The best analogy that I have heard for the difference between empathy and sympathy is as follows;

You are walking along one day and find a guy down in a big muddy ditch.
sympathy is getting there with him, empathy is saying dude I've been there.

sympathy is feelnig the same thing as someone

empathy is understanding the feeling, having experienced it

It is often hard for us, myself included, to tell someone that I think I understand what you are feelnig without it sounding like I'm crawling down in the ditch.

I can see there is soem wisdom in the policies here. Anthony and others have put alot of thoguht into them over the years. I used to be part of a supprot group that was in person in an office on a Cdn Military base. There were a lot of rules there too, again some wisdom was in them. Anyone ever been to AA, lots of rules there too. Again wisdom.

I recall a guy saying to me years ago that no one can MAKE me feel anything, that anything I feel comes from inside. I still haven't mastered it but I am much better now with looking at things around me and identiying what feelings things are elliciting in me and then trying to connect that with what is underlying.

That being said, a person needs to figure out what they feel before they can show empathy.