Gratitude - Lisa D. Foster, Leadership Coaching & Training

Gratitude is a powerful way to improve almost any situation or relationship. Every year in November, I offer my readers 30 days of gratitude in My Gratitude Project.

Be yourself everyone else is taken for My Gratitude Project

Acceptance: The Hardest—and Most Healing—Form of Empathy | My Gratitude Project Day 10

November 10, 2025

Gratitude Project

Acceptance is another powerful practice related to empathy. Acceptance is acknowledging the reality of a situation without judging or trying to change it. This is a powerful practice that many of us resist. When we do get there, it almost always leads to gratitude. For most people, this is the hardest part of empathy. Naturally, much of the time, we have a tendency to want things to be different from how they are right now. The world is far from…

Eight Practices of Empathy That Strengthen Connection | My Gratitude Project Day 9

November 9, 2025

Gratitude Project

When we break it down, empathy becomes a number of small acts and practices of empathy. Here are a few practical and tactical practices of empathy, with special thanks to Caroline Fleck and her excellent book on Validation: Whatever you call it and whatever you do, use these empathy skills to keep your mind on their experience and help you understand them. Try various ways to show you get them and see what works best for you. This post is…

Naming Feelings: The Next Step in Empathy | My Gratitude Project Day 8

November 8, 2025

Gratitude Project

When empathizing, there is another step beyond mirroring: naming feelings. If you want someone to know that you empathize with them, try naming their feelings. Naming feelings can be a little tricky because you can’t ever 100% know what someone else is feeling. The key is to listen closely enough that you can imagine what you would feel in that situation. If you have listened enough to understand their circumstances, it’s just a small leap to name how you would…

let someone else go first as expression of empathy and gratitude

Mirroring and Trust: The Science of Empathy at Work | My Gratitude Project Day 7

November 8, 2025

Gratitude Project

Mirroring and trust happen without trying, but when we learn to do it consciously, magical things happen. Mirroring and trust are naturally related. Most of the time when we mirror each other, we are not aware of it. Mirroring or copying someone are natural and innate ways that we comfort each other, bond, and build trust. However, when you can bring mirroring into your awareness and use it as a skillset, it becomes a technique for comforting, bonding, and creating…

How Tactical Empathy Turns Conflict into Connection: My Gratitude Project Day 5

November 5, 2025

Gratitude Project

One step beyond feeling empathy is tactical empathy, or what some people call, validation. Tactical empathy is the act of letting another person know you see them, you hear them, you understand them. To be effective, validation has to resonate with the other person as if they said it themselves. The easiest way to do this is to mirror what they said, or copy it. Hearing their own thoughts from another person’s mouth is a powerful experience. This is a…

Empathy vs Sympathy: Why One Heals and the Other Distances | My Gratitude Project Day 4

November 4, 2025

Gratitude Project

Empathy vs sympathy: they sound alike but they are quite different. We feel sympathy for someone and, in contrast, we feel empathy with someone, that’s the difference between empathy vs sympathy. Feeling sympathy for someone implies a certain distance. It’s more like feeling pity for someone. They are feeling something that you are not. They are struggling, and you are not. When you empathize with someone, you feel what they are feeling. So rather than distancing, it is bonding.…