One of the greatest
gifts we women have been given is the 6th sense. Within that 6th sense is a place and space of authentic empathy.
One of the greatest gifts we can give another hurting woman is a listening ear. We need to listen by tuning our hearts and ears to one another. Empathy is the ability to walk a mile in another’s shoes. It is not pity. Pity is sickening and will only do damage to another who is wounded in some way and in need of your understanding.
Empathy is ability to step outside of our mememememe and make a deep effort to truly try to understand what another needs. Empathy is something we are born with and some are able to empathize easily. Some can empathize too much. There are boundaries about how far to go with empathy. Empathy is about being compassionate for another, with no unhidden agendas to feed some want in ourselves. Empathy is listening and gaining understanding of how another might react differently to us in an incident. We have to move beyond Self in order to truly be there for someone else in deep and worthwhile ways. We can then improve lives around us through the ripple effect, and yes, it invites back empathy for ourselves.
They way to understand if we are truly empathetic women, there are some clues about when we show we are not:
Have you ever thought, or said, that someone ought to get over whatever it is there are going through? Have you told them that there are others worse off? Have you accused someone of whining? Have you told someone to get hold of themselves? That is our refusal to deal with our own woundings and getting to the trigger of our own things so we are unable/afraid to identify with someone else is presently going through. Some woman are too busy identifying with their own woundings and they’d rather not deal with someone else’s because they are loving their own situation too much and are not ready to let go of it. We are all wounded in some way.
When we cannot empathize, we miss so much of authentic life. Sometimes the wound is too close. Sometimes we actually lack the gift of compassion. Some cannot bear other people’s stories because we have not healed our own stories. We often, when not healed, will speak out of bitterness and/or, we become frozen speech people. We cannot get out of our own perceived past woundedness enough to be of use to anyone who is suffering in the present. It is easy for such to turn and walk away from any relationship that needs empathy.
If you find you have to pretend empathy, or that you repel situations that need empathy, you need to take a long dark look into those unhealed space you own. Most likely there is still a broken child within. You are most likely carrying to heavy burdens to be of use to anyone who is hurting. Sometimes we, actually in a selfish way, choose people to come in to our lives that are as wounded as us because misery does love company and it feeds your sense of victimization. There are those who chose hurt people to love and end up in cycles of more wounding because of the relationship. (Think the Desjarlais in my last name. and that has already been blogged about). The draw to others of your ilk are something we might be curious of in some ill way so that we do not have to change our great obsession with our own wounds. The only cure. Work hard, and hard work it is, to get past your own hurt.
Learn to be curious about strangers, be inquisitive around people who are healing and are healed and are willing to share their healing story. Be curious about how others get passed their woundedness. Seek out those beyond your social circle and move past the loneliness that is felt by those who can not empathize. Have courage.
Start looking at self and at others as unique individuals. Learn how to really listen. Using our 6th sense, we learn more about a person and what their wants and needs and you begin to grasp a “sense” of the authentic person beneath that daily facade that we put out.
Once we practice listening to body language to get in tune with others’ essence.
Once we practice and use our 6th sense more, we then need to learn/relearn how to be vulnerable enough to unmask ourselves. To truly be empathetic, we need to allow others to ‘know’ us. True empathy takes two. It is a symbiotic relationship. We listen and share beliefs and our ‘story’ of Self and that allows others to unmask themselves and reveal their story.
Of course, there are people in all our lives that we feel do not deserve our empathy. Ah, but here is the crux of it all. When we have people in our lives that we simply cannot think of anything other than that they are not someone we need to have around us, but they have to be for some reason, then we can either focus on our reasons for not being around them and why we think we do not want to be. I have spent a few months working on really simply letting someone BE. I have used protection. I have learned how to simply have them be around but absolutely have no contact with that person who has been a thorn in my side. I went back to using the teachings of The Good Red Road and never look that person in the eyes. I put up a shield of sorts so that they are there but not there. I refused to speak to that person and removed myself from the area they are in. I refused to let that person into my thoughts. I set strong boundaries around self and that relationship that had soured. I refused to let her speak to me any more. I dropped the sense of vulnerability that she had used against me. I created a type of void that left that person feel a vacuum around me. She had been bullying me and I had been allowing it. The void was felt and this person began trying to figure out what that void was. She tried to get others to intervene to get me to talk to her, to interact with her. I maintained a strong boundary. I stopped trying to ‘fix’ the relationship. After months of this and knowing that she had no clue as to what she was doing that has caused this void where I used to be, she has begun a complete about face. She is doing the trying. At some point we may be able to have a relationship but I will always have that boundary up that does not allow for emotion or comes from a stance of vulnerability. I cannot say I will get to a place of true empathy with her. She may have to remain “a stranger” where there is common courtesy but not a relationship. I have freed myself of it so that it does not rankle nor intrude on my peace and personal space. There are some who do not deserve what gifts we truly have to offer.
Empathy means, as well, that we have to love ourself. We have to know and set boundaries and when we are in tune with our deeper, higher, self, we are able to let some things be. Try connecting, in empathy, with one other person today. Really listen. Sense below the façade.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x28nj7a
© Carol Desjarlais 6.22.21
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