“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” ~Walt Whitman
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another’s experience and understand with depth the gravity of their situation. In general, I believe the world needs more empathy.
But I’ve learned over the course of my twenty-nine years that sometimes being a highly empathetic person is incredibly painful. And sometimes too much of a good thing is a bad thing.
Hearing stories of the pain that people experience can be extra painful when your mind tries to carry their pain around with you. Empathy is healthy when it’s useful and helps a wounded person feel understood, validated, or release their pain. But it’s unhealthy when you carry it with you as if it is your own.
Feeling sorrow for someone who is suffering is part of our humanity and connection to each other. Carrying the sorrow as if it belongs to you ends up feeling traumatizing and can cause us to disconnect from others.
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