An intense personal experience blocks empathy temporarily, but processing the story repeatedly allows you to shift between your perspective and the other person's
When you're in the middle of an intense emotional experience, empathizing with others is nearly impossible — your own experience fills your awareness completely. However, after telling the story and processing it multiple times, the experience loosens enough that you can move between your viewpoint and the other person's.
Relevant Clips1
- Teaching4:25
After Processing Deeply You Can Hold Both Perspectives at Once
When you have a really intense experience, it's very hard to empathize with others or think about what's happening for other people, but after processing the story multiple times, you can hop between your perspective and the other person's perspective