Storytelling offers the opportunity to empathize. Good story telling insists on it. The difference is that a good story “resources” the listener to overcome a fear of vulnerability.
Good storytelling is not information transmission. Instead, it's personal invitation. It draws a listener toward a subject without the protective shell of sympathy.
"Protective shell of sympathy"?
Sympathy is often precisely a way of not empathizing. It comes in many forms. For example, the fix-it tool, which is the tool that immediately focuses on solutions. Or, the feel-better tool, which is the effort to cheer someone up. Or, the silver-lining tool, which is the impulse to point out what’s good in a bad situation. Or, the comparison tool, which holds one experience next to another that is worse. These are all ways of extending care from a distance. (Often they do more damage.)
Good story telling draws a listener close and assists in fostering a connection—first with the subject and second with the part in the listener that intersects the subject’s story. The means by which this connection happens is empathy.
Empathy doesn’t try to solve an other’s hardship. Empathy enters it, holds it, and values the connection. Empathy feels it. Sympathy stands at a distance, looks for solutions, and avoids connection. Sympathy is guarded.
On the surface they can look the same, but the difference is most evident in the fruit they bear. Empathy bears the fruit of connection; sympathy the fruit of disconnection.
Good storytelling insists on entering an other's story, feeling it, and connecting.
