Overwhelmed by Empathy?

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.

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How do we avoid harming and being harmed?

Those who accept the vulnerability that we will harm and we will be harmed walk softly, always looking for ways to alleviate suffering in the world rather than avoid it. 

We take conscious steps, we look ahead- we check behind. We make amends, we bring food, we change our behavior, we ask questions, we sacrifice, we change again, we find it wasn’t a sacrifice after all. 

It might seem like a lot of effort, but its actually less effort for the body and mind and spirit than trying to avoid harm and suffering all together. 

When we reject the vulnerability that we will harm and be harmed, we miss opportunities to soften the suffering. We try to control situations, relationships, and environments with the intention to avoid harm. We compound suffering with our lack of attention, with our refusal to accept its existence. Our bodies, our minds, and our hearts are not comfortable. ( and they pass that information on to the sensitive nervous systems of others, if not consciously). 

So, the first step towards any real deep healing of any kind is this acknowledgment. This practice of accepting the vulnerability of harming and harmed. This practice of the courage to look, listen, and feel. 

From the primal wail of collective grief that peace will be restored.

The sun rises this morning over a great deal of tragedies. 

Now-days we have such constant communication with each other and the world’s trauma. What. A. Blessing. 

The internet and social media may be just the tool we needed to break the spell of severance that has numbed us for so long. Fairytales are not to be read word for word, they are secret messages. The only way some Truths can find their way to the future. Re-read sleeping beauty as a metaphor of our times. Hmm, is it love which saves humanity? 

The reason everything feels so heavy and you feel so powerless is because you’ve been trained to feel that way.  It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just plainly written, even in our very well scripted history books. Plain and simple. 

With great privilege comes great responsibility and it is your responsibility to train your body, heart, mind, and culture to stay with the excruciatingly pain of our times. Because it will indeed be our times, it will be ongoing. The ache of today is from those who looked away or, only at themselves, for centuries. Do you want that legacy? Or do you want to be part of the legacy of peace? Those teachers, peace-makers, activists and community leaders have a legacy too- it’s much harder to hear and see over the violence. But it’s there, woven into your hope. 

The first wars were over diminishing resources. The last wars will be over diminishing resources. But we get to decide if they are the last because we finally drove ourselves to extinction or if they are the last because we finally grew up. Grew into fully mature humans capable of balancing their nervous systems, reasoning, compassion, and using the magic of our brilliant brains to solve problems together. WE right now get to decide. No one asked if we wanted responsibility- they just passed it down the line to us. So, now we must find a way. 

This is all my work, helping us train our bodies and spirits for peace. We cannot find peace because we haven’t invited ourselves into the “space” where we can access those solutions. We can’t even dream them up in our current state. 

You must train yourself to tolerate fear and panic and pain in yourself and another. Not so you can “make it through” but so that you can feel it.  I challenge you today to find just one tragedy which moves you and let yourself really mourn. Maybe post to your stories on social media. Why? Because mourning is meant to be done together. This digital connection fosters that. Maybe we cannot get physically handle being together, all together, in our grief. But we can practice. 

It is from that primal wail of collective grief that peace will be restored.