I’m always amazed how, as a society, we’re very, very willing to discuss someone’s personal situation and/or current circumstances when they’re not present, but run away from that same conversation when they’re right in front of us. And I’m not talking about gossiping behind their backs, but rather just knowing that a friend is going through a rough time and sympathizing with another friend about it, instead of having that conversation with the one that’s hurting – lets call her Alice.
When Alice is sharing her feelings with us, we’re extremely quick to dismiss what’s going on for her. We brush it off with words of affirmation like, “Oh, you’ll be fine. It’ll work itself out.” We’re quick to act like those words make a difference and will make her feel better, when in reality we’re just rushing out of a conversation that could be extremely beneficial to Alice, simply because we feel uncomfortable and want to make ourselves feel better immediately.
Friends are not meant to be each others’ shrinks, I get that, and yet we sort of do it anyway, but very much in a “lost opportunity” kind of way, because we rush out of any depth associated with those conversations.
The reason we’re friends with Alice in the first place is because we have a connection – sometimes even an inexplicable connection. There’s a saying that goes, “People come into our life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.” Whichever one of those options that may be between Alice and I, there’s huge potential in all of our conversations to have meaningful, emotional, heart-felt connections. Yet most people never go there.
It’s much easier to speculate and to perceive from far away what’s going on in Alice’s life; to make up stories in our own heads about how horrible she has it and “aren’t I lucky it ain’t me,” than to discuss it with her and to hear her – not only listen, but hear what she’s saying and feel the feelings it brings up for us – and then provide her with either a silent holding of the hand, or maybe even an intuitive input that comes up in the moment.
What do I mean by “intuitive input?”
That can be as simple as asking the right question at the right time, or saying one magical word that resonates beyond all else for Alice.
All of us have the intuitive potential to do that, if we’re actually listening to and hearing Alice. Because hearing someone’s words – truly listening through the ears and then hearing the words as they flow in our heart – automatically creates a reaction in our body, in our solar plexus (“gut”) that informs us. This reaction is created by the frequency behind Alice’s words and is captured by our instinct, our intuition, our 6th sense, and informs our gut – IF we’re listening, hearing and feeling.
Have you ever noticed when we’re in resonance (agreement) with someone, our gut reaction is gentle and receptive, and when we’re not in resonance (we disagree), our gut reaction is stronger and wants to push the idea away (or argue)? That’s because our frequency – our vibes – are in different places on the Emotional Scale in regards to the topic.
There’s a Buddhist saying that goes something along the lines of, “What’s important is the question, not the answer.” And that’s simply because once you’ve spoken the question out loud, the Universe will – without fail – provide you with the answer. It’s the science of cause and effect. The law of attraction. Ask and ye shall receive.
Sounds simple enough, but where does one start feeling their intuition? It’s not like it’s taught in schools (but it should be!).
What I’d like to propose is that the next time you’re sitting with Alice and she’s going through some deep personal caca, focus on listening to and hearing her, and allow yourself to feel however deeply you may be affected, and then empathize.
Notice that I didn’t say sympathize, but rather empathize. To sympathize would mean going down the rabbit hole with Alice – into her low, downward-spiral vibrational level and energy-sucking vampire mode.
To empathize means to focus, to listen, to hear, to feel, and to keep a higher vibration than hers so that we can both remain OUT of the rock-bottom martyrdom that is where the downward-spiral of feelings leads. By empathizing, rather than sympathizing, we remain up on a higher level than Alice on the emotional scale, and therefore are able to lift her back into that sunnier upward-spiral from where, once she’s released her burden, she’ll be ready, willing and able to take that next step to dig herself out of the hole.
Note that I’m not talking about tragedies here, where the 5 stages of grief need to be processed and where sympathy is undeniably required for everyone’s sake. But rather the day-to-day angst we put ourselves through, simply for lack of a better understanding of frequency/vibes/the law of attraction, intuition/inspired action, and the differences between empathy vs sympathy, and compassion vs martyrdom.
So in the vein of the day-to-day “stuff” that afflicts us, the non-tragedies that we too often interpret or feel as tragedies, but that are in fact, simply life doing what life does to force us to go from point A to point B – how do we do that? If Alice is going through a rough patch, how are we supposed to maintain a vibe high and not tumble down the rabbit-hole with her?
Not an easy feat since we, dear martyred society that we are, thrive on negative emotion. We get excited/worked up/passionate at others’ misfortune and look forward to discussing it front-to-back and back-to-front. We’re not looking for a solution, we’re looking for confirmation that someone’s situation is either unfair (if we like them) or has it worse than we do (if we don’t like them so much), thereby making our lives just a little less sucky for those brief moments in time. Just look at the success of drama-filled TV offerings – need I say more?
Have you ever felt good after watching a reality/drama TV show? You might have laughed a little or a lot during the show. You might have yelled at the TV for the stupidity of it all. You might have shaken your head at the poor suckers, or even shed a tear in sympathy at the on-screen tragedy. But once you clicked that remote power button to off, did you actually feel good?
Chances are, if you felt into your gut, you felt bad and at least a little bit of invalidation of all the hopes and dreams for your life – maybe even for life in general. Am I making you rethink mainstream TV, yet? That’s a conversation for another post…
IMO, the key to empathy is to go into conversation with Alice and allow her a 5-10 minute window where she sits and wallows in the aches and pains of her life. For 5-10 minutes she can spew and bitch and you sit there and hear her story. And while she spews and bitches, instead of trying to think up a quick way to get out of the conversation, you feel her words and empathize with her by acknowledging what it must feel like to be walking in her “poor me” Manolos.
Here’s an example:
I quit my high paying job that I’d worked hard for through sweat, experience, learning, and more exams and interviews than I care to remember. I quit because my values were far from aligned with my employer and I refused to be coerced into complying.
Most of my family and friends just didn’t know what to say about my decision, so many said nothing and pretended my life was in status quo. Others who dared tippy-toe near the situation mostly said inanities: “Oh, you’ll find something else. Oh, it’ll get better. Oh-oh-oh…”
And I completely understand why they did. They felt they had to sympathize with me and feared (probably more instinctively than consciously) that they would fall into the rabbit-hole with me, and who the hell wants to fall into THAT rabbit-hole of unknown future? If they started to sympathize, would my problems somehow become theirs? Would I react in such a way that they would have to start being overly compassionate (aka doing FOR me beyond what felt right)? Would we suddenly all find ourselves in a mangled heap at the rock-bottom pit of martyrdom?
The one thing that was misunderstood in this scenario was the need for empathy – those 5-10 minutes of wallowing and being “felt for” is necessary. Even though we all knew I was strong enough to fall back on my feet – after all, the sun always shines above the clouds – Alice still needs to hear, “That must have been fucking hard.” Or, “It took a lot of courage to take that step.” Or, “You gave up a lot to stand in your integrity.” Empathy acknowledges Alice’s pain so she knows it wasn’t all in vain.
Then, after the acknowledgement, comes the magic. It’s then that what comes out of our mouth might be, “What do you think comes next for you? What is it that you want to do now?” Because empathy not only acknowledges the depth and validity of the emotions we go through by giving voice to our feelings, but it also opens the magical door of an oyster-filled world by intuitively making the empath ask the right questions – questions that are not coming from the head or the rabbit-hole of sympathy, but rather from the heart and the upward-spiral of a future filled with possibility.
So next time Alice comes over and her life’s a mess, we all need to sit in our emotions and empathize – feel those feelings as if that shit were happening to us. And if we can’t do that, maybe it’s time to ask, 1) “Why is it that I can’t or refuse to access my own feelings?” and 2) “If Alice is a true friend/loved one, why am I brushing her feelings off?”
Alice needs us to acknowledge her pain, and we need the empathy we’re about to offer her as much as she does. To learn much more on empathy and heart connection, I recommend starting here: HeartMath.
In Love & Light,
~Isabelle Monique~
Human Evolution Loves Peace 