Estimated Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Knowing when to let someone go when they struggle to experience authentic empathy for you.

How do you know it is time to let someone go when they understand you but do not display authentic empathy for you? How do you personally make that decision? Do you let them go the first time they display a lack of authentic empathy for you? How about the second time they display a lack of authentic empathy for you? Does it take days, weeks, months, or years of them showing a lack of authentic empathy for you for you to let them go? Do you never let them go and accept that understanding is enough? How long do you let it go when somebody says they understand you and cannot experience authentic empathy for you?

Feeling misunderstood by someone, especially someone you love, is a terrible feeling. Feeling that someone you love understands you and does not or cannot experience authentic empathy for you is even worse. This is because authentic empathy goes deeper than understanding. The stress and negative emotions that crop up when someone feels that they understand you and you feel they are not showing you authentic empathy, can signal an end to a friendship or a relationship. When a person’s lack of authentic empathy starts to negatively affect you mentally and you cannot push through it, then I invite you to consider that it is time to let that person go.

One’s ultimate desire is for people to experience authentic empathy for us.

How this applies to fear…

When it comes to fear and letting someone go who struggles to show us authentic empathy, many of us fear that we will regret letting the person go. We make excuses for keeping them in our lives. To work through this fear, we need to realize the truth in the old saying; when one door closes another one opens. As we move on from the people who negatively affect us, we open our hearts and lives and make room for the people who will positively impact us.

How this applies to WACASHWI…

When it comes to WACASHWI and letting someone go who struggles to show you authentic empathy, the people you keep in your life will influence you along your journey. If you keep people who struggle to experience authentic empathy for you, they will have a negative influence on your journey. You will spend time getting them to experience authentic empathy for you that you could be spending pushing your journey forward. I invite you to work to understand when your efforts to get someone to experience authentic empathy for you are a net-positive in your life and when they are a net-negative. For the times when people are a net-positive in your life, work to help them experience authentic empathy for you. For the times when people are a net-negative in your life, I invite you to consider lovingly letting them go.

Your daily invitations…

• I invite you to think about someone in your life that you do not feel experiences authentic empathy for you.
• I invite you to consider what you can do to make things better.
• I invite you to write down your thoughts, feelings, and actions in your journal.
• I invite you to talk to the person you are thinking about and discuss how you are feeling and see what can be done.

Final step – how will you implement one thing you learned today in your life?

This all is but one step in your journey to living a more stress-free life, beating the demons of fear, and raising your level of authentic empathy towards yourself and others.

I appreciate you!