In the spirituality, self help and wellness world there is a LOT of talk about ‘empathy’ and what it means to be an empathetic person.
We’re taught that to be truly empathetic we must live in a state of putting ourselves in the shoes of others, and making sure that we take the time to really understand people and why they may be doing what they’re doing/not doing what they aren’t - even if their choices are very different from what we would do.
We’re taught that when someone hurts, us, harms us or otherwise does something to us that doesn’t feel good - that it’s our job to ‘be the bigger person’, to understand them and to realize that no one is really ‘bad’ but rather they’re just doing their best. We’re told that seeing this bigger picture and being able to be kind and understanding towards people who hurt us is the ultimate in spiritual enlightenment.
This ideology can be a very good thing in some circumstances. It’s very true that in our world today, most people could stand to be more understanding of others and less reactive/hateful.
That being said, we also have to realize that there is a BIG difference between being able to feel empathy for someone, being able to understand them and see where they are coming from and being able to have compassion for the people who are different from us and who may harm us - and being people who then believe we must ACCEPT all others just as they are - behavior included - and never stand up for ourselves or ask for anything better.
For some of us, we’re taking this idea of empathy too far, and it’s causing us to lack boundaries and to allow people to ‘walk all over us’ in a way that’s actually NOT healthy at all.
So how do we balance having empathy with having self respect? How do we move into a place of understanding WHY people do the things they do, without that meaning we then just have to tolerate everyone and everything?
That’s what we’re exploring today.
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