The Importance Of Empathy In Times Of Need

A few years ago, my friend posted on Facebook that he was in the emergency room.  As soon as he posted, several of his friends replied with their own horror stories of having the same issue.  Others commented with, “cheer up…  it could be worse” type comments.  Not one person offered to visit him, help him when he recovered, or even said they hoped he felt better soon besides me.  I realized how commonplace this type of behavior is & just how wrong it is.  Romans 12:15 in the Amplified Bible says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice [sharing others’ joy], & weep with those who weep [sharing others’ grief]”.  People need this in their lives, not selfish & thoughtless behavior.

Empathy is the ability to understand & share the feelings of another person.  It is the foundation of healthy relationships, & it is essential for all humans to cultivate empathy in their daily lives.  Empathy means that we are willing to put ourselves in another person’s shoes & understand their experiences, feelings, & needs.  It is about being present & supportive without judgment or criticism.

Empathy is not the same as sympathy.  Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone, while empathy is feeling with someone.  Sympathy can be condescending, while empathy is respectful & compassionate.  Empathy requires that we open ourselves up to the emotions of others & seek to understand them fully.

Empathy helps us connect with others on a deeper level.  When we empathize with someone, we build trust, respect, & understanding.  It also helps us to be more patient & tolerant with others, even when we disagree with them.

As Christians, empathy is a huge part of our faith.  We are called to love one another as ourselves, & empathy is an essential part of that love.  Jesus himself modeled empathy when he wept with Mary & Martha over the death of their brother, Lazarus in John 11:35.  He also showed empathy when He healed the sick, fed the hungry, & forgave sinners.

Empathy also helps us to be more Christ-like.  When we empathize with others, we are following the example of compassion & love Jesus gave us during His time on Earth.  It helps us to live out our faith in practical ways, such as visiting the sick, caring for the poor, & comforting those who are grieving.

Also, empathy helps us to build relationships with people who are different from us.  It helps us to see beyond our own biases & prejudices, & to understand the experiences & perspectives of others.  This is essential for building a diverse & inclusive community that reflects the love of God.

If you feel you need to improve in the empathy department, don’t worry!  Empathy can be developed over time by following the simple steps below. 

Listen actively:  This means paying attention to what they are saying, asking questions, & clarifying your understanding.  It shows that you value them & their experiences.

Practice perspective-taking:  Put yourself in the other person’s shoes & try to see things from their perspective. 

Avoid judgment:   This means avoiding criticism, blame, or condemnation.  You can disapprove of the behavior while still treating the person with love & respect.

Show compassion:  Be kind, caring, & supportive.  Show people that you care about their well-being & that you are there for them when they need you.

By cultivating empathy in our daily lives, we can live out our faith in practical ways & reflect the love of God to those around us.

Different Types of Empathy

Empathy is a crucial component of human relationships.  It is the ability to understand & share the feelings of another person.  According to researchers Paul Ekman & Daniel Goleman, there are different types of empathy. Today, we will explore these types of empathy.

Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand what someone feels & is experiencing intellectually.  It is the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes & see things from their perspective.  However, it does not involve being emotionally affected.  This type of empathy is essential in many professions, such as counseling, teaching, & leadership.  Cognitive empathy is an essential tool for us to understand & serve others effectively.  However, it is essential to remember that cognitive empathy alone is not enough.  We also need emotional empathy to connect with others on a deeper level.

Affective or emotional empathy is the ability to feel others’ emotions & even sometimes their physical pain.  It involves experiencing the same emotions as the person with who we empathize.  This type of empathy is essential in building strong relationships & connecting with others emotionally.  We see many examples in the Bible of Jesus being moved by compassion & empathy towards those He encountered.  However, it is important to be careful not to let emotional empathy overwhelm us or cause us to lose objectivity.  

Compassionate empathy or empathetic concern is a combination of both cognitive & emotional empathy.  It involves understanding & sharing the feelings of another person while also feeling a desire to help them.  This type of empathy is the most effective in building strong relationships & serving others effectively, yet is also the least common type of empathy.  Compassionate empathy is essential in fulfilling the calling on Christians to be compassionate to & to serve others.  It is so important to remember that this type of empathy can be exhausting.  It is easy to burn out when we are constantly empathizing with others, especially on this level.  It is essential to take care of ourselves & seek rest & renewal when we need it.

There are different levels of empathy, ranging from low to high.  Some people have only one type of empathy, while others have all three.  The ability to empathize is also influenced by factors such as personality, upbringing, & life experiences.

As Christians, we are called to develop empathy towards our fellow man.  We can do this by seeking to understand them, putting ourselves in their shoes, & asking God to help us empathize with them.

Also remember that empathy is not something that can be forced.  It takes time & effort to fully develop empathy towards others.

Empathy can be exhausting, especially when we are constantly empathizing with others. Signs of empathy burnout include feeling emotionally drained, lacking motivation, being judgmental, critical, cynical, resentful, thinking people are oversensitive, being careless in relationships & feeling a sense of detachment from others. It is crucial to recognize the signs of empathy burnout & take action to prevent it.

It’s so important to take care of ourselves & seek rest & renewal when we need it, especially when feeling burned out. We can do this by praying, journaling, relaxing with hobbies, or engaging in low-stress activities we enjoy.

It is essential to remember that taking care of ourselves is not selfish. It is necessary to care for ourselves so that we can care for others effectively.  Even Jesus took time to Himself to rest.

We can prevent empathy burnout by setting boundaries, regularly practicing self-care, seeking support from others, & taking breaks when we need them.

Empathy is a crucial component of human relationships. However, it is important to remember that empathy can be exhausting & lead to burnout.  It is essential to take care of ourselves & seek rest & renewal when we need it.  Jesus was the perfect example of displaying empathy & also self care.  We should follow His example in every way, including this way.

Stop Asking Victims To Feel Compassion For Abusers!

There are so many victims who have been told, scolded really, that they need to have compassion on & even feel pity for their abusers.  People say stupid things like, “You can’t get mad at him!  He just doesn’t know better because his father did the same thing to him!”  “That is your mother & if you really were a Christian like you say you are, you wouldn’t get mad at her!  You would honor her!”

Some people who say such stupid comments are well meaning, yet ill informed.  Mostly though, such people are quite aware of their comments & the effects they have.  Their goal is to shut their victim down by invalidating or shaming them.  Maybe they have their own abusive past, & your situation reminds them of theirs.  Being too cowardly to face their own demons, they attempt to shut you down instead.  Or, maybe they have bought the narcissist’s “good guy/gal” act, & you speaking the truth threatens that.  Rather than face the ugly truth, they try to shut you down so their delusion can stay in tact.  I’m sure there are countless reasons that people say such cruel remarks.  These are only a couple of possibilities.

I don’t think that people who say such ludicrous statements stop for one second to consider the ridiculousness of their words, only the effect they wish to have.  I mean, what sense does it make to feel pity for someone who deliberately causes you pain?  This actually reminds me of something my father told me.  When he was 15, he was driving home one night when the local drunk hit his car head on, flipping his car over into a ditch.  My father nearly died from the traumatic brain injury, yet people told him he should feel sorry for the man who hit him.  Think about that for a second.. people said he should feel sorry for the man who decided not only to get drunk, but to get behind the wheel of his car in that condition, endangering everyone else on the road & nearly killing my father.  Why feel sorry for him rather than my father who lived with lifelong health problems stemming from this man’s poor choices?!  As far as I know, the situation with my father didn’t even stop this man from driving drunk.  Maybe if someone had confronted him, & made him realize the depths of the problems his actions caused, he might have stopped driving drunk.

They are also supporting someone’s choice to hurt other people.  How does this make any sense at all?!  No normal, functional person would support someone who deliberately chooses to hurt another person.  They know what it’s like to hurt, & don’t want others to feel that way.

Instead of encouraging victims to feel compassion for their abusers, why not support a victim who has had the courage to escape the abuse & tell their story?  Tell them they are brave & strong.  Tell them you admire them for having the strength & fortitude to survive what they have experienced.  Encourage them to share their story in whatever way will help them & hopefully also will help raise awareness.  Listen to them.  Validate them.

And if you somehow end up talking to an abuser, don’t excuse what they did.  Abusers need to know what they did was bad & why.  They also need to know that they hurt their victim & there was no good reason to do it.  They need to be aware of the fact that to abuse another person is a choice, just like being good to another person is a choice, & they chose the wrong thing to do.  Hold this person accountable!  Maybe doing so will open their eyes somehow & make them see that they need to make some changes in their behavior.  It’s certainly worth a try though, isn’t it?

How Do You Treat Those Who Are Suffering?

I was talking with a good friend recently.  She told me about something traumatic that happened to her a while back.  She also said that many of her friends & relatives told her that she needed to get over it & trivialized her awful experience, rather than offer her compassion & support.  Naturally, it upset her badly that people she expected to be compassionate were instead cold & unfeeling.

Unfortunately I understand her feelings all too well.  Since I got sick at the end of February, I’ve experienced this same thing first hand more times than I can count, starting at the hospital.  Apparently even a potentially deadly illness isn’t enough to warrant compassion from most people.

There is a terrible lack of love, empathy & compassion in the world today.  2 Timothy 3:1-5 says, “1 But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear].  2 For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane.  3 [They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good.  4 [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God.  5 For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].”  (AMP)

I firmly believe this is what is happening today, why people are so indifferent to the suffering of others.  Look at how people behave.  Money & things mean more than people & relationships.  Animal & child abuse are commonplace, as is hypocrisy.  And most importantly, God is rarely invited into, well, anything.  Not many people have God as their top priority in life.  Without God, it’s impossible to truly love people God’s way- full of compassion, caring, & great empathy.

Dear Reader, I’m certain you have been on the receiving end of this hurtful type of behavior. Your pain has no doubt been trivialized or even invalidated.  (This is especially common for adult children of narcissistic parents, since our parents didn’t always leave bruises or broken bones like physically abusive ones did, & they act like good people around everyone but their own children.)

While there is certainly no way to control how people act & completely avoid their coldness, you can remember that a person who acts this way has a problem.  That will help you not to internalize their words, thinking something is wrong with you for being upset over whatever trauma you experienced.  You need to remember that, because you are not wrong, crazy, oversensitive, etc. for being upset when something bad happens to you.

And, also remember that people with problems naturally turn self-centered to varying degrees.  Some people become so self-centered that they don’t have it in them to care about others who are also suffering.  Remembering this too will help you not to internalize being treated so poorly.

I would like to also encourage you to consider how you react when someone tells you about a painful or traumatic experience.  Do you offer compassion?  Empathize with their pain?  Or, are you so wrapped up in your own problems you refuse to see anything or anyone except what relates directly to you?

If you are the type to have a hard time empathizing when you too are suffering, it may be time to change that.  Aside from the fact that behavior can be hurting others, being good to others also is good for you.  It takes your mind off your problems, even if only temporarily.  You also may learn that this person & you share a common problem, & now you have someone to talk about your problems with.  You may be able to help each other!

Don’t know how to change this about yourself?  Ask God for help.  Ask Him to increase your empathy, to make you more aware of the feelings of others  & to give you wisdom on how to help those He puts in your path & wisdom with your words.  God will honor your prayer, & bless you for wanting to help others.