Empathy vs Sympathy

Empathy requires we engage in a relationship while sympathy asks nothing of us.

Empathy seeks to understand the others experience while sympathy assumes to know their experience. 

With empathy you listen, with sympathy you talk and offer platitude.

Sympathy can take us down a path of knowing what is best for people, it assumes because I might have been through something similar I know what you should do so I offer advice and I expect you to follow it.

Sympathy offers empty words and offers very little understanding it does not create a share experience or new understanding.

Empathy starts with looking for similarities and meet the other at that point.  

It never assumes to know and together walk towards a new understanding.

Empathy is active and requires the ability to set aside our ego, to be present and engaged.  

Empathy honours the journey of the other person, and stay present offering companionship ensuring the other he/she not alone.  

Teaching children to be empathetic starts by being an empathetic parent.

Help children explore how they are feeling, never telling how they feel or to stop feeling.  

Never parenting through fear or by dismissing of your child’s feelings.  

As a parent share how you are feeling in an age appropriate way with your children, naming your emotions for them and how to express these emotions safely.  

With your children notice the world around you, both on the news and in the community where you live, teaching inclusion and membership. 

Teach your children to be curious and open rather then judgmental and opinionated.

Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world

~ Barack Obama 

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2018 twosnydergirls

Connections

We live our lives within the fabric of delicate connections.

We become self aware through the vibration of these connections.

We are known to others by the labels each connection uncovers and reveals to the world.

and

We live on from one generation to the next as the stories of our connections are retold.

Be mindful of how you are connected to others.

Of how these connections resonate within your spirit.

The labels your connections reflect out into the world, your neighbourhood, your home.

Of the stories you tell of the people who came before you, the connections that call their memories to mind.

Become aware of the ordinary beauty of these connections.

How a smell, a song, a flower, a book, a season … will instantly connect you to a memory, to another human being.

Connections are the gossamer relationships that hold our lives and our world together.

Grandma Snyder

©2013 -2017 twosnydergirls

Remain Relevant as a Grandparent

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin 

~ Anthony Robbins

Is having a bucket list a good thing? 

Is a list of things that you want to do before you die important?

What is important is that no matter how old we are that we continue to grow.  

That we experience life and embrace the opportunities that are within our reach.

And

In staying engaged in our lives, staying active, curious and alive we are setting a positive example for our children and grandchildren.

We are teaching them that in old age we remain relevant.

Begin a journey that you have been putting off in your bucket list.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

A Responsible Deed

With fresh clementine’s in our shopping bag we had our supper on this our first day in Toronto.

“Stop, stop please!  Did you buy the parmesan cheese, yes, yes you did, can I please see your receipt please I need to make sure.”  Upon seeing our receipt she relaxed and apologized for forgetting to place our cheese slicer in the bag.  She takes the cheese slicer and places it in our bag and runs back to the Global Cheese in Kensington Market.

15 minutes before we purchased Quince preserve, Fig and Almond paste, Calamata Olives, Parmesan Cheese, a box of gluten free crackers and a cheese slicer.

So it is that this blog is a shout out to the Global Cheese Shoppe in Kensington Market a store where it employees are valued for their integrity and honesty.  Oh and the cheese is really good.

When was the last time you experienced a shoppe owner or worker showing this level of integrity?

How are you as a (grand)parent teaching your children integrity?

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Joy, Good Medicine

At this stage of our lives we need to make a choice.

A choice that impacts the impression our children, grandchildren will have of us.

That will inform their decision to visit or stay away.

Do we live with a joyful heart or are we dried bones?

How do I live in Joy? 
To answer this question I went in search of a definition for joy.

Joy the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation:the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.a state of happiness or felicity.a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Dictionary.com

I find joy in my grandchildren and their parents my children.

Do you find joy in the children you know - nieces, nephew, grandchildren?

Let them know that they bring joy into our lives.

Express that joy and live with an open heart.

Be remembered as joyful

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Affirmation

Tea with a Soul Sister

It has been over a year since Dawna and I have sat down together and shared an unhurried afternoon of tea, food, spiritual connection and rich conversation.  

Graphic Fairy Image

In the past year I have yearned for such moments - two women sharing a unique spiritual connection free to be:

• raw knowing no harm will come
• angry without fear of reprisal
• silly without annoying
• empty and knowing you will leave spiritually renewed.

Today we are meeting at ‘The Bicycle Café’ 14 Sydenham Street, Flesherton, Ontario N0C 1E0.

Click here to visit their face book page

I am nervous, worried that the long lapse in time will have changed both of us and that this unique connection that we have will be gone, lost to me forever.  It is true that the older you get the more acutely aware you become of the things that are now forever outside of your reality.

Graphic Fairy Image

Like the lost opportunities to talk to my Grandma Almeda about her childhood on the farm, and to ask her how she coped with my grandfather's death?  I will understand it now as I am around the same age she was then.

I am writing down my stories so that my grandchildren and possibly great grandchildren will have a small window into my life.  Is that vain of me to think that they will want this gift I am offering?

Graphic Fairy Image

Dawna is there sitting in the window and I tell by the energy that surrounds her that my worries are unfounded.  I enter the Café, take off my coat and sit beside her facing out to the small town street.  

All of the time that has lapsed since our last cup of tea falls away like so many dust particles shaken from a blanket before it encircles you with warmth and love.  

Dawna smiles
 and affirms what I already know
- we are spirit sisters

 

Dawna gave me a very unique gift that only confirms our connection and I want to share it with you.   She gave me a small bag of tiny scrolls called ‘Love Notes’ by Shelly Hannah.  When I am struggling or wanting to refocus I can reach out to Dawna by reaching into my purse and opening one of the scrolls up.…

“Your imagination is a gift.  You can imagine new things that will make a difference to many people use it widely!”

Grandma Snyder

© 2013-2014 twosnydergirls