Would it surprise you – or perhaps even
affront you – if I told you that having such deep empathic feelings for another
is of little real use to them and mainly serves to deplete you? (Although
perhaps it simultaneously makes you feel good about yourself, even though it
has drained you, because you are actively empathizing with someone going
through a distressful situation). Would you protest and tell me that this is
how a good and loving and kind person
behaves? Would you perhaps accuse me of being cold and unfeeling for even
posing such questions?
This topic has been close to my heart for
many years. Long before I became a psychotherapist I knew that almost all
health professionals – from doctors to massage therapists, nurses and social
workers, technicians, home-based caretakers (both those who do this as a job, as
well as those who are the caretaker of a family member or friend), crisis
workers, acupuncturists, and psychiatrists, not to mention the ‘talk therapy’
people, such as myself, and so many others, in such a wide scope of different
fields, all too frequently suffer from burn out.
Matthieu Ricard, a world-renowned Buddhist
monk, and author of Altruism, speaks
of stand-alone empathy, as well as empathy that is not stand-alone and that forms part of a greater model within compassion and love:
Affective, emotional, or cognitive empathy
is to resonate with someone else’s mental state: if someone is happy or joyful,
you also feel joyful, and if someone is sad, you also feel sad, and if someone
suffers, you also really suffer. You literally try to put yourself in their
shoes, imagining what they are thinking and feeling. That is a state of mind. And
it is a “stand-alone” empathy, as Ricard puts it. It leads to burn-out. In the
United Sates 60% of all medical personnel have or will suffer from burn-out. I
highly doubt that the statistics for other countries are better.
This stand-alone empathy needs to be part
of something much more global, broader, and wider. It must be part of altruistic love and compassion. All
of us, and very particularly those who care for others, whether in the healing
professions, or as caretakers, and in so many other arenas where people help others
- need to be able to cultivate love and compassion (for the other) within which empathy has a place, in
order to be able to deal with the burn-out effects of stand-alone empathy.
Looking at several recent situations that
hit the world media, we can show how empathy can affect you quite differently
than loving compassion, and at the same time, show how important compassion is:
- In the Orlando shooting at a gay bar, many of us could easily say that prior to the shooting, we empathized with the LGBT community due to the continual prejudice, homophobia, and ostracizing it has faced historically. This kind of empathy is very important, because without it, we are unable to place ourselves in another’s shoes. During and immediately after the shooting, if we remained on the purely empathic level, we would have suffered a great deal, simply because we continued on that stand-alone level Ricard mentions. But, if you add loving compassion into the equation, it is not that you don’t care, but that you care in another way. You wish for their suffering to stop, and you will do what you can to alleviate it, but you realize that your desire for their suffering to stop does not require you to suffer as well – more importantly – you recognize that if you suffer as well, you will be much less able to give a helping hand and to support those in need, because you may soon reach a point where you¸ too, will need help (due to your own burn out).
- In the murder of Jo Cox, the British MP who was stabbed and shot in front of her offices a few days before the UK voted to leave the EU or stay, prior to the shooting, if we knew of her, we may have empathized with her role as MP, wife, and mother, as well as admired what she was doing. This kind of empathy would not cause us to suffer – it’s simply something that allows us to imagine ourselves in another’s shoes. Immediately after the shooting, when the news hit the airwaves, if we remained on the purely empathic level, we would have suffered (thinking of her life cut short, her young children, etc.), simply because we continued on that stand-alone level Ricard mentions. But, if you add loving compassion into the equation, it is not that you don’t care, but that you care in another way. You wish for their suffering to stop, and you will do what you can to alleviate it, but you realize that your desire for their suffering to stop does not require you to suffer as well – more importantly – you recognize that if you suffer as well, you will be much less able to give a helping hand and to support those in need, because you may soon reach a point where you¸ too, will need help (due to your own burn out).
In light of the above examples, let’s
examine research spear-headed by western neuroscientists collaborating with
Buddhist monks (including the afore-mentioned Ricard). One such study,
under the direction of Tania Singer, Ph.D. - world-renowned expert on empathy –
at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany,
undertook to investigate the functional neural plasticity of empathy and
compassion. The study wanted to examine how empathy and compassion affect the
brain and the state of being – the well-being - of participants. Seasoned
meditators were observed in real-time MRI’s and it became very clear that they
suffered when they focused on feeling empathic alone. Ricard himself relates that when he was
meditating as instructed, Singer stopped him after 10 minutes, asking him what
he was doing, as the results were not those she was accustomed to. He replied
that he had been meditating on loving kindness and compassion. She asked him to
meditate only on empathy. Somewhat
reluctantly he agreed and focused on a heart-wrenching documentary he had seen
the day before about Romanian orphans. He states that after one hour he was
totally burned out, resonating with their distress, feeling powerless. As time came
to break for lunch Singer asked Ricard if he wanted to eat or move to his
compassion meditation, and he chose the latter with alacrity, saying he simply
couldn’t stand it anymore. He says that as he did so it was like the breaking
of a dam, with an outpouring of love and affection – “every atom of suffering
was filled with an atom of love” – and that he felt much stronger, simply not to be compared with the earlier
feelings of empathic distress.
The two kinds of relating: empathy and compassion – gave two completely different
neural results and resulted in two completely different feeling states. Ricard
describes the difference like night and day. The study was replicated with
other subjects and Singer’s resulting paper
demonstrates that completely different neural networks come into play for
empathic distress compared to loving kindness and compassion meditation. The
latter is a much more positive network of affiliation, love, wholesomeness and
reward, and positive affect, applied to suffering in a constructive way.
Steps
to Learning Loving-Kindness Compassion Mindfulness Meditation
This can rewire
your brain.
- Take 10-15 minutes every day to sit quietly.
- Send compassionate and loving thoughts to family and friends
- Then to an individual with whom you have disagreement, conflict, or tension
- Then the same to strangers all over the world who are suffering
- Finally, send compassionate, forgiving, and self-loving thoughts to yourself
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CHARLAS EN ESPAÑOL EN YOUTUBE
Vampiros energéticos: Su efecto destructivo en tu vida
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CHARLAS EN ESPAÑOL EN YOUTUBE
Vampiros energéticos: Su efecto destructivo en tu vida
En YouTube aquí
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"Límites malsanos y autoestima: Tu felicidad y el amor hacia ti mismo"
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"Soluciones para personas emocionalmente inaccesibles
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Narcisismo y Psicopatía: Vivir sin Empatía
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Morir: Un enfoque espiritual
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Amor sano o disfuncional: ¿Cuál es la diferencia?
en YouTube aqui
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"Soluciones para personas emocionalmente inaccesibles
y con dependencia emocional"
en Youtube aquí
****************************
Narcisismo y Psicopatía: Vivir sin Empatía
****************************
Relación espiritual y sexo en pareja
en YouTube aquí
****************************
Elige hábitos para llevar una vida de bienestar
en YouTube aquí
****************************
Morir: Un enfoque espiritual
en YouTube aquí
****************************
Amor sano o disfuncional: ¿Cuál es la diferencia?
en YouTube aqui
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Also visit my book website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books (also in Spanish & German). My latest book Emotional Unavailability & Neediness: Two Sides of the Same Coin is available globally on Amazon in print & Kindle. You can also obtain it (or any of my other books) via Barnes & Noble.
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