What IS empathy?
An emotion you feel?
A state of being?
Something you do?
What IS it?
Empathy is actually all of these things and more…
Think of a time you were in a room full of people, maybe a party, and an emotion came over you for no apparent reason that you had not been feeling just a moment ago. Maybe it was sadness or a bit of agitation. You then noticed someone new had come into the room, maybe a friend or someone you never met before. You realize that the person has the slightest hint of a look on their face that mirrors how you feel. This is empathy.
Now think of a time a you witness an accident, a house fire, or maybe even a time that you some other catastrophic event on T.V. Even though you had not experienced the trauma, you felt as if you had. Sympathy and compassion were only part of it, because you felt the trauma even on a physical level and believed you knew what to do in that situation as if you lived it. OR maybe you remember a time when someone came to you that had experienced something exciting that happened to them. Even before they began telling what brought them great joy, you felt a sharing of the joy. This is empathy.
Now again, think of a time that someone came to you that had experienced something traumatic, and even though this same trauma had not happened to you, you were able to share in their pain. Maybe you cried or your face reflected their suffering and your understanding. And in the next very moment, you noticed that your friend seemed to be suffering a bit less, their pain did not seem quite so intense, simply because you understood…
This IS Empathy
Charlotte Test
If you are interested in further exploration of empathy, please feel free to visit my blog site: Implicate Spirit
Here Empathy is taken to much deeper levels.
39.828840
-77.236199