Because I labelled myself as an empath, I haven’t been learning about empathy. I just assumed I had this one in the bag.
*rolling eyes* – I should know better.
Labels are so dangerous.
“It ain’t what ya don’t know that’s the problem. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”. – Mark Twain
Empathy is hard.
It’s a skill.
The more I learn about it, the more I know I don’t know.
I’m finding myself in situations where I know it’s important to be empathetic… and I don’t know how to do it right. Lots of the time it’s leaving me speechless.
Our words are so powerful. If we use them right, they can heal and melt heartache and pain.
If we use them wrong, they hurt or take something already painful and make it worse.
I have never been so keenly aware of this in my life as I try to learn about this whole vulnerability business.
Here is what I’ve noticed so far on this path, if I’m talking with someone about a particularly sketchy and sensitive topic for me with someone else…
- When they come back with judgement about it, I perceive their judgement as “I’m a bad person for this thing”, and I literally can’t breathe.
- When they try to “fix” me, it lands on me as something is wrong with me. I’m broken and need to be fixed.
- When they come up with their agenda for my life, a plan of action for me that I haven’t solicited, it brings up crazy self doubt.
- When something I say about myself hits one of their triggers for shame or self doubt, I can’t turn myself around fast enough in the middle of it to “be there for them”.
- When they come back with a story or feeling that relates to mine, or just hold the space for me to process, I feel safe and ok.
This is tricky business, but I’m determined to figure it out in order to build healthy and functional relationships in the future, and improve the ones I already have in order to allow for as much growth and evolution for all of us.