Empathy Journal: What is it and how do I use it?
One of the biggest obstacles to personal growth in recovery is surprisingly simple: most of us spend the majority of our time thinking about ourselves. That isn't necessarily selfish. It's human nature. However, those with addiction and sexual integrity issues take this to the nth degree. There is most often a struggle to understand the experiences of the people around us.
This becomes especially apparent in recovery. Many people spend countless hours examining their own behavior, tracking sobriety milestones, getting their chips, attending meetings, reading books, and journaling about their progress. All of those things are valuable and good, but they can unintentionally keep the focus centered on the self. Too much self is typically what got this person in the position they are in, in the first place. There is a difference of living in sobriety and living in recovery. A future blog post on that to come. Personal growth matters, yes. But healthy relationships require something more than self-awareness.
They require empathy.
Using the Empathy Journal
One of the simplest tools for developing empathy is what we at T30 call an empathy journal. Unlike a traditional journal, which focuses on your thoughts and experiences, an empathy journal shifts the focus to someone else, typically your partner. Instead of the underlying prompt in your mind asking, "How am I feeling today?" the posture of the empathy journal is this: “What did [Person] experience during [Name the event]?” It can be something that happened today or in the past.
For someone recovering from addiction or rebuilding trust after betrayal, this can be a powerful exercise. Many in recovery can become experts at analyzing their own struggles. They know exactly how difficult recovery feels and they can describe the shame, the cravings, the victories, the setbacks in great detail and sit in their meetings and men’s groups and can really pin the exact moment that something went sideways. What they often haven't practiced is examining the people around them.
An empathy journal creates space for that reflection because it forces the writer to really engage in the work to think about what the other person is doing, feeling, thinking, and experiencing.
The goal isn't to assume you know exactly what another person is thinking. In fact, certainty is often the enemy of empathy. The goal is simply to become curious enough to consider what their experiences could be.
That shift from certainty to curiosity is where empathy begins.
How it changes your perspective
Over time, this practice can fundamentally change the way people relate to one another, especially in the relationships of broken trust. Instead of viewing conflict through the lens of personal frustration and unmet needs, they begin asking different questions. Instead of wondering why someone is still hurt, they become interested in understanding the pain they're carrying. The result is often a deeper sense of compassion and connection.
In many ways, the exercise works best when you acknowledge that you don't know everything. The value comes from the willingness to consider another perspective, not from getting it exactly right. The empathy journal is not about right vs. wrong. It is about connecting with that person’s experiences without them having to be there. Can you really put yourself in their shoes and just name what their reality could be like in that moment?
At its core, an empathy journal is an exercise in humility. It reminds us that every person we encounter is living a story as rich and complex as our own. They have fears, hopes, disappointments, and struggles that may be invisible to us. The more we practice seeing through someone else's eyes, the less likely we are to become trapped inside our own.
Why T30 uses it + an example
The empathy journal is a part of the three core principles within our organization based on non-defensive empathy. If the writer can start actively integrating more frequently with the experiences of their betrayed partner, then over time, we see that the interactions that come form relational ruptures are less pressurized, more understood, and the relationship can recover more quickly.
Example of a journal entry:
“Today Beth took Charlotte to Target for some school clothes, something that should feel pretty ordinary, and even enjoyable. Because of my acting out involving an employee there, she may walk through those doors carrying memories and questions that I created. I imagine that she may not even realize it because she is going and maybe she turns a corner and sees an employee and get triggered. I could even see her feeling anxious wondering if she will see someone connected to that chapter of our lives who doesn’t know. She may feel anger that a routine trip with our daughter is complicated by choices she never asked for. She has been sad in the past with going to places that were loosely connected to my decisions, but this could be really hard for her. As she shops, she is also caring for our Charlotte, helping her managing her own emotions as a four-year-old, and trying to remain present without just busting out crying. Maybe she is stuffing those feelings today, or maybe they are at the surface. I love Beth and my past actions have caused her to experience this reality today, and I deeply regret that.”
