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Sending love and empathy

Started by Alex Thompson5 · · 👁 5 views · 79 replies

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Participants Alex Thompson5Bradley Fisher20Joseph Davis5urbansailor68Nancy Chase2Rachel Bishopslyviper47Alexander Parker69ACasey Palmer5Brian Doyle86frozenangler9wiredpilot8Larry Hayes5Robert Howard3feralheron17hiddenpilot11coastalskipper92goldeneagle8Ryan Lopez2Richard Gray30wearyhawk83mellowangler59Hannah White2 …
Alex Thompson5 Alex Thompson5 MemberOP
19 messages
joined Apr 2003
#21 ·
Casey Palmer5 said:That's just not right—empathy and compassion aren't the same thing. Believe me, I'm an incredibly empathetic person, but if I actually felt the weight of everyone I work with, I'd be checked into a psychiatric ward by now...

Compassion is about feeling someone else's suffering. If you're working in a high-stress environment where misery is constant, you eventually get desensitized—you need much more intense pain to trigger that compassionate response. They aren't identical, though they're close... Empathy is deeper—it’s literally stepping into someone else's emotional state—whereas compassion happens when you experience their agony as if it were your own, almost taking a piece of that burden onto yourself. Compassion is always tethered to pain, but empathy doesn't have to be. You can feel someone else's pure joy through empathy, and let it lift you up too🙂 .
Casey Palmer5 Casey Palmer5 Regular
470 messages
joined Jan 2016
#22 ·
Do you really think someone can just get used to suffering???

No, I don't think so. You can build up a boundary so it doesn't completely destroy you—basically learning how to be there for people without letting their emotions drown you...
Alex Thompson5 Alex Thompson5 MemberOP
19 messages
joined Apr 2003
#23 ·
Casey Palmer5 said:Do you honestly think someone can just get used to suffering???

No, they can't. You can build a wall—not to shut everyone out, but to stop that pain from tearing you apart—basically learning how to be there for others without letting their emotions drown you...

No, you don't get "used" to it, though I suppose you can become a fraction more resilient. Then again, some people are sensitive enough that even a tiny amount of suffering hits them hard—it doesn't even have to be human, just seeing a stray dog scavenging through a trash can in Chicago, for instance, and feeling that sudden, overwhelming wave of empathy for all the misery in this world 😢 ...
Casey Palmer5 Casey Palmer5 Regular
470 messages
joined Jan 2016
#24 ·
Becoming more resilient to suffering... isn't that just a fancy way of saying we're becoming a little more cold-hearted?

No thanks.

Sometimes I feel like I actually feel the pain of animals even more deeply than I do when it comes to people...
Alex Thompson5 Alex Thompson5 MemberOP
19 messages
joined Apr 2003
#25 ·
Casey Palmer5 said:Building up a tolerance for suffering—isn't that just a slow slide toward becoming numb?

No thanks.

Sometimes I feel like I'm more sensitive to animal suffering than even human pain...

No, that’s not what it means. It’s exactly what you said earlier—learning to detach once in a while. Building a sort of wall to protect your own empathy from constantly draining away. Suffering is suffering, regardless of the species... A dog's trauma from an injury isn't any less real than a person's... Pain hurts just the same...
A Anonymous Veteran
3.6K messages
joined May 2005
#26 ·
Casey Palmer5 said:By the way, empathy isn't about drowning in someone else's misery.

Exactly. Spot on.

Quincy:
It’s really just recognizing and understanding what someone else is feeling.

That sounds more like analysis than empathy.

Quincy:
Empathy is looking at someone's feelings objectively and clearly communicating that you understand them.
No, no—that would be analysis again. One thing empathy definitely isn't is "objective." The whole point of empathy is that it's completely subjective. It's an emotional connection between two people. Objective things are scientific facts, bills, measurements, and statistics. A surgeon can be objective during a procedure, sure. But a psychotherapist—or most therapists, really—can't just be objective. They need empathy; they need subjectivity to connect with the patient's individuality.
There's a huge difference between presenting an event objectively versus subjectively. Take an earthquake in South America, for example. Objectively, the news reports that 500 people died. Just numbers—nothing personal, purely objective. Subjectively, you have a feature story about one South American family who lost several members in the quake, telling their story, their work, their thoughts, their hopes and dreams. That's purely subjective, and it's what actually triggers empathy in people.

Empathy is compassion. 🙂 😉

Quincy:
Alex Thompson5:
If you work in a place where there's constant suffering, you eventually get used to it, so you need even more intense pain to actually feel compassion.
😲 😕
I don't think that's quite right.

That sounds more like desensitization. 😉

Quincy:
Casey Palmer5:
Do you really think you can just get used to suffering???

No, you can't. You can build a wall to keep that suffering from destroying you—basically learning how to provide support without letting yourself drown in someone else's emotions.
I agree, 🙂 you should be able to offer support without getting too emotionally entangled and letting it wreck you.
The question is, Casey Palmer5, what kind of wind is building that wall? 😉
Instead of building up a wall, maybe it’s better to just feel it—letting everything pass right through you, like air. That way, you keep that deep sense of empathy intact without losing your ability to let go and release all that pent-up emotion.
Casey Palmer5 Casey Palmer5 Regular
470 messages
joined Jan 2016
#27 ·
Quincy:
Wait, Casey Palmer5, what kind of wind builds a wall? 😉
Instead of building a wall, maybe it’s better to just feel things—to let them pass through you, like a breeze. That way, you keep that wonderful sense of empathy without getting weighed down by all those heavy, accumulated emotions...

You took the words right out of my mouth. That's exactly how I operate—I just let everything 🙂))
I didn't quite nail the whole "wall" metaphor earlier. And honestly, I wouldn't have even thought of the wind thing. Some things are just so obvious you don't even realize they're happening.

As for the empathy part, we clearly see things differently. And hey, that's fine, everyone's entitled to their own take. I was just sharing what they hammered into us back in college. They spent an entire year drilling us on empathy, clinical psychology, and communication skills.
A Anonymous Veteran
3.6K messages
joined May 2005
#28 ·
Casey Palmer5 says:


I just wrote what they hammered into my head at college. We spent the entire year drilling empathy, abnormal psychology, and communication techniques.

An entire year, wow. 🙄

Because I’m being brutally honest with you, I’ll give you a little piece of advice.
To borrow from the Gnostics: check your ego. It’s visible from space. I get that you're trying to build up your self-confidence, but a massive ego just makes you a bigger target for predators.
You never seem to miss an opportunity to mention what you're studying, what credentials you hold, how untouchable you are, or how intense your training sessions are. At this rate, we'll be waiting for your Social Security number next. 😁 Between the lines, it reads like: "I'm top-tier, and I know what I'm talking about because of my degree, unlike the rest of you." But have you noticed this forum has thousands of members? I guarantee there are people here with degrees just like yours—or even higher.
If I hadn't known that some of your actual colleagues, people far more qualified than you, argue the exact opposite, I would have brushed your post off immediately. So, either your intense training didn't actually stick, you were taught something completely different, or you guys just have totally different personalities. 😁 😁 Look, you're entitled to your opinion, but stop trying to sell it as academic authority. Stop hiding behind your degree. Don't act so big; you aren't that important.

P.S. Don't take this personally; consider it a little social experiment.
Casey Palmer5 Casey Palmer5 Regular
470 messages
joined Jan 2016
#29 ·
I'm sending my Social Security number over just for you 😁 (Look, if you're really that obsessed, I could probably dig up my home address and cell number too. What else do you want? Since you've been tracking my every move on this forum, you already know all my business...)

Honestly, I live by this motto: Get a life!

Oh, and about that... you see, I've actually studied empathy from three different academic perspectives during my time in college. It’s funny how much the whole concept—and how people interpret it—can shift depending on which professor you have or even which field of study you're looking at.

The most recent way I learned about it was along these lines:

"Carl Rogers introduced a new technical meaning for the term “empathy,” using it to describe a particular skill and style of reflective listening (Rogers 1957, 1959).

In this style, the therapist listens carefully to what the client is saying, then reflects it back to the client, often in a slightly modified or reframed form.

Acknowledgment of the client’s expressed or implicit feeling state may also be included. This way of responding offers a number of advantages:

(1) it is unlikely to evoke client resistance,

(2) it encourages the client to keep talking and exploring the topic,

(3) it communicates respect and caring and builds a working therapeutic alliance,

(4) it clarifies for the therapist exactly what the client means, and

(5) it can be used to reinforce ideas expressed by the client.

This last characteristic is an important one.

You can reflect quite selectively, choosing to reinforce certain components of what the client has said and ignoring others.

In this way, clients not only hear themselves saying a self-motivational statement, but also hear you saying that they said it.

This style of responding is likely to encourage the client to elaborate the reflected statement"
http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~dpatter...%20Empathy.htm
Brian Doyle86 Brian Doyle86 Member
19 messages
joined Jan 2003
#30 ·
Identifying with someone else's pain...

An incredibly intense sensation.
Alex Thompson5 Alex Thompson5 MemberOP
19 messages
joined Apr 2003
#31 ·
Right, exactly?

it looks like you might have confused him with sex after all...🙄
frozenangler9 frozenangler9 Active Member
82 messages
joined Jun 2008
#32 ·
Alex Thompson5 said:Why is it so hard for people to actually show some compassion or empathy when others are hurting? Why the hell are people so incredibly selfish?

I don't know—it just feels to me like being truly compassionate and empathetic is what makes someone a spiritual person. It’s the foundation of any actual spiritual practice, not just sitting in isolation or meditating or all that theoretical stuff 🙄 ...

As a civilization, we're collectively selfish. Individually? Even worse. And honestly, it’s simple: love your neighbor as yourself.
Is that even possible? Like, for real, in practice?

It isn't hard to be compassionate if you have the right gear—sort of like having "empathy antennas." 😁

But you know what? I think you can be both compassionate and selfish at the same time. Who says feeling for someone or putting yourself in their shoes is supposed to drive you to act humanely? There are people out there who actually enjoy suffering—their own, other people's... you know? 😉

Still, it seems tough to empathize with anything inhuman—basically anything that's too far removed from your own lived experience.

So maybe the safer route to selflessness is just trying to understand someone else's situation, regardless of how you actually feel about it. 🙂

To me, loving your neighbor seems doable only as a mindset, something born from understanding that everyone is equal. But actively loving humanity—all billions of us? That doesn't seem realistic to me.

Regarding spirituality, whatever you go through becomes your experience. The more empathy you have, the richer those experiences get. Maybe that speeds up the journey toward the ultimate goal (whatever that actually is 😉), by letting you "live" parts of other people's lives.
A Anonymous Veteran
3.6K messages
joined May 2005
#33 ·
First things first, you’ve got to learn how to listen.

Velma 🙂 🙂
wiredpilot8 wiredpilot8 Newcomer
5 messages
joined Nov 2003
#34 ·
ravana said:Empathy is the direct opposite of selfishness.

I’m not so sure about that. Personally, I find myself being incredibly careful when I try to empathize with someone. If they're in a truly devastating situation, it can absolutely wreck me—especially if it's someone close to me. Honestly, the idea of trying to empathize with parents who have lost a child to a terminal illness? That scares me; I feel like I’d just start shaking.

I also tend to think that our capacity for empathy grows alongside our life experiences, so it naturally deepens over time. To me, what looks like "selfishness" in empathy is actually just a defense mechanism. 🙂In fact, there are plenty of times when I have to force myself to switch off my empathy just so I can actually find the strength to laugh again.
A Anonymous Veteran
3.6K messages
joined May 2005
#35 ·
To truly soak in what others are feeling—to actually live through their emotions and grasp where they're coming from.

'Awakening our shared humanity

"The universe" isn't out to get us or pass judgment;
it simply hands us the consequences, the lessons,
and the chances to use
the laws of cause and effect
to learn and find our balance.
Compassion is just recognizing
that everyone is doing the best they can
within the limits of their current
beliefs and capabilities." '

This really hit home for me. 🙂
A Anonymous Veteran
3.6K messages
joined May 2005
#36 ·
I feel completely numb right now.
Empathy just doesn't seem to come naturally to me lately...
Love you guys...
Alex Thompson5 Alex Thompson5 MemberOP
19 messages
joined Apr 2003
#37 ·
wiredpilot8 said:For me, selfishness within empathy is just a defense mechanism...🙂 honestly, I often have to force myself to switch off my empathy just so I can actually find something funny.

Yeah, exactly...
it’ll tear you apart if you don't set some boundaries
though... I suppose that's just life—the flip side of the coin
there's a deeper truth beneath the surface of experience
and knowledge
of what we think we know

if we don't truly grasp something
where does that give us the right to judge? 😢
wiredpilot8 wiredpilot8 Newcomer
5 messages
joined Nov 2003
#38 ·
Alex Thompson5 said:Exactly.
If we don't set boundaries, everything just falls apart.
Though, I guess that’s just part of life—the flip side of the coin.
There’s always a deeper layer beneath what we think we know,
beneath our experience
and our actual knowledge
of the things we take for granted.

If we don't truly understand something,😢 where do we get the right to pass judgment on it?

👍

(I'm not sure what else I could add to that 🙂 )

But I find it fascinating how empathy itself is completely subjective. You can have two people with highly developed empathy who perceive a third person in entirely different ways. That difference usually shows up most clearly in that impulse to judge someone—or to "analyze" them, 😁, which is really just what people say when they're gossiping 😁.

Having high empathy doesn't mean you share the same values as another empathetic person. Because of that, these debates and judgments end up being pretty exhausting and pointless; it turns into a power struggle between two empathetic individuals both trying to prove their version of reality is the correct one.

So, all that judging, analyzing, gossiping, and trying to convince others... it’s mostly meaningless. But then again, what else would people talk about?

Anyway, whatever. 🙂
Alex Thompson5 Alex Thompson5 MemberOP
19 messages
joined Apr 2003
#39 ·
🙂

Sure—but if your idea of "extracurricular activity" is just nitpicking everyone else's flaws and weaknesses, then there’s zero empathy involved here...

True empathy requires understanding both those who are suffering and the shallow, stunted individuals who can't even recognize that pain when they see it.

Nothing in moderation is a trap—not even empathy. This whole material universe runs on a balance of opposites; being a total jerk is wrong, but being a pushover is just as bad because people will walk all over you until your own inner circle pays the price...

The middle ground is where it's at—nothing too much, nothing too little. 😉
Too little empathy breeds cruelty, yet too much leads to completely losing yourself in others—which is its own kind of disaster.
wiredpilot8 wiredpilot8 Newcomer
5 messages
joined Nov 2003
#40 ·
magic_tree said:🙂

Yeah, but if someone's primary outlet is just nitpicking everyone else's "weaknesses" or screw-ups, I don't really see any empathy there.

True. And honestly, it’s not just about venting about others. It gets exhausting when, say, a friend keeps me on the phone for an hour straight venting about some guy because they can't wrap their head around him—or maybe they're just afraid to actually understand him. Usually, I try to play devil's advocate as much as I can to give them the sense that they're actually having a real debate, but I've noticed that just drives them crazy. They get annoyed at me for not being "empathetic" enough or "getting it," and then they take it out on the guy, too. I mean, come on, if all they want is for me to nod along and act like a sounding board... sometimes I just lean into that. I'll just nod and go, "Yeah, yeah, I totally get how hard this is for you." It feels a bit weird, but strangely, it works better. 😁 My friends end up hanging up feeling pretty satisfied since they got everything off their chest. 😁

Personally, though, I don't feel the need to ramble about this stuff constantly. Every once in a long while, I might need to vent and unload on two or three friends about whatever is eating at me. It rarely hits me too hard, and when it does, I move past it quickly. 😁

Actually, I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to ask too many people for advice when you're dealing with a problem. Too many cooks in the kitchen, right? When you go around asking everyone, you just get flooded with different opinions and ideas from people who aren't even alike, which just leaves you spinning in circles. At the end of the day, you're going to do what you were going to do anyway. Even if you follow someone's advice just because it sounds smart, it might not be what you actually *need* to do to satisfy your own conscience or work through your own patterns.

because empathy implies understanding both those who are suffering and those who are shallow or stunted enough to see that suffering in the first place.

Fair point. But why focus only on suffering? Personally, I try to avoid feeling empathy for pain unless I absolutely have to. I've got enough of my own baggage to deal with 😁. On the flip side, there are plenty of other emotions where I'm perfectly fine being empathetic.

nothing is good in excess, not even empathy. This whole material universe seems to run on a balance of opposites; a cruel person is no good, but neither is someone who's "too good," because they just get walked all over, and their loved ones end up paying the price.

The middle ground is usually best—not too much, not too little. 😉
Too little empathy leads to cruelty, but too much leads to completely losing yourself in order to please others, which isn't healthy either. [/B]

I see what you mean, but... well, look. I've seen situations where incredibly empathetic people were actually quite cruel. And conversely, people who were totally oblivious to empathy could be absolute saints. Kindness and cruelty aren't strictly tied to empathy. Am I being cruel if I'm afraid to empathize with someone in pain, simply because I'm scared it'll break me, causing me to shut down and distance myself from them?

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