How to Strengthen Your Empathy: It’s Not a Feeling; It’s a Practice
In this episode on The IPS Podcast, learn how to strengthen your empathy with people researcher and empathy trainer Karen Faith.
There are two things you can do when you have a troubling or disturbing thought:
1) You can let the thought bring you down, allowing yourself to feel miserable due to a belief you’ve created in your mind; or 2) as Barney says, you could also decide to just be awesome instead.
Your thoughts are yours to control. That’s an incredible kind of inner power when you become aware of it—one that will define and decide your viewpoint on life.
A great quote from Buddha says:
“The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”
This is true—you do become what you think. You create your own beliefs about who you are through the thoughts you allow inside. If you want to stand strong and progress successfully through life, it is quite important to become aware of that.
If you do not, most of your thoughts and most of what you become will not be for you to decide, but for others.
When you do not have control over your own mind, beliefs will pop into your head because of a thought from someone else.
Let me give you a quick example.
Let’s say that a person tells you every day that you are ugly, not good enough and stupid.
After a while, you start to believe that. You go on living life thinking you are ugly, not good enough and stupid.
However, having an understanding of your own mind—and having control over it—you decide what you allow inside of your head. Ultimately, troubling thoughts aren’t caused by what others say—they are caused by what we allow ourselves to believe and embrace.
You see, when someone says or does something hurtful to you, if you are not aware of your own thoughts, you will unconsciously repeat what they said in your own head, over and over again.
Start acknowledging those thoughts—it’s the first step to understanding your own mind.
When I was younger, I allowed a lot of bad thoughts spoken about me by other people to reside in my head.
Only when I started seeing that it was actually me breaking myself down through those thoughts did I start paying attention to them, and in this way became aware of my own mind’s doing.
Once you understand your own mind’s doing, you can start letting go of those thoughts and replacing them with good ones.
Example: When someone tells you you’re ugly, let it go and tell yourself inside that you’re beautiful. When someone tells you you’re stupid, let it go and tell yourself inside that you’re smart.
When someone tells you that you are not good enough, let it go and tell yourself inside that you are good enough. Keep doing that for everything. Let go of those things that do not empower you, and replace them with thoughts that do.
When something troubles me inside, I breathe deeply for a couple of minutes, then tell myself, “Aah dude, let it go, you’re freaking awesome.” It might sound a bit strange, but it helps. I am giving myself a boost of confidence. I simply let go of the troubling thought, and choose to be awesome instead.
You are what you believe—studies have shown this to be true.
Not only can your thoughts be influenced by your thinking, so can your performance. When you start thinking that you are the best actor, the best dancer, the best photographer, the best whatever you want to be, you are making your mind think and believe you are the best.
This will affect your subconscious, which will go on to shape your reality.
Your quality of life is determined by the quality of your thoughts. So instead of bringing yourself down, just start being awesome!
Working on yourself can be scary, overwhelming, confusing, messy, challenging, and lonely. On this podcast, hosted by Jellis Vaes, an aspiring clinical psychologist who once battled severe emotional struggles, you’ll gain valuable insights from experts in psychology, neuroscience, and relationships, as well as people like you and me, to support you on your mental health journey, help you feel less alone, and untangle some of the complexity of mental health.
For more support, visit Inner Path Seekers.
Show notes can be found here:https://theipsproject.com/2026/04/reason-we-stay-addicted-kevin-cornelius/
Addiction is complex, deeply human, and often misunderstood.
In this episode, we take a grounded and practical look at what addiction really is and how it can be treated effectively.
I’m joined by Kevin Cornelius, a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical director at the Feeling Good Institute Silicon Valley.
Kevin specializes in TEAM-CBT, a powerful and evolving therapeutic approach developed by psychiatrist David Burns.
What I am hoping you get out of this episode, besides learning some of the reasons why people stay addicted, is that you will learn some practical techniques to start taking a small step toward freeing yourself from whichever addiction you might be struggling with.
If, after this episode, you’d like to learn more about the effects addiction has on the brain, do have a listen to the episode I did with Dr. Grisel, titled The Brain on Addiction.
📚The IPS Academy📚
If you feel that you’ve gained some insights and lessons from this video, and you are curious to see what else we offer at The IPS Project, check out The IPS Academy, where we offer online courses taught by guests here on the podcast.
Simply go to https://theipsproject.com/academy. Each course has a few lessons to try for free, so you get a taste of what the course is like. We have countless reviews from other students so you can see what others think, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee if you end up not liking the course.
Again, check them out at https://theipsproject.com/academy
In this episode on The IPS Podcast, learn how to strengthen your empathy with people researcher and empathy trainer Karen Faith.
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