“It is I who come to your door,” said the man,

“Go away, not now, this isn’t the time,

No place exists here for the raw.”

So the wretched friend left from the door,

and traveled afar for a year, his mind and heart

Were burned by the world,

till eventually he came once more.

And again he knocked at the door of his friend,

His heart in his mouth with fear.

“Who’s there at my door?” his friend asked.

“Is it you, my closest of hearts?”

“No, it’s you at the door, not I anymore.”

“Then come inside my house, fore here I can tell,

There’s little or no room for two.”

- Rumi (1273/2000, p. 59)

As Rumi’s epigraph alludes to above, relationships don’t do well with selfishness. When one partner focuses on himself more than the other, the relationship becomes unhealthy because the levels of communication and connection suffer. In this post, we’ll examine the nature of empathy as a critical element of any relationship by defining it in a relational context........

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