After diving into the Seven Pillars of Mental Health for the last several weeks, today, Destiny explores a different topic. A VERY important topic!

She talks about a quality that’s a crucial part of human connection. A quality that’s desperately needed, but sadly lacking, in our society. A quality that helps you understand people on a deeper level. A quality that gives you amazing mental, emotional and physical health benefits!

So what is it? And how do you develop it and live it out? Tune in to today’s episode of The Destiny Malibu Podcast!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

A HUGE Part Of Human Connection!

We are so excited to be partnering with the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and talking about a topic that we feel a lot of times needs a little more love and is not talked about a lot, especially in Las Vegas, which is a party city.

We’re all about having fun, going out, and doing all those things.

However, we also want to make sure that you guys are feeling good mentally and emotionally. We’re here to be your friends and talk about some mental health topics with you guys and how we can build a community together of people who are focused on becoming the best version of themselves. We’ve been talking about the seven pillars of mental health, which is something that I made that has helped me through my mental health struggles and journey.

Those pillars that we’ve talked about, if you guys haven’t heard them yet, you can go back to previous episodes. We are diving into a new section because we’ve talked about all of our seven pillars of mental health. In this episode, we are sifting into a new topic, which is called empathy and the importance of empathy. That’s what we’re going to be discussing. Empathy is a crucial part of human connection, feeling connected to the people around you and understanding people. It’s the ability to step into someone else’s shoes and imagine what they’re going through. A lot of people are struggling out there and are keeping it private and not telling anybody.

They’re suppressing it and holding it in. They are building it up until one day, the bubble is over. We don’t want any of you to go through that. We’re trying to let you know now how to be empathetic with each other.

How to be empathetic, how to be a good listener, how to check in on your friends and make sure that they’re doing good. Make sure that they’re feeling okay because a lot of people were struggling with their mental health during the pandemic. Now, that things are opening back up, we’re so happy. We’re at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and we want to be your online friends and remind you guys of the importance of empathy.

We are going to be talking about the three different types of empathy. I thought this was very interesting. There is cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and also compassionate empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand what someone is going through. Someone tells you a story. Maybe they were late to work, got a flat tire, or something crazy happened. They tell you about it and you’re like, “I understand how that could be a difficult situation.”

When you understand, you have to sit there and listen, right?

Yes. Listening is a huge part of understanding. Dezzee is an extremely good listener. She listens to me. Babble away nonstop.

Listening is a huge part of understanding. Click To Tweet

I do. She’s like, “Are you listening?” I’m like, “Yes, I am,” and I say back whatever it is that she’s saying.

She’s a fantastic listener. I love people and I love communication. I enjoy asking people how they’re doing and diving deep into those topics. Cognitive empathy is understanding. We also have emotional empathy, and this is when you are able to physically feel what this person is feeling. I’m sure a lot of you guys have experienced this. Sometimes you see someone crying and your eyes start tearing up.

That’s mirroring, but it’s also emotional empathy when you’re able to see someone in pain or somebody struggling and feel that physically in your body. Also, feel the sensation of what that person might be going through. This is emotional empathy. We have the third one, which is compassionate empathy and it’s a combination of cognitive and emotional empathy. Compassionate empathy is the combination of being able to understand and feel what the person is going through.

That normally comes around when you’ve also experienced what that person has gone through. Is that right?

Yes. It’s important to exercise this muscle of compassionate empathy because it’s a huge part of the human connection of being able to understand what someone is going through. Something that I also want to highlight is the difference between empathy and sympathy because I think that’s easy to get confused too. What’s the difference between empathy and sympathy? Sympathy essentially is the ability to feel sorry for someone, to pity someone, but to separate yourself emotionally from what they are going through. You’re feeling sorry for them and pitying them, but you’re not allowing yourself to physically feel any of those sad emotions.

You’re keeping it at an arm’s distance.

You’re like, “I’m so sorry for you. That sounds sad,” but you’re not emotionally connecting. Empathy is the ability to see somebody and emotionally connect. You sit there with them and say, “I understand what you’re feeling. I feel your pain.” Maybe you’ve been through something similar. This is the difference between empathy and sympathy, which is important to highlight how beautiful it is to be able to empathize with someone. It’s because when you’re sympathizing with someone, you’re removed from it. You’re like, “I hope that gets better. I feel sorry for you,” but you’re not having that emotional connection with the person.

You’re probably not listening. You’re like, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about and I’m not going to listen.”

It’s important to remember to ask people how they’re doing. Ask them what’s going on in their life and how they’re feeling emotionally, and then be able to sit there and exercise the ability to truly empathize with people. This is a huge part of human connection. It can help you make your relationships so beautiful, build them up, and build those strong connections with people, which at the end of the day, we all want to have those strong connections with people.

As mom told us when we were little is that we have two ears and one mouth. We should be listening twice as much as we talk.

That’s a good highlight and it’s true. We got to make sure we are listening to each other and checking on each other. Also, practicing empathy is not only beneficial for the people around you, but it’s beneficial for you. Studies show that it benefits your health so you are less stressed and you have less negativity in your life. It improves communication skills in your workplace. It improves the connections you have with your fellow coworkers. It transcends personal relationships to a totally different level.

Remember that when you’re going out into the world or when you’re hanging out with people that you are showing empathy for the people you care about and people that you don’t know that well. Sometimes, I’m walking around and I’ve seen people crying in a hallway or something. I always stop and I’m like, “Are you okay?” Sometimes people don’t want to talk. That’s fine. Sometimes people want a hug. They want to talk. It’s not that all of us have the time to do that, but it’s such a beautiful thing to connect with people in that way.

A lot of times, especially with social media and stuff, we all seem to be perfectly happy all the time. It’s because we’re posting everything that’s going good. However, a lot of us are going through hard times. Remember to check in on your loved ones and exercise your empathy muscle. We love you guys so much and we’re so happy to be partnering with the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, talking about mental health in a big party city and bringing light to this topic.

If you have any questions that you may want to ask Destiny that you want us to talk about in future episodes, you can go to AskDestinyMalibu.com and submit your questions there. Also, there is a free giveaway. Is that right, Destiny?

Yes, Dezzee. We are giving away a free weekend getaway to the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. They have been so gracious to do this giveaway with us. You guys get to win a free hotel stay weekend getaway. All you have to do to enter this giveaway is subscribe to the show, rate the show and leave a review. You’re going to want to take a screenshot of your review before you hit send. You can email it to Contest@DestinyMalibu.com because it does take 48 hours for the review to go live. All you have to do is submit it. Review the show and send it to that email address and you could win a free weekend getaway and dinner with us.

We’d love to have dinner with you so make sure you do that. I think we’re going to end the show with our mantra.

If you don’t know the mantra yet, it is, “If you hate me, I love you. If you love me, I love you even more. You are not alone, and we are in this together.” We love you guys so much. Make sure you come back for the next episode.

 

 Important Links

• Virgin Hotels Las Vegas
• AskDestinyMalibu.com
• Contest@DestinyMalibu.com