Why Empathy Is the Missing Piece in Personal & Spiritual Growth with Kristi Gaultiere

Listen On:

YouTube

Spotify

Kristy Gaultiere

• Website: soulshepherding.com
• Instagram: @soulshepherding
• Book: Deeply Loved: Recieving and Reflecting God’s Great Empathy For You

In this episode of The In-Between, Evan sits down with Kristi to explore the deeply personal and spiritual role empathy plays in helping us navigate grief, emotional healing, and seasons of vocational change. With more than 30 years of experience as a family therapist, spiritual director, and co-founder of Soul Shepherding, Kristi has walked alongside countless leaders who were emotionally disconnected, spiritually dry, and quietly carrying shame.

She’s also lived it.

Kristi opens up about her own childhood wounds, the relational ruptures that shaped her, and the healing she found in Jesus’s tender empathy. She doesn’t talk about emotional health from a distance. She brings it close—with language that’s clear, honest, and deeply hopeful.

This conversation is for anyone who’s been told to push through, who’s judged their own sadness, or who longs for a more honest connection—with God, with others, and with themselves.

💡 In This Episode:

👉 Why empathy is more than kindness—it’s “oxygen for the soul”
👉 How early emotional neglect can quietly shape adult relationships
👉 What Kristi means when she says, “Empathy awakened me to myself”
👉 The Four A’s of Empathy—and how to offer them to yourself and others
👉 Why emotional disconnection is often mistaken for strength
👉 How Jesus’s empathy is not abstract—it’s deeply felt and incarnational
👉 The spiritual cost of hiding your emotions
👉 Why slowing down is not failure, it’s formation
👉 How empathy can help us flourish, even in in-between seasons

When Emotion Feels Unsafe

“I learned to hide my emotions, to not cry, to be the strong one. But inside, I was lonely and unseen.”

Kristi reflects on how many of us grew up with unspoken rules about emotions: be strong, don’t feel too much, don’t be a burden. Those early messages formed survival strategies. But they also walled off the parts of us most in need of compassion.

It wasn’t until later in her life—through therapy, spiritual direction, and the ministry of Jesus’s empathy—that Kristi began to name what she truly felt. The healing didn’t come from striving. It came from being seen.

💬 “Empathy created safety in me to feel things I had long suppressed.”

What Jesus’s Empathy Looks Like

“Jesus doesn’t rush in with solutions. He draws near. He feels with us.”

Kristi helps us reimagine spiritual maturity—not as mastery or performance, but as presence. She points to Jesus’s relationships—with Mary and Martha, with the woman at the well, with the grieving and the doubting—not as fixes, but as faithful companionship.

Her new book, Deeply Loved, unpacks how Jesus’s empathy isn’t just for theological study. It’s a lived, felt reality. And it has the power to rewire our emotional lives.

💬 “Jesus meets us in our sadness, not to erase it, but to share it.”

You Can’t Flourish Without Emotional Safety

Kristi shares how many ministry leaders and high-functioning caregivers are emotionally exhausted not because they’re weak—but because they’ve never known safe places to feel. They’re operating from performance, not presence.

She names the disconnection so many feel in transition: “Who am I, now that I’m not producing? Not leading? Not holding it together for everyone else?”

This episode invites those questions, not with shame—but with compassion. It’s not about getting back to who you were. It’s about discovering who you are now.

💬 “Flourishing isn’t being fine all the time. It’s being present to what’s real, with empathy and grace.”

Questions Worth Asking:

• Where did I first learn that emotions were unsafe?

• What am I feeling that I’ve been judging?

• When was the last time someone offered me empathy—and what did it awaken?

• What would change if I believed Jesus meets me with empathy, not evaluation?

• What parts of myself still need to be seen, named, and welcomed?

For the Leader Who’s Quietly Hurting:

If you’ve felt disconnected from your emotions—or learned early on that sadness was something to hide…
If you’ve judged your tiredness as a lack of faith or strength…
If you’re in transition and quietly longing for the kind of soul care you’ve so often offered others…

If you’ve been holding your emotions at arm’s length, or learned early on that sadness made you weak—Kristi reminds us that Jesus doesn’t meet us with judgment. He meets us with empathy. And that empathy is often what creates the safety we need to heal.