Apparently I have always been a very empathic person, although I haven't always seen myself in this way, and certainly not necessarily as a positive attribute.
My mother tells me that back when I was in Grade 1 at school, my teacher told her I was a compassionate child. There was one boy in my class, a difficult student, likely with an intellectual impairment or developmental disorder, whom no one would play with or much tolerate. But as a six-year old child, I cared for him.
In my teenage and young adult years, I always described myself as 'over-sensitive', thinking that what I experienced was a problem, a handicap of some sort. I chose not to continue my original career path after my undergraduate degree and become a practicing psychologist, because after some work experience I thought I wouldn't be able to handle the suffering that I would witness in others. I wouldn't be able to distance myself from other people's pain. I became an academic instead.
For several years I avoided dealing with these experiences in my life, as much as I could. I deliberately constrained my contact with sadness or pain. I stopped watching the news. All doom and gloom. I chose not to see violent, scary or particularly sad movies. Though not always very successfully. I remember reading the book "The Bridges of Madison County" when I was about 24 years old. The sadness and longing of the characters stayed with me for weeks. I became a 'greenie', and an amateur vegetarian, not really because of ethics or philosophical viewpoints, but because when I ate meat I would physically feel the pain of the animals who have died, and when I saw a tree being felled, a deep sadness would weigh on my heart like as if I felt the grief of Mother Nature.
Then I suffered myself. I felt pain that was so intense I thought I would stop breathing. My baby daughter died. And then one year later, my baby son died too. On the first anniversary of my daughter's death, I remember waking and feeling such sadness, such desperation that I didn't want to open my eyes. I wanted to stop. Everything. I was tired of living, each day with a stabbing pain that wouldn't go away. I imagined not being alive. And then in that moment I had the thought "This is what it is like, for all those people in the world, who think about death, who want to end their life". I felt a strange sense of oneness, of connection, understanding, and peace. I was feeling what they were feeling. A whole bunch of strangers, people I'd never met, but with whom I felt somehow linked. For some reason, this gave me a sense of relief. It helped a little.
I've learned a lot in these past 8 years. I've learned to be comfortable with death, with sadness, with pain and suffering. I realised that I didn't have to avoid sadness and tragedy anymore. That in fact being over-sensitive or over-empathic was an important part of me, and that it could actually be a strength. I remember the moment that I finally decided to go back and finish what I'd started nearly 20 years ago, to work in counselling others. A student of mine contacted me for an extension on an assignment. Her grandmother had died. She told me how she had been there in the hospital on her own when her grandmother drew her final breath, and how terrible this was for her. When I read her message, I imagined what it would be like. To be lying there beside my grandmother, witnessing her life and death. I thought of how painful that would be, but also how amazingly beautiful and precious it would be to share this moment with someone that I loved. I shared this reflection with my student. She was very grateful, as it helped her see the experience in a different way; not so traumatic, something that she would treasure rather than a memory to be avoided. I don't really remember anything else about that semester of teaching. This moment between me and my student was the most important. So I resigned.
My over-sensitivity was in fact a strength. A strength that had always been with me, but something that my daughter and son helped me to experience differently, something to be thankful for rather than wishing it wasn't a part of who I was, as I had done in the past.
This week I gave a guest lecture in an educational psychology course at a local university. I talked about motivation, and how in teaching it is important to have an understanding of the broader factors that impact on students' motivation in the classroom. I don't know why I decided to do this, but I planned to do some role-plays. The idea came to mind in thinking about how to provide the students with an opportunity to really 'get' what it's like for some children who they will find in their future classrooms. Children who are experiencing the pain of a separating family, or who hunger not only for food but for love and a sense of safety, and for whom concentrating on maths or reading is so far from their immediate needs.
So I borrowed some school uniforms from my step-children, and wrote a couple of character dialogues, a 9 year old boy and a 17 year old girl, drawn from the life histories of several past clients. The boy's older brother had died and he was struggling to deal with his emotions at school; anger and fear. The girl had been kicked out of home by her mother and was missing her family very much. I chose some melancholy music to help set the scene, and off I went. At the chosen moment in the lecture, I donned the first school uniform, took my place in the front of the lecture theatre, and began to recite the boy's inner dialogue. I had barely begun before I could feel myself choking up. I was relieved to have my back to the students so they couldn't see I was upset. "What on earth are you doing!" I said to myself. "Get a hold of yourself". It didn't work. I also fought back the tears and battled the lump in my throat as I went through the girl's character half an hour later. Perhaps my sobs appeared part of my acting of the characters, perhaps the students knew I really was sobbing. It didn't matter. My over-sensitivity helped to produce what I really wanted. Empathy. For those few minutes in the lecture, the students were able to connect with the characters, and imagine what it might be like for that boy and girl.
The power of empathy is hard to quantify. But I reckon the world would be a much better place if we could somehow infect people with it. Connection with others is theorised to be a basic human need (such as in Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). Connection occurs when we feel some kind of understanding or oneness with another being. If only we understood each other better there would be less violence, hatred, and fear in the world. Not only between countries, but between individuals, neighbours, work colleagues, strangers in passing.
The power of connection is expressed well by Rachel Reiland in her book "Get me out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder".
"For all these years, you’ve lived under the illusion that, somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That’s what has gotten you by".
Now back to the beginning. ANZAC Day today. As I think about my 21 year-old step son joining the army next year, I hope that through whatever difficult experiences he may endure, he is able not just to be tough but to be connected with others, feeling empathy for his fellow human beings; and that these are the things that not only keep him going, but are what he strives for in his service.
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http://cultureofempathy.com/ |
http://cultureofempathy.com/
