It’s Empathy Fatigue, not Compassion Fatigue.
When you feel tired, anxious, and overwhelmed by the feelings of others, news stories, and our generalized sense of crisis- that’s empathy overwhelming your system. It doesn’t mean you need to retreat, or that you need time alone (though you might desire time alone for other reasons). It means that you actually need to learn how to support your physical body in processing empathy so that it completes its circuit and results in compassion. Compassion actually activates action centers in our brain which set off a series of physiological mind, body, spirit responses- all which support you in having the energy and presence to maintain compassionate action. It’s not a badge of sensitivity to be overwhelmed. It’s also not a failure. It happens to everyone. And, we can, if we want, learn how to navigate empathy so that we can stay rather than overwhelm. See- given the future we want, we will have to move through a great deal of hard emotions, and that will continue. Peace is found through learning to accept, expect, and navigate conflict, harm, and suffering. Any society that maintains peace maintains the ability to process empathy through to compassion without overwhelm.
Anger and fear easily overwhelm our empathy circuit because we aren’t designed to feel them for long expanses of time and they activate our fight/flight/freeze response. That’s making someone else’s emotions ours, we are no longer able to feel empathy and compassion for another because our bodies become concerned for ourselves. Sure, there are plenty of unsafe situations where we need to remove ourselves. But if you think back to the last time someone’s anger upset you, you will probably find you were not in any actual danger.
Learning to process each other’s emotions properly, and healthfully complete our empathy circuits is a requirement for maturity, and our individual and collective evolution. Without this capacity we will not be able to truly serve each other is moments of pain or joy. We will not be able to apologize or take accountability. We will not be truly known to each other. And we will become more isolated, more alone, more overwhelmed.
Grove Immersion Pathway cultivates the practices for recognizing and respecting organic boundaries - which entails practices for supporting empathetic response so it can find its home in compassion. This is required for parenting, teaching, leading and maintaining healthy relationships. Starts Dec 1, $25 deposit holds your spot. All scholarships for this program are already taken however if we reach 12 participants we can open two more scholarship spaces.