When feeling someone else’s pain becomes your own
We often use the word empathy to describe several different experiences - understanding what someone feels, emotionally resonating with them, feeling compassion towards them, or becoming distressed ourselves because they are distressed. These aren't necessarily the same.
Empowered empathy aims to strengthen our ability to remain aware of the distinction between their experience and ours.
When empathy becomes responsibility: learning to care without carrying
What happens when being able to sense what someone else needs becomes intertwined with believing that you have to meet that need? Empathy becomes particularly exhausting when it gets tangled up with responsibility.
The problems that arise when naturally empathic people learned to become exceptionally vigilant and responsive to others.
Empathy – a gift and a burden
There can be a point where noticing and understanding someone else's distress becomes more than noticing. You might feel their sadness, anxiety or anger deeply and intensely. You may feel unsettled when someone you care about isn't okay, and find it difficult to relax until they are, thinking about what they're going through long afterwards.
Compassion might not be what you think it is
What compassion is, what it isn't, and why understanding it matters before trying to practise it.