In Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl says:
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
This applies especially to empathy.
Empathy is a choice – every single time.
Too often, in our rush to react, to judge, to conclude, we choose not to be empathetic.
I've led dozens of workshops on conscious inclusion. I emphasize that empathy is fundamental to helping people feel safe, heard, and included.
I lead an exercise asking people managers to read a first person narrative of someone who has felt marginalized, disenfranchised, or excluded.
They write down what they notice about the person's story, then we discuss how to respond if they were their direct report.
Every single time at least one participant's initial response is to question or challenge the validity of the narrative, to poke holes in their logic, to rebut, to dismiss its seriousness, to raise "what ifs".
I suspect that we fear being empathetic because the uncertainty of what comes after having connected with a person leaves us too vulnerable.
Which is scary. So we constantly close off opportunities to connect.
Then we wonder why people don't trust us.