (a) What did you say or do?

(b) Was your response primarily empathy (accompanying presence, "I'm here") or sympathy (acknowledgment from comfort, "at least")?

(d) Is there a pattern across the three interactions in terms of which response comes more naturally to you?

Part 2: The Regulation Challenge

Exercise 21.3 — Empathic Distress vs. Empathic Concern

The chapter distinguishes empathic distress (absorbing another's state; wanting to escape) from empathic concern (being moved by another's state; wanting to help).

(a) Think of two or three situations in which you were in sustained contact with someone else's distress — a friend going through a difficult period, a difficult conversation, a professional context where you worked with people in hardship. For each: were you primarily experiencing empathic distress or empathic concern? How do you know?

(b) What happens to your capacity to help when you are in empathic distress? Does the desire to escape the discomfort change what you do?

(c) What practices or behaviors help you move from empathic distress (being overwhelmed by the other's state) toward empathic concern (being moved by it while maintaining differentiation)? If none come to mind, what would you want to develop?

Exercise 21.4 — The Fixing Impulse

Jordan's opening scene illustrates the "fixing impulse" — the default of replacing empathic presence with problem-solving.

(a) Do you have a fixing impulse? When someone shares something difficult with you, is your immediate orientation to understand it or to solve it?

(b) What function does the fixing impulse serve for you — not for the other person? Does it help you manage your own discomfort with the situation? Does it feel more competent or useful than presence?

(c) Practice: In your next three conversations in which someone shares something difficult, deliberately pause before responding. Ask: "What do you need right now — to be heard, to get perspective, or to problem-solve?" Even asking internally will change the quality of what you do next.

Part 3: Self-Compassion

Exercise 21.5 — The Self-Compassion Scale

Kristin Neff's three components of self-compassion: self-kindness (vs. self-judgment), common humanity (vs. isolation), mindfulness (vs. over-identification).

Rate each component for yourself (1 = rarely; 5 = consistently):

Self-kindness - When I fail or fall short, I treat myself with the warmth I would offer a friend in the same situation. - I am patient with my own imperfections and mistakes. - I don't punish myself harshly for my failures. Rating: ___

Common humanity - When I am suffering, I remind myself that suffering and imperfection are part of the shared human experience. - I recognize that I am not uniquely flawed or uniquely unlucky. - I don't feel isolated by my difficulties — I remember that others face similar things. Rating: ___

Mindfulness - When something is painful, I can hold the pain in balanced awareness — neither ignoring it nor being overwhelmed by it. - I can observe my negative emotions without getting swept up in them. - I don't exaggerate or suppress my own suffering. Rating: ___

(a) Which component is most developed? Which is most depleted?

(b) The research finds that self-compassion consistently predicts greater compassion for others. Looking at your scores: where does the deficit in self-compassion show up in your relationships with others?

Exercise 21.6 — The Friend Letter

This is Neff's classic self-compassion exercise.

Think of a situation in your life that is currently causing you suffering — a failure, a fear, something you feel bad about, a difficulty you are carrying.

Write a letter to yourself about this situation from the perspective of a compassionate, wise friend who can see you clearly, who cares deeply about you, and who is not invested in having you feel differently than you feel. The friend acknowledges the difficulty, offers perspective without minimization, and does not demand that you feel better quickly.

(a) What did your friend's letter say that was most helpful or most surprising?

(b) How different is the friend's voice from your usual internal voice about this situation?

(c) Can you notice the gap between how you would treat a friend in this situation and how you treat yourself? What does that gap tell you?

Exercise 21.7 — Common Humanity in Practice

A core component of self-compassion is recognizing that suffering and imperfection are part of shared human experience — that you are not uniquely flawed.

(a) Think of something about yourself that you judge harshly — a pattern, a characteristic, a recurring failure. Write one sentence summarizing the self-judgment.

(b) Now imagine a cross-section of all the people who share this characteristic. What would their lives look like? What produced the characteristic in them? Do you apply to them the same judgment you apply to yourself?

(c) The research finds that people are consistently harsher with themselves than they would be with others for the same failures. What would it change — practically, not just emotionally — if you applied to yourself the standard you apply to others?

Part 4: Compassion in Relationships

Exercise 21.8 — The Empathic Presence Practice

The chapter identifies three components of empathic presence in conversation: attending fully, reflecting rather than evaluating, and tolerating distress without fixing it.

In your next difficult or emotionally significant conversation with someone:

(a) Practice attending fully — not formulating your response, not redirecting toward what you want to say, not evaluating. Just listening.

(b) Before responding, try a reflection: "What I'm hearing is..." or "It sounds like..." Return what you heard in the form of a reflection rather than a response.

(c) If the person seems distressed or in difficulty, resist the impulse to offer a solution or silver lining. Try staying in the difficulty with them: "I can see this is really hard." Nothing more, for a moment.

After the conversation: - What was hardest about this practice? - What did the other person seem to need, and did the practice give them more or less of it? - What would need to change in you for this to become more natural?

Exercise 21.9 — Compassion vs. Enabling

A common concern about practicing compassion is that it might be confused with enabling — supporting behavior that is harmful or reinforcing patterns that should change.

(a) Think of a relationship in which you have struggled to distinguish compassion (presence with someone in their difficulty) from enabling (supporting behavior that makes the difficulty worse).

(b) How do you distinguish the two in practice? Is the distinction clear to you?

(c) The chapter suggests that compassion does not require agreement or validation of all decisions — you can be present with someone's pain while also holding a different view. What would a compassionate and honest response look like in the situation you identified?

Part 5: Empathy Across Difference

Exercise 21.10 — Perspective-Taking Across a Significant Difference

The chapter addresses whether empathy can operate across significant differences of experience and identity.

Choose one person or group whose experience is significantly different from yours — a different socioeconomic background, cultural context, health situation, or life circumstance.

(a) Describe what you actually know about their experience — not what you imagine, but what you have learned through conversation, reading, or direct contact.

(b) Describe what you don't know and are genuinely uncertain about — the aspects of their experience where your imagination might be projecting your own frame.

(c) What would it take to know more? Is there a conversation you could have, a book you could read, an experience you could seek?

Exercise 21.11 — Epistemic Humility Assessment

Epistemic humility means acknowledging that your own experience does not provide the reference point for others' experiences.

(a) In which domains are you most likely to project your own experience onto others — to assume their experience must be like yours would be? (Consider: relationships, work, health, family, culture, socioeconomic experience, identity dimensions.)

(b) Can you recall a time when you discovered that your projected understanding of someone's experience was significantly wrong? What was the actual nature of the gap?

(c) What practices help you maintain epistemic humility — to remain genuinely curious about others' experiences rather than assuming you understand?

Part 6: Compassion Fatigue and Sustainability

Exercise 21.12 — Compassion Fatigue Self-Assessment

The chapter lists symptoms of compassion fatigue: emotional exhaustion, reduced empathic capacity, intrusive thoughts about others' distress, reduced pleasure in meaningful work, emotional numbness, cynicism, physical symptoms.

(a) Do any of these symptoms currently apply to you, particularly in your most caregiving role (professional, relational, or both)?

(b) If so: how long have they been present? What conditions produced them?

(c) Which of the protective factors (supervision and peer support, clear boundaries, self-compassion, meaning and purpose clarity, somatic recovery) are most accessible to you right now? Which are most depleted?

Exercise 21.13 — The Replenishment Inventory

What actually replenishes you when your empathic capacity is depleted?

List five activities or experiences that you know, from direct experience, genuinely restore your capacity for care and presence. (These should be tested, not theoretical — things you have done and that you know work, not things you imagine would work.)

For each: (a) When did you last do it? (b) How much time does it require? (c) What prevents you from doing it more regularly?

Part 7: Integration

Exercise 21.14 — The Compassion Practice Design

Design a personal compassion practice for the next thirty days. The practice should be: - Specific (a particular behavior, not a vague intention) - Small (achievable, not aspirational) - Consistent (repeatable daily or several times per week) - Both outward-directed (compassion for others) and inward-directed (self-compassion)

Examples: - One minute of compassion meditation (metta) upon waking - One daily expression of specific appreciation to someone in your life - One self-compassion pause whenever you notice self-critical thought - Five minutes of reflective writing about one person's experience each week

(a) What is your specific practice? (b) How will you track it? (c) What would you expect to notice after thirty days if the practice is working?

Exercise 21.15 — Receiving Empathy

The chapter's opening scene focuses on Jordan's difficulty receiving empathy — his default to giving solutions rather than presence. But there is also the receiving side: the capacity to allow another person to actually be with you in your experience, without managing it, minimizing it, or deflecting with competence.

(a) How comfortable are you with receiving empathy? When someone is clearly trying to be with you in something difficult, what do you do?

(b) Is there a pattern of deflecting care — being quick to say you're fine, redirecting to the other person, maintaining composure rather than allowing the presence to land?

(c) In one conversation this week, practice allowing yourself to be received. When someone expresses care, concern, or genuine interest in your experience — let it arrive. Don't immediately redirect. See what happens.