My addition to this would be that you can increase your empathy for the suffering of others by connecting with your own suffering. Experiences of pain and fear in my own life, definitely make it easier to connect with those feelings in others.
(And as well as helping empathy, connecting with the motivational usefulness of negative experiences can make the experiences themselves feel a little more meaningful (so a little less bad).)
This is great—thanks for writing this.
My addition to this would be that you can increase your empathy for the suffering of others by connecting with your own suffering. Experiences of pain and fear in my own life, definitely make it easier to connect with those feelings in others.
(And as well as helping empathy, connecting with the motivational usefulness of negative experiences can make the experiences themselves feel a little more meaningful (so a little less bad).)