There are a lot of fuzzy distinctions in Life.
I learned what an Empath was in the mid-1980s. An Empath is a person who can feel the emotions of other people. The word Empath comes from the 1956 science fiction novel by J.T. McIntosh, “The Empath,” By the 1980s, the term was being discussed widely in spiritual circles of a New Age bent. I heard it from a friend I made who worked at Crazy Wisdom bookstore in Ann Arbor.
The idea of being an Empath felt like a description of me! I was in my early twenties, feeling A LOT of feelings. I noticed I could discern what the people around me were feeling, and I was correct more often than not. This ability felt like a whacked-out superpower! Step aside, Counselor Troi!
Fast forward several decades and a tremendous amount of healing and therapy later.
The following list is what I currently understand about Empathy:
Almost everyone has the capacity for Empathy. (I guess I’m not so special!)
That Empathy varies hugely and doesn’t fit into a neat Bionic Woman lunch box. (I LOVE the Bionic Woman! And yes, I indeed had her lunchbox!)
That when a human is neurodivergent (many of us are in various ways.) Empathy will manifest differently. (BTW...there’s no one way to be Empathetic!)
That we can cultivate Empathetic Skills. (Yay!)
That Empathy can also be detrimental. (Boo!)
That boundaries are our friends! (Double Yay!)
And that for me, Empathy has roots in hypervigilance developed in my beautiful and challenging childhood. (Um…boo?! Yay?!)
I also know that Empathy can be smooshed together with survival/coping strategies from PTSD and trauma. They certainly are tangled up within me. This conflation can make for some powerful confusion.
(This week, I'm not going totally down the rabbit hole of Empathy research, nope. If you have resources about Empathy to share, I'll post them on Wednesday or Friday. There will also be a few links here and there. I’m trying to listen to a boundary telling me to explore Empathy but not get lost.)
Curiosities about Empathy to be wrangled with:
How are Empathy and hypervigilance similar and different?
How does trauma impact Empathy?
How is the lack of Empathy foundational to oppression and power over dynamics
How can we cultivate Empathy and mitigate the experience of compassion fatigue?
What are ways to develop our Empathetic skill sets?
That is quite enough, I think! Honestly, it's too much, and I'm diving in!
Some weeks I’m thrilled about the experiments, creativity, and explorations that will unfold!
Some weeks a theme knocks on the door of my consciousness, and I decide not to open it yet.
Some weeks a theme barges in and says, “We’re doing this thing!”
Some weeks I know that the theme is the medicine I need, and I have faith in this process.
This week is a number 4 kind of week.
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Since Friday, I’ve been in a Crohn’s flare. Flaring makes me feel very tender and sensitive. It also increases my Empathy for the suffering in our beloved world. I think this is a paradox of feeling so alone in my pain and feeling deeply connected to the multitude of other creatures experiencing discomfort.
All I know is that I choose to understand more about Empathy because it is a state of being that connects me to and with Life. When I become emotionally calloused and insensitive, I recognize that my Empathy is off and needs tending. At the same time, I choose to have solid (yet flexible) boundaries with myself and others. Boundaries will support me from feeling too overwhelmed by the suffering ever-present. It's a version of The Middle Way, the exquisite Goldilocks of Connection: Not too much, not too little, just right.
Dear Wonders, may we find our "just right" of Empathy a bit more this week.
We do this thing together.
We do this thing together.