Why Does Empathy Matter?
Empathy can better the world around us. For what it’s worth, I am an empath.
What that means is that I can feel the emotions of people around me, sometimes better than I can feel my own. The difference between simply feeling empathy and being an empath is that, as an empath I ALWAYS feel things. With empathy, it is an emotion that can be switched on and off far more easily.
Because I am an empath, I frequently find myself experiencing emotions outside of myself, and it can be a bit jarring at times. However, it is in part because of my empathic senses, I shared everything I blog about with you.
Why? Because I know if I am having thoughts and feelings on the topics I choose to write about, you probably have had similar ones. Maybe not exactly the same, since we are all different from one another, but similar.
How we feel the emotions we feel differs. Depth, sensation, the actual way in which we feel things varies from person to person. This boils down to every single emotion, because we are individuals.
However, and this is really important, the similarities in what these emotions are shouldn’t be ignored or disregarded. And, further, nobody’s emotions and sense of feelings are greater or lesser than anyone else’s.
Have you ever been told that you didn’t love someone as much as they loved you? Or that you didn’t hurt as much as they did? The truth of this is that while we can experience the same emotions, we won’t necessarily feel them the same way. The depth, frequency, sensation and overall understanding is going to vary depending on who you are, how you process things, and other random and not-so-random variables.
I believe that my empathic ability helps me to be a better writer, fiction or otherwise.
Empathy is not just for an empath.
As I look at my social media feeds, I am almost overwhelmed by a lot of what I am seeing. The world we live in today is rocked by so much fear, so many messages of scarcity and lack. One thing that I think would be of tremendous help to the world would be more empathy.
Look at the politicians here in the USA. Because they care far more about themselves and their contributions from the NRA and other special interests, they do nothing but offer meaningless “thoughts and prayers” for the latest shooting victims. Maybe enacting some gun control laws and making mental health care less stigmatized and readily available to people? Nah, we don’t need that. Rather than show some empathy to real people with real struggles, they have nothing for anyone but themselves and those who benefit them.
When our “leaders” do not need to have empathy, people take their cues from them, and don’t feel the need to have it either. How many people feel a few deaths are a small price to pay for the right to bear arms? What about the people who think health care doesn’t need to be readily affordable for everyone? How many people think they their struggles are greater than anyone else’s, and that there is not enough, so they must keep others away?
Empathy allows you to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. This is where some confuse this for sympathy. I can best describe it thus: sympathy is saying, “wow, I’m so sorry you are going through that,” whereas empathy is saying, “I see how you are feeling, and I want to understand your feelings.” Empathy is understanding, and I think we need a lot more of that in this world.
Empaths tend to want to understand.
The things I write are, in part, for me. I have these really cool stories I need and want to write out, and these ideas about how consciousness creates reality I need to explore. As an empath, I want to understand, but I also want to help others to understand. This is why I feel the need to share my stories, because I think they can be openings for other people’s imagination. Because I believe that consciousness can create incredible realities, I want to share my own process with this.
Feeling empathy towards other people is how we build bridges and create the best world we can. Empathy is where we can see that this is a world of abundance with room for more prosperity and good for everyone.
When you see the terrible things happening in the world at large, consider your response. Can you empathize with people who are suffering? I think that if we find and feel more empathy, we can do a whole lot more to make this world a better place for everyone.
As always, thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me.
This is the seventy-third entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
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