Empathy

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.” Romans 12:15,16(ESV)

Empathy is placing part of your heart into the felt experience of another person. Empathy is seeing another through the mirrored gaze of compassion and letting them see you. It’s resonance and oneness. When you have empathy you can say, “I feel what you feel.”

I know what it is like to love.

I know what it feels like to lose.

I have had the joy of sharing intimate happiness with another.

I know what it feels like to try and how it feels to fail.

I know what it feels like to be betrayed, and how hard it is to trust again.

I know what it feels like to be scared, angry, and ashamed.

I know what it is like to hurt someone you care about very deeply, whether intentionally or not.

I know what it is like to learn to forgive yourself.

And, I have had the privilege of entrusting these experiences to others who bore my burdens and sat with me in the pain. They were present to me so that I would not have to feel it alone.

When we are honest with ourselves and vulnerable with trusted others, it enables us to use all these experiences as a foundation for empathy.

Empathy is a place in your heart that is created through your own honest grapplings with suffering. When someone creates safety for you to share the hardest things, it also forges a map in your mind. The map has its way of saying, “It’s okay to go there. This is the path. You have done it, and others can too.”

When it has been received, many times over, empathy is a gift that we share with others. We know what it is like to have the embrace of love, and we don’t want others to have to walk life’s hard paths alone.

“Empathy is having someone climb down into the dark hole with you, and say ‘I know how this feels, and you are not alone’.” — Brene Brown.

I think this is one of the crucial reasons that God created Attachment for us as humans. Secure Attachment is the seat of empathy in the human heart. When someone took the time and caring to reflect and distill our own earliest emotions, we reap many benefits. We are less overwhelmed with emotions; we are better at understanding ourselves and in having the capacity to connect with others.

Secure Attachment means that in a moment of distress I know I have someone to turn to for solace and comfort. These attachment experiences help to soothe my own nervous system, develop accurate empathy inside me, and give me the settled confidence to face life’s storms.

Some of us were fortunate to have had the experience of Secure Attachment as kids. We had a loving parent who was tuned into us, both in joys and in sorrows. They soothed us, took delight in us, and gave us the space to explore our internal and external world.

Not everyone is so fortunate. But there is hope for us all. I believe that there is a place in the heart of God, the One who created Attachment, for all the sorrowing, suffering, and rejoicing of the human soul. This love is reflected in a psalm:

“Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close. Yet I am confident of this. I will see the Lord’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living.” Psalm 27:10,13 (NLT)

I also believe that God also ordained marriage as a place where Secure Attachment can be formed, even if you never had it before. Empathy is created from the shared experiences of harmonic emotional synchrony between two people. It is a gift. Once received, it is meant to be shared.