Anchored by T30 · Empathy Journal
Enter hard conversations with more understanding.
Reflect on your experience, make a careful attempt to understand the other person, and consider your impact before you decide how to respond.
You can hold your own experience while making room for impact, responsibility, and more thoughtful repair.
Hold your experience and theirs.
Make room for your feelings and a careful, humble attempt to understand what the other person may have experienced.
Look at impact, not only intent.
Focus on your behavior, its impact, and what you can take responsibility for without turning reflection into self-punishment.
Prepare for repair.
Keep a question, an apology, a support request, or a conversation time close to what you learned.
Before the conversation
Make room for impact, not just intent.
You do not have to agree or read someone’s mind. The practice is to understand impact more fully before deciding how to respond.
- 1 What happened?Begin with what you observed and what you noticed in yourself.
- 2 What may the impact have been?Reflect on both people’s feelings and the actions that shaped the moment.
- 3 What would repair require?Consider a repair, question, support request, or conversation time.