Too Much Empathy
The Many Uses of Mindfulness: Over-Empathy..The Dark Side
It may seem unnecessary to discuss the negative aspects of over empathizing since the quality of empathy is generally held in high regard as a positive human trait. However, over the years I have had many people come to me with mysterious ailments that had no standard medical or psychological explanation and because of that, made the sufferers increasingly anxious about their sanity. Recently there has been more attention paid to this in the research fields and the conclusions are beginning to point to what I experienced as a youth and into early adulthood.
I realized as a youth in the 1960’s that I could sense and share what other people were experiencing both good and bad. The bad is what alarmed me and caused me to seek answers because I couldn’t turn it off. I was fortunate to come across a person who was very familiar with this phenomena and explained to me that by merely focusing attention on someone it was possible for some people to experience the same physical, mental and emotional distress as the other. The light went on! It made perfect sense to me and with some mindfulness training which allowed me to keep my attention to myself and in the present moment, I was able to control the phenomena. I discovered that there was a thin veil between myself and others and that at times it was a matter of survival to keep that veil intact. To me it confirmed the concept of interconnectedness which opened up a whole new way of understanding my place in the universe.
It turns out that many, many people to varying degrees have this same issue. I find that people in the helping professions are particularly susceptible to this problem. They tend to be empathetic to a fault as it becomes confused and mixed up with compassion. These people want so much to help others that they give away too much of themselves and abdicate their own sense of self. In so doing, it opens them up to whatever is going on with the other person. Once this is pointed out, the same light that went on for me goes on for them. At that point it is a simple matter of some mindfulness training to keep their own sense of self intact and puts a stop to the flow of unwanted energy from others. This is accomplished without losing sensitivity to others and bestows a new objective understanding to the relationship of self to “not self”.
Although the helping profession seems to be most susceptible to this, it is a common problem for everyone and underlines yet another helpful use of mindfulness. On a side note, actors have discovered the usefulness of empathizing with method acting and with practice, can to varying degrees actually become the role they are in. Hopefully with good mindfulness training they can let go of their roles when they are done.
