Ask HN: How do I develop skills to comfort people and offer compassion?

I am looking for interesting "book recommendations" particularly.

Someone told me that they were afraid to share their vulnerabilities with me because they feared I might not be comforting or even give them more anxiety.

I have looked up to HN for wisdom over the years and hopefully this ask piques enough interest.

- Share your own vulnerabilities too. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. The golden rule.

- Practice active listening.

- You're not there to solve the problem, just to listen. Listening is good enough.*

You can actually ask, if they talk about the same thing more than once: Is this something you want me to work on and try to fix, or you just want to talk about? Don't be dismissive, you're not trying to stop the conversation. Tone matters here.

People always look at me funny for recommending it but How To Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk can be a big help for dealing with adults too. The main difference between a child and a grown-up in terms of how you talk to them is that the grown-up has a larger vocabulary, so you need to resort to tricks like "draw me how you feel" less often.

Although written with another purpose in mind, Never Split the Difference also emphasises over and over how to acknowledge what people are feeling without adding judgment.

I'd start with "non-violent communication" by Marshall Rosenberg. It's a communication technique. There's a book, but there's also a YouTube video that's a very good starting point.

https://youtu.be/l7TONauJGfc

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

My therapist has given me this worksheet, which helped me immensely in my relationships with friends and my wife.

https://www.wichita.edu/academics/fairmount_college_of_liber...