Are you sure that Silent Empathy creates connection?

At first silent empathy sounded strange to me. What do you mean by say nothing when somebody is telling me their ‘problem’?

My thoughts were: I am there to help OR surely the other person wants my opinion. Silent empathy did not make sense to me.

Then one day, my sister was telling me about a dilemma she had. She told me how she felt and how hard it was for her to decide. When she finished I said “well I don’t know what to tell you, it’s hard to decide”. I didn’t say anything triggering (like my opinion or some sort of criticism) but I understood something important from what she said back to me: “I’m not telling you this so you would tell me your opinion, I’m just telling you.”

What I learned that day is that silent empathy is as strong as verbal empathy. She just needed my presence and listening. That got me thinking of all the times that people just wanted to tell me something to get it out of their system. They just needed my presence.

Has it happened to you that you just wanted to share something without receiving any reaction? This event stayed with me and completely transformed how I relate to silent empathy - from fear of creating disconnection to seeing how powerful silent empathy is in creating connection. Sometimes our silent presence is the best present we can give.