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What Empathy Asks Us to Do · Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett

• 0:00
  [music]
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  SPEAKER_01: and time.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, hello!
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Infinite Threads.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Bob.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday,
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  SPEAKER_00: we spent some time with empathy,
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  SPEAKER_00: that strange and beautiful human ability
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  SPEAKER_00: to step outside our own experience long enough to recognize
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  SPEAKER_00: that another person's inner world is every bit as real as our own.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today, I want to go one step further because empathy helps us understand.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compassion asks what we're going to do with that understanding.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean every time we feel that someone else's pain,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're suddenly responsible for fixing their life.
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  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of the quickest ways to turn compassion into exhaustion is to believe we have
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  SPEAKER_00: to rescue everybody we care about.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes helping someone who is hurting begins with something much simpler.
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  SPEAKER_00: We listen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Really listen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not while planning our answer and not while mentally comparing their story
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  SPEAKER_00: to something that happened to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: We let the person finish long enough for us to understand what they're actually carrying.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds easy, but it isn't always.
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  SPEAKER_00: Human beings have a powerful urge To fix things.
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  SPEAKER_00: Somebody tells us that they're struggling and five seconds later we're opening
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  SPEAKER_00: the imaginary toolbox.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm guilty of that big time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Have you tried that too?
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  SPEAKER_00: I bet you have.
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  SPEAKER_00: Have you tried this?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you do that?
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I would do.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those kind of things.
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  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes advice is exactly what's needed when it's asked for.
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  SPEAKER_00: Other times The person isn't looking for instructions.
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  SPEAKER_00: They need someone to recognize that what they're going through is hard.
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  SPEAKER_00: That recognition can be its own form of care.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can see why that hurt.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or, I don't know exactly what this feels like for you, but I'm here for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those words don't solve the problem, but they do something else.
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  SPEAKER_00: They make the person less alone I think that's where compassion in action often begins.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not with a grand gesture,
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  SPEAKER_00: but with the decision not
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  SPEAKER_00: to look away once another person's experience becomes visible to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what happens next depends on the situation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody really does need practical help.
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  SPEAKER_00: A meal, a ride, a phone call, maybe just a little time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what they need is patience because they're not functioning at their best right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the most compassionate thing that we can do is simply stay nearby
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  SPEAKER_00: while they work through something that we cannot solve for them.
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  SPEAKER_00: That can be difficult because staying beside pain without fixing it can make us feel useless.
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  SPEAKER_00: But presence is not useless.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anyone who has gone through grief probably understands that.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are losses for which nobody has the right sentence.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are moments when an attempt to cheer someone up only makes the distance feel greater.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the best compassion is a person who sits down and doesn't demand
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  SPEAKER_00: that grief become more comfortable for everybody else.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's care.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it teaches us something important.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compassion isn't about making ourselves the hero of another person's story.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's about asking what would actually help.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those are very different things.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I need to feel useful, I may rush in and take over.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I'm paying attention to you, I may discover that what you need is room.
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  SPEAKER_00: That takes emotional awareness.
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  SPEAKER_00: It also takes humility.
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  SPEAKER_00: The same is true with healthy boundaries.
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  SPEAKER_00: We sometimes talk about compassion as though being compassionate means saying yes to everything.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are situations where compassion has to say no.
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  SPEAKER_00: If someone is hurting another person,
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  SPEAKER_00: compassion for the person being harmed
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  SPEAKER_00: If someone's behavior keeps damaging
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  SPEAKER_00: the people around them,
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  SPEAKER_00: care does not require us to make that behavior consequence-free.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if helping someone is beginning to destroy our own health or stability,
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  SPEAKER_00: a boundary may be the only or the most honest thing left.
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make It gives compassion a shape.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge difference between saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what happens to you and saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: I care about you, but I can't help you in this particular way anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: One closes the heart.
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  SPEAKER_00: The other may simply be wisdom.
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  SPEAKER_00: That distinction matters to me because compassion It isn't supposed to erase us.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are part of the human connection too.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our needs matter.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our limits matter.
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  SPEAKER_00: The love force,
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  SPEAKER_00: as I understand it,
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  SPEAKER_00: doesn't ask one thread to disappear so that another thread can survive.
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  SPEAKER_00: It asks us to find ways of caring that preserve dignity on both sides.
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  SPEAKER_00: That may mean Comfort.
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  SPEAKER_00: It may mean truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it means helping someone face something that they'd rather avoid.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's where compassion can become uncomfortable.
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  SPEAKER_00: Niceness tends to want the room to stay pleasant.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compassion is willing to ask whether the room is actually healthy.
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  SPEAKER_00: If someone is suffering because of a problem that We can genuinely help change.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compassion may ask more from us than just sympathy.
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  SPEAKER_00: It may ask us to actually move.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's another side to this that I do think is especially important.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compassion can change the way that we think about people
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  SPEAKER_00: whose lives are far outside our own experience.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to have clean answers To problems that we have never personally lived.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then we meet someone.
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  SPEAKER_00: We hear the details.
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  SPEAKER_00: We learn what the choices actually looked like from inside their life.
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  SPEAKER_00: The issue suddenly becomes much less tidy.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's not weakness.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's understanding becoming deep.
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  SPEAKER_00: Empathy and compassion don't require us to abandon judgment or pretend
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  SPEAKER_00: that every choice is equally healthy.
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  SPEAKER_00: They simply prevent us from reducing people to the problem that we see from the outside.
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  SPEAKER_00: Once a person becomes real to us, we start asking better questions.
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  SPEAKER_00: What happened here?
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  SPEAKER_00: What is this person carrying?
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  SPEAKER_00: What would actually reduce suffering?
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  SPEAKER_00: What would help without creating more harm?
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  SPEAKER_00: Those questions are useful everywhere,
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  SPEAKER_00: from friendships and families to the way that we think about larger social problems.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that connects to something that we've talked about many times
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  SPEAKER_00: on Infinite Threads, and that's repair.
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  SPEAKER_00: If somebody has been harmed, Compassion cares about the wounded person first.
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  SPEAKER_00: Their safety matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: Their grief matters.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Compassion also asks what prevents the next wound.
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  SPEAKER_00: That may require accountability.
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  SPEAKER_00: It may require treatment, study, intervention, or containment.
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  SPEAKER_00: Whatever actually protects people.
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  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to add more suffering simply because somebody caused suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to reduce harm.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's a very different way of thinking.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's not soft either.
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  SPEAKER_00: Real compassion can be extremely firm.
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  SPEAKER_00: It can put an arm around someone who is crying,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it can also stand between a vulnerable person and someone who is hurting them.
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  SPEAKER_00: The common thread is care for life.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what separates compassion from simple sentiment.
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  SPEAKER_00: It wants something better to happen next.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think we need more of that, don't you?
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  SPEAKER_00: Not people who feel everything until they just collapse.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not people who harden themselves because caring seems too painful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Something healthier in between.
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  SPEAKER_00: People who can notice suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: People who can notice suffering understand enough to care and
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  SPEAKER_00: then ask what useful action is actually possible.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the answer will be small and that's okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've learned over and over on this show that small things they travel to.
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  SPEAKER_00: A person who feels seen may become a little more able to see somebody else.
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  SPEAKER_00: A kindness received on a terrible day may turn into patience offered later.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compassion can move through the weave just like harm can.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why the small choices matter so much.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't always know what they become after they leave us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow, guys, tomorrow we're going to turn the lens inward.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because there is another piece of this that we can't avoid as much as you might want to.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I don't understand myself very well,
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  SPEAKER_00: my fears, wounds,
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  SPEAKER_00: assumptions,
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  SPEAKER_00: and emotional triggers,
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  SPEAKER_00: then I can easily mistake my own reaction for the truth about somebody else.
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  SPEAKER_00: Self-awareness matters because every one of us brings ourselves into the room.
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  SPEAKER_00: But before we get there, I want to leave today with one simple thought.
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  SPEAKER_00: Empathy says, your experience is real to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Compassion quietly follows with another question.
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  SPEAKER_00: What does care look like now?
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means acting.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means a boundary.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means simply staying long enough For another person to know,
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  SPEAKER_00: they don't have to carry the moment completely alone.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to solve everything, guys.
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  SPEAKER_00: But once we truly see one another, love usually asks us not to walk away unchanged.
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  SPEAKER_00: I love you all very, very, very, very much.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I need you to do.
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  SPEAKER_00: Go out there and pass that on, okay?
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  SPEAKER_02: Here we go, welcome friends, enjoy the show.