There’s a pandemic alright, but I’m not talking about Coronavirus. I’ve noticed that there is mass emotional starvation going on, so I’m concerned about our collective empathy delusion. So many people are preemptively rejecting people, becoming hard-hearted, and choosing not to share emotional struggles with people. I’ve come up with a few reasons for this. I feel the #1 cause is the empathy delusion. People often one-up each other's struggles instead of listening and being truly empathetic. We think we are being empathetic, but we are just deluding ourselves! I find people don’t want to listen or give empathy because they have no outlet for their own emotional struggles and are starved, so they don’t have the capacity to be empathetic or they were never shown how, no one modeled it. Sure there is a shit-ton of societal narcissism being bred, but maybe there is a lack of knowledge in there too that is a factor. I’d like to explain the difference between being empathetic and one-upping. I have a couple good examples.
Example 1. Say Mr. Sadface just lost their grandparent. They call up Ms. One-upper. Ms. One-upper hears one sentence and goes into a long winded monologue about losing her father and all the drama that went along with it. Mr Sadface is sitting there, still needing emotional comfort and to talk through some grief, but the story is now about Ms. One-upper and her experience 8 fucking years ago, leaving Mr. Sadface’s 8 hour old wound festering. He now feels both the grief and now emotional disconnection, bordering on emotional rape. Do you understand that this could cause Mr. Sadface to withdraw and choose not to share with others (or with Ms. One-upper again)? Mr. Sadface is emotionally starving and in great pain.
Now, say Mr. Sadface calls up Liberty to share his feelings about losing his grandparent. Liberty has lost someone before too and is pretty good at empathy, so she asks him how he’s feeling. She is a pretty good listener and allows him the space to cry or to share any emotions that are coming up. She listens as he talks through the travel plans to recover the family jewels or as he describes the funeral planning process or even the fond memories that he is able to recall when getting in touch with how he is feeling. She may choose to share an experience from her losing someone if she feels it’s relevant and could help Mr. Sadface, but she doesn’t arbitrarily bring up her own experiences to bring about comfort for herself or to draw attention to the fact that she’s been through something similar.
Example 2. Let’s say Ms. Sadface just lost her child. She is devastated. Can you imagine anything worse as a parent?! Now, Ms. Sadface is at work and one of her coworkers comes up and tells her about the time their great aunt Sally passed away. Ms. Sadface is dealing with unspeakable pain, yet now she’s listening as someone compares her pain to losing dear aunt Sally, or god forbid the coworker talked about losing their cat. Can you imagine how lonely this would feel, listening to someone drone on and on, yet not once asked how she’s feeling, if she needed anything, or if she just wanted to share?
Empathy is not teaching another person that you’ve had a similar experience! It’s actually putting yourself in another person’s perspective! It’s understanding what a grieving person is feeling and being there for them. It’s not drawing the attention to yourself or making the other person understand that you’ve felt pain too. It’s listening to the person in pain because you’ve also been in pain. You know what you needed (whether you received what you needed or not is sadly beside the point). I know most people have no clue what to say to someone that is grieving. You don’t have to have any advice. Just listen. Shut your mouth and listen to them speak. Please! P.S. You may want to only give advice when someone asks for it. :)
Much Love <3 Liberty
