When hearing emotional pain we can easily jump to an immediate reaction to “fix it”…which is not always helpful. When people experience pain, they benefit from being heard and validated through empathy, not pity or sympathy (see the difference here). Sometimes we wish well, but we just have a hard time coming up with empathetic statements.

Often times our natural tendency is to eradicate pain and fix the issue. While this can be helpful in some cases, it is usually best to collaborate and fix an issue (if desired by the hurting person) after hearing and validating the pain.

When we empathize with others, we give them space to process, time to feel heard, a chance to experience support and the opportunity to feel validated in their feelings.