Insightful words...

“It’s very typical for the empathic person in the family to be the black sheep empath. And the reason is that the person who’s the empath in the family is the accurate mirror. If they hold the mirror up to other people, those people will see what they are. So you shoot the messenger. You always get rid of the black sheep empath. Because that’s the person, who if they were to tell the truth, everyone would be miserable. So you put everything on that person and you say, “We’ll just get rid of you. Problem solved.” Being the empath of the family means that you’re a dangerous figure to the family system. It’s like the system resents you but depends on you. It doesn’t want you to leave and yet it wants to cripple you. Empathic people tend to be very selfless human beings who will never experience it themselves. It’s like the old saying that a good person is a person who will plant a tree even though they’ll never experience the shade of it.” - Dr Gary Brucato, The Lab, May 2026

Practise empathy...

Recently, I revisited the novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird' so I could assist a Year 9 tutoring student. I had dipped into it to help students at school but I hadn't read it in its entirety since I was 15 years old. The language is so powerful, the lessons shared are indelible. I still believe it is a substantial literary text although some schools are no longer choosing to study it. Atticus Finch's words continue to ring true across all social, economic and historical contexts: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from [their] point of view - until you climb into [their] skin and walk around in it." - Mel