Odie

Just got off the phone with my friend Olivia. This friend of mine, she has an amazing quality: incredible empathy. She is the type of friend that would cry with you when you truly weep. She may not offer you any solution for what brings you down, but she has an amazing ability of feeling what you feel.

That is what we call empathy, and I really needed that tonight. I feel so much better having talked to her on the phone. My situation hasn't changed, but I feel relieved, heard, understood and cared for.

This helps me to trust in the power of empathy again, just when I needed it the most, since today I came home from the counseling center totally feeling defeated. I wasn't sure if I was of any help to my clients at all. I couldn't solve their problems, and I had the expectation that I was supposed to since my supervisors right now work from more of a solution-focused model and I have been influenced by that strongly whether I like it or not.

The solution focused model has its value and its place in healing, but empathy has this amazing quality to just work its magic, heal and refill the kind of faith and love we need to feel in order to feel truly human. When we empathize, we are serving not just the person in front of us, but humanity as a whole.

Dramatic as that may sound, that's how I truly feel right now.

Olivia is such an amazing friend. My heart feels like it's back in the flow of something warm and powerful again.

I love her so much.