Empathy

The Empathy Project is not a big university study. It is not even a project as far as I know. I just basically wanted to get you're attention and see how many of us and when I say us, I mean everyone, not just people in recovery use empathy in their lives. I want opinions, stories, experiences, any thing about empathy. Like how it may affect your life or maybe how you use it in you're life today.
I must say before I entered recovery I had never heard of empathy or I just got it confused with sympathy. I am happy to say Empathy plays a major part in my life and I believe for the better.
So I am going to give you the two definitions.
EMPATHY  is understanding what others are feeling because you have experienced it yourself or you can put yourself in their shoes.
An example might be "I know its not easy to lose weight because I have had the same problems throughout my life."
SYMPATHY is acknowledging another person's emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance.
An example of this may be when people try to make changes like this (e.g. lose some weight) at first it seems difficult. (My up most respect and thanks goes out to diffen.com for the definitions and examples)
Now they do seem very similar but believe me they are two totally different animals. It took me awhile to really understand the differences and a little while longer to figure out how to apply them in my daily life.
If you are reading this please take a minute or two and leave a comment.No names are needed in fact go ahead make one up. No email addresses will be used. You can either use the comment box her or email me at daveup247@gmail.com