Family Life Coaching: Empathy

For my internship, I decided to enroll into a Family Life Coaching class at BYU-Idaho. As I have been in this class I have found so many life tools that will not only help me in my future career, whether it be counselling or coaching, but also in my everyday life. I want to touch on just one here. One that if you do not use you will not be a good coach at all.

1. Empathy.
What is empathy? Empathy is feeling with others. It is to never pretend that you understand. It is a fueled connection with another. It is a vulnerable choice. I love the word vulnerable. When we are helping one and/or coaching another we have to be vulnerable to what they may voice and say. We are not to be judgmental. We are to listen with empathy. I want to share a video about empathy.

I absolutely love this video! It shares how hard empathy can be. This video portrays the skill of advanced empathy which is understanding the underlying problem or issue that one is going through.
Have you ever seen an iceberg? If not, here is a picture of one that I took while I was in Alaska.

You can see that there are some rough as well as smooth spots on this iceberg but what you can't see is how much ice is under the surface. There is a diagonal line on the front face of this iceberg, everything below that line was once under water. This iceberg will shift and rotate in the water. It actually did it when I was taking the picture. about 2/3's of the iceberg is under water. The goal of a coach is to help those find what is under the iceberg and how they can accomplish that if they desire. 

" The voice that speaks in him speaks low but he who listens with a third ear, hears also what is expressed almost noiselessly, what is said pianissimo." 

I absolutely love this quote because this is talking about empathy. You can also apply it to advanced empathy. When you have a true desire to hear and understand what one is going through you are listening with that third ear. 

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside you." -Emerson