Empathy – the Essential Ingredient

I can’t believe it’s been ten months since we started this journey together. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you’ve felt welcomed, encouraged, and maybe a little challenged at times. 

I’m also praying, and will you join me in asking God for a fresh vision and direction for Woman Made Well as I proceed into year two. After all, it’s God’s story that He authored. I long to give Him all glory, all honor for restoring what the locust has eaten in my past. Joel 2:25 He’s restored my physical life and health, given me purpose, and repaired and redeemed damaged relationships. He continues to work things for good in my life. Romans 8:28 

I’ve decided to break from the chronological historical format that I’ve been using and share some of my today struggles. It’s not like I have it all figured out.  

Recently, I listened to author Anne Fadiman give a 2017 interview in preparation for a book club discussion I was hosting. And as I heard a quote that I’m now paraphrasing, it rang of biblical truth, though not intentionally given as such. She reminisced about the difficulty of accurately seeing both sides of an issue in reporting and writing. 

She stated, “Empathy is hard. It’s harder than anger, and it’s harder than pity.”

Even though I’ve studied and practiced empathy in college in preparation for my first career, I admit I’m still not so good at it. I must totally depend on the Holy Spirit’s guidance in every conversation and interaction to have a shot at producing it. John 14:26  So, I can absolutely agree with the statement that anger and pity are easier. I’ve gone the easy route with anger and pity many times. And I’ve struggled significantly with the more reconciliatory, connecting, perspective-seeking path of empathy.

Here is why anger and pity are so easy.

Anger looks to blame something outside so we don’t have to look inside ourselves (yes, we can be righteously angry over abuse and injustice, so I’m not speaking of a situation that produces righteous anger). At the same time, pity implies a hierarchy of judgment that elevates us over whomever we pity. A lot of times, we confuse empathy and pity. Empathy is only conveyed on the same level as someone else, not looking down at them. Empathy “listens” and doesn’t pretend to “know.” It’s putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes and seeing things from their perspective.

Trying to protect me for decades by being “perfect” leaves a lot of room for growth in the empathy department. Because I’ve judged others so quickly to help me feel better about myself, to this day, I still stumble looking for safety in knowing the rules of a group, of a relationship, or a system. It’s hard to break out of those well-worn neuropathways my brain has developed as fallbacks to avoid conflict or disappointment that rules and perfectionism provided. 

Oh, the safety of perfectionism. It felt safe to be able to know I was doing it right. Except it was a lie. Remember, Brené Brown says, “Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. It’s a shield.”

I’ll be working on this until the day I see Jesus.

Perspective is everything, and if we only see our side of things, we will never get genuine empathy.

Empathy remembers; it’s not forgetful. Because…

It remembers what it was like to be so tired and weary that it’s easy to say or do the wrong thing.

It reminds us that we have no idea what others have been through because no one but Jesus knows.

And it doesn’t forget that the only reason we have overcome any of our struggles is by the grace of God.