How does empathy define you?

[Maricel Evasco]

Empathy is a feeling different from sympathy. When one is sympathetic, one implies pity but maintains distance from another person’s feelings. Empathy is more a sense that one can truly
understand or imagine the depth of another person’s feelings. It implies feeling with a person, rather than feeling sorry for a person.

Empathy is a translation of the German term Einfühlung, meaning to feel as one with. It implies sharing the load, or “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes,” in order to appropriately understand
that person’s perspective.

Among those with an equal level of innate emotional intelligence,

the person who has actually experienced the widest range and variety of feelings

-- the great depths of depression
and the heights of fulfillment, for example, -- is the one who is
most able to empathize with the greatest number of people from
all walks of life. On the other hand, when we say that someone
"can't relate" to other people, it is likely because
they haven't experienced, acknowledged or accepted many feelings
of their own.

http://eqi.org/empathy.htm


Empathy has always been one of my greatest strengths and the defining factor in my success as a teacher. I may not be the greatest classroom disciplinarian, but my kids tune into what I say because they know I understand what they are trying to convey. I also think my ability to empathize has drawn to me many wonderful friendships from people of different walks of life. I also believe that my gift of empathy has to a large degree enabled me to have a seamless understanding of  the cosmos (universe) and to connect to a universal consciousness (God) with relative ease.

What are your thoughts on the role empathy plays in your life?


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4313263/

[Maricel Evasco]

Barack Obama Quote About the Empathy Deficit
There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us - the child who's hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.

As you go on in life, cultivating this quality of empathy will become harder, not easier. There's no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You'll be free to live in neighborhoods with people who are exactly like yourself, and send your kids to the same schools, and narrow your concerns to what's going in your own little circle.

Not only that - we live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. A culture where those in power too often encourage these selfish impulses.

They will tell you that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because they're all lazy or weak of spirit. That the inner-city children who are trapped in dilapidated schools can't learn and won't learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody else's problem to take care of.

I hope you don't listen to this. I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern.
http://eqi.org/empathy_deficit_obama.htm

[Maricel Evasco]

[Krisit]

I do not have empathy for these two people because they are strong and have survived and they have overcome.
The only emotion I can feel for the two people in this video is how they have not allowed for their disabilities to keep them from doing what their heart desires. They are still fulfilling their dreams... : ) They are strong and that is what makes them proud...This is my just my thoughts.

Here is another definition of Empathy:They cover a broad spectrum, ranging from feeling a concern for other people that creates a desire to help them, experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions, knowing what the other person is thinking or feeling, to blurring the line between self and other.[5]

[Krisit]

Hi Maricel,

Very interesting concept about empathy. When you speak of Barack and the empathy Deficit and what he says about us looking around at our neighbors, my concern what are we doing for our neighbors if we are empathetic to them.

What do we do to show our concern to empathy. In fact I was driving down the road today and I bought two tacos but only ate one taco and I kept hoping I would run into a homeless person just to hand them a taco. Not that I would want anyone to be homeless. I started thinking if all of us just handed the homeless people our extra groceries as we drive by them at least they would have food. Than there is the other concept, I have been told I am an enabler.

Examples of my empathy: I took in my homeless ex so he had a roof over him and he is very ill so he has a been to lay in at night. Do I want him in my home...no but I could not stand the fact he was in pain sleeping in his car.

Another example of empathy although they are my immediate family I could just walk away from it but I dont. My mother is paralyzed and does not have much of a life so I feel I am there to see her at home and help her make the day just a little bit better vs putting her in a nursing home. My sister who doesnt help out says I should just let my dad take care of my mom so they will pay for the extra help and give me the relief but I cannot do this to my dad.

Now my empathy needs to go farther and help others besides my immediate family. I feel doing vs feeling is even more empathetic. What do you think?

[Maricel Evasco]

Now my empathy needs to go farther and help others besides my immediate family. I feel doing vs feeling is even more empathetic. What do you think?

You are a very generous person Krisit and have the capacity to show both empathy and sympathy. Though, based on your post I am still uncertain if it was sympathy or empathy or both that brought you to your choices.

I can absorb the other person's pain or feelings which is not exactly healthy if I am surrounded by negativity. This is perhaps the reason I erect personal barriers. They become a survival mechanism for me especially since needy people tend to gravitate to me. I don't particularly see myself as "needy," but my mother and some of my closest friends can be described that way. For most of my adult life, I tried not to let my mother's neediness and bitterness get to me since I am often her scapegoat. I think I was successful in distancing myself from her "neediness" and my friends' "neediness" without distancing myself from who they are as individuals. I'm glad for my strong sanity quotient. Sometimes I questioned it...if birds of the same feather flock together, then I must have some degree of insanity to be around such needy (insane) people. LoL. In my case, I can still maintain a balance.

[Krisit]

Though, based on your post I am still uncertain if it was sympathy or empathy or both that brought you to your choices.

According to your definition: When one is sympathetic, one implies pity but maintains distance from another person’s feelings. I certainly do not maintain a distance unless I am misunderstanding your definition. If I had sympathy for my mother than I would not be sitting by her side after work everyday knowing how lonely she must get without company. I think this is empathy.

Including my ex who has a roof over his head..I allow him to be there because I cannot handle the fact he is in his car sleeping with so much pain..again I see this as empathy but I am thinking I am misunderstanding the definitions.

One final thought, I have been told to stay away from the energy vampires that sap my energy so than it goes back to your thought about peoples needs and fulfilling them..LOL This can all be so confusing. I am only thankful that I am not at the point I need someone else to survive and I certainly hope I will not need a roof over my head and I have made sure that my kids know and understand if I am ever paralyzed to please put me in a home and I have made sure I am covered financially. I could not do this to my kids.

Okay..well..I am getting way too deep here...Cheers to me and you Maricel not becoming needy!

[Harley Hans Hoglin]

I have to disagree with what it says under the brain scans, as one shows the left side of a brain and the other the right side. What it seems to show is that pain is felt on the right side, and empathy on the left, not that they take place in related areas of the brain.

Also it takes more of your brain to feel your own pain, than to feel some one else's pain.

I am very able to put my self in the other guys shoes, and feel their pain, but I've all so learned to turn that part of my self off, as it isn't all ways useful, as some times it can blind you to the truth, or the big picture.

But being able to walk the walk, can all so some times help you see the problem, and help take pain away.

[Maricel Evasco]

I have to disagree with what it says under the brain scans, as one shows the left side of a brain and the other the right side. What it seems to show is that pain is felt on the right side, and empathy on the left, not that they take place in related areas of the brain.


Harley,
Can you elaborate further? I am not a brain expert nor am I sure what locality pain or empathy should be experienced. I thought empathy would show on the right side rather than the left (analytical side)

[Maricel Evasco]

empathy is a stranger reaching out
a voiceless whisper of compassion
anguish mirroring anguish
minds attuned in uniform grieving
a shared understanding
speaking only through the heart
one person's pain acknowledged
assuages the suffering within
~unknown