Tag: empathy

  • Judge as you wish to be judged

    Judge as you wish to be judged

    We speak from a position of privilege when we judge the failures of others within the context of what is possible for us.

    Even something as simple as the resolve we have, or the choices we made to rise above a challenge, comes from a place of assuming that our emotional resilience is the same as theirs.

    When we assume that everyone is equal, we deny the human struggle that affects all of us differently.

    Something small for one, could be a mountain for another.

    And the mountains that some climb every day because of their circumstances, could be overwhelming for those of us who were never faced with such trials.

    Comparing our efforts and accomplishments with that of others who are going through similar challenges that we once experienced is an act of arrogance, not support or concern.

    If we are sincere in uplifting or supporting others, then we must seek to understand the reality that they are facing, rather than judging them through our view of reality.

    After all, isn’t that what we cry about in the silent, dark hours, when we feel misunderstood or unappreciated?

    We treat others the way that we treat ourselves.

    When we judge ourselves harshly, or have no reason to expect support from those we cherish, we hold similar expectations of others who we find struggling.

    We expect them to ‘man up’ or to ‘put on their big girl panties’ and just move on.

    That’s how compassion and empathy are lost, and insensitivity becomes the standard by which we view others.

    Choose compassion.

    Reclaim your humanness.

  • Emotional wellbeing, not mental health

    Emotional wellbeing, not mental health

    It is only through our internal wars that we lose sight of reality.

    The culture of labeling people dehumanises the very human that is struggling with their humanness.

    We focus on our demons so intently, that we become defined by them, bearing them patiently in quiet shame, protecting ourselves from being exposed for what we hold within.

    When we judge ourselves with such shame and harshness, we see the world through angry eyes.

    But, protocol and decorum prevents us from raging and venting without restraint, so we choose safe spaces in which to release the venom from within, on those who are incapable of opposing or resisting us.

    In the public space, we create carefully constructed apologies for our inadequacies, latching onto unhealthy concepts like ‘suffering from…’ whatever emotional torment we’re experiencing.

    That’s when we feed the belief that human emotion is an illness, or a disorder, because it’s the only hope we have of making sense of the war within.

    All this because we convinced ourselves that being any less than happy must be weak, or dysfunctional.

    The sway of human emotions, regardless of how crazy that sway may appear or be experienced, is a legitimate response to very real life experiences.

    Labeling the response does nothing to create understanding and healing around that traumatic or overwhelming experience.

    Stop labelling people because of their behaviour, and reconnect with your own empathy and compassion so that you may once more see the human behind the human condition.

    Own Your Life.

  • But is it abuse?

    But is it abuse?

    If the widespread belief that silent treatment is emotional abuse is to be accepted, then we must also consider the form of abuse that its counter behaviour imposes.

    Silent treatment is not an assault on the senses and it doesn’t demand a response. The impact on the recipient of silent treatment is therefore dependent on what the recipient needs to feel validated or visible in that relationship.

    It also means that the reason for the dysfunctional communication has to be considered beyond just the withholding of communication from one of the parties.

    However, with nagging, it is an assault on the senses and has an inherent demand for a response.

    Nagging is based on the assumption of insensitivity or unwillingness on the part of our partner, rather than trying to understand why the first or second request for something was not or could not have been agreed to, or why they see no point in repeatedly acknowledging the same point.

    The important point is therefore not about whether it is or is not abuse, but rather why the communication has broken down to the point of such behaviours being the only means to express dissatisfaction with our partners.

    Claims of abuse are counter-productive unless either party is physically prevented from walking away from such forms of ‘abuse’ .

    The focus should therefore be on creating understanding about why communication has broken down, rather than supporting one partner against the other.

    No one nags or remains silent if they believe that their reasonable voice will be appreciated.

  • Dehumanising the human

    Dehumanising the human

    Don’t become so fixated on labelling yours, or the behaviour of others, that you lose sight of the human struggle behind that behaviour.

    Labels make it easier for us to deal with stuff.

    The moment we give it a name, we can manage our expectations around it.

    This is fine when it comes to abstract stuff and tasks or problems that we deal with as part of a regular day.

    But it becomes detrimental when we start labelling behaviour and then responding to that label, rather than recognising the legitimacy of the human experience behind that label.

    Popular labels include depression, bipolar, narcissism, and egotists, to name only a few.

    It’s one thing describing what we’re observing as our experience of someone’s behaviour, but the moment we reduce the human to that label, we become part of the struggle that they’re already grappling with.

    We must learn to connect with the human struggle long before we label it as an illness or a deficiency.

    For example, we don’t suffer from depression, but we do have good reason to feel depressed because we’ve lost hope in something important working out the way we need it to.

    And so it is with all other so-called mental illnesses.

    We lose compassion and empathy, and thus disconnect from our own humanness, when we define the entirety of a being by a single label of unacceptable or unpleasant behaviour.

    Reclaim your humanness, so that you may be able to honour the humanness of those around you.

    Start by avoiding self-diagnosis of the emotional state of others.

  • The burden of self-loathing

    The burden of self-loathing

    Allow me to explain…

    “I trust more easily those who expose the struggles of their lives, rather than those who live a life of pretend.”

    Our need to pretend is evidence of self-loathing.

    “But not those who present their struggles to justify their shortcomings.”

    Too many preempt being judged harshly about what they know they’re lacking in their conduct, and present their struggles to offer an excuse for why they are unable to be better than who they are.

    This is further evidence of self-loathing.

    “Such struggles are filtered versions of the truth to present a facade to win favour or sympathy.”

    Be weary of those who wear their hearts on their sleeves. They will expect you to honour their struggles rather than to uplift them from that space.

    “If we lie about our life, how can we be trusted about anything else?”

    Those who present their lives to be something other than what it evidently is, are ashamed of who they are.

    Again, self-loathing is what drives their behaviour.

    When you engage with such people, or if you are doing some of this, the problem to be solved is not one of honesty or authenticity.

    The problem to be solved is one of acceptance and understanding to reconnect with the human that feels less than human.

    To reconnect with the human who lost sight of their value, rather than to correct their behaviour.

    And if you can’t connect despite your best efforts, then remain silent and walk away.

    Your harsh criticism or judgment, no matter how well-intentioned, will further beat down the one who is already beating themselves up.

    Be kind. Be understanding. Be human.

  • Empathise

    Empathise

    Empathy is expressed when we desire for others what we wish to have for ourselves.

    Sometimes, it’s something we have, and we hope that others will be able to enjoy the same value and benefit that we enjoy from it.

    Sometimes, it’s what we don’t have, yet we hope that we may be able to contribute towards others having it, despite having no reason to believe that we’ll be able to experience it ourselves.

    Empathy is founded in our desire to alleviate our struggles that we see in someone else’s life.

    That struggle could be something we currently experience, or something that we have experienced before.

    It is core to our humanness, and only gets tainted when we respond with bitterness, hoping to see others suffer or struggle in the same way as we may have. Either at their hands, or at the hands of those whom they represent in our life.

    Empathy is the difference between peaceful acceptance, and bitter vengeance.

    Like that old proverb says, a bitter heart eats its owner.

    Protect your heart from the bitterness of this world by practicing empathy instead.

  • To Breathe Again

    To Breathe Again

    There are few things more exhausting than the plague of insincerity from those that find a constant need to explain their drama and their dreams under the pretense of seeking sincere advice to overcome their hurdles. 

    Soliciting advice while professing not to have the answers ourselves, then discarding that advice in favour of taking the easy way out reflects the deficit of conviction in our soul. 

    A deficit of conviction leads to an empty existence, embellished with an outward show of struggles, while concealing an inward turmoil of loneliness as we go through life seeking associations with others that may define who we are. 

    Loneliness is more burdensome when we lack affection for who we are. 

    Lacking affection for who we are results from a lack of courage to live with conviction because we believe that our worth is defined by the acceptance of others before it is defined by our acceptance of ourselves. 

    Accepting ourselves demands that we take a brutally honest view of who we are and what we stand for, but our timid souls protect us from such realities and turn us into victims. 

    As victims, we require a support structure that recognises our weaknesses as battle scars, while ignoring our contribution towards growing so apparently weak. 

    Our contribution towards our weakness, or our impotent state, demands a sense of accountability for the decisions we took and the choices we made. 

    Accountability becomes unnecessary when we’re protected from the reality of it by those that seek to comfort us in moments of weakness while they seek such comfort as well. 

    Seeking commonality in weakness and then building a support structure to celebrate the triumph of existing in spite of such weakness is a fool’s profession of courage to the world. 

    Victims are emboldened in their need to hold others accountable for their (victim’s) choices when the support structure that they subscribe to is formed by equally celebrated victims. 

    Celebrating the weaknesses of others as a statement of courage denies them the motivation needed to emerge from the state of weakness. 

    When our state of weakness defines our significance to those around us, and in turn solicits the affection and care that we desire, we will fight with a blinding rage against anyone that threatens the reality that we’ve created for ourselves. 

    A sobering moment at an unexpected intersection in our lives is all that is needed to shatter the alternate reality that we clung to for so long. 

    A shattered reality forces us to reinvent ourselves in the face of adversity. 

    Forced reinvention in the face of adversity is considerably more challenging than reinvention from introspection. 

    In the absence of courage to reinvent ourselves, we will seek out new avenues to play the old script of pity that is needed for a battle weary soldier. 

    Pity begets pity, and the slide into self loathing will gain momentum. 

    Self loathing constricts our ability to prevail in the absence of a support structure that celebrates our weaknesses, leaving us with the tough decision to either prevail, or willingly fail. 

    The choice we make at this point will either see us emerge from that constricted space and embrace the reality of who we are capable of being, or see us resign ourselves to a scrap heap of souls that found it easier to blame the world for their misery than to live with conviction. 

    If we choose the former, we’ll suddenly breathe deeper and realise that we were simply gasping for air until the arrival of this new reality that we chose to embrace. 

    If we choose the latter, our chests will continue to constrict, until eventually we will suffocate on the bile of the self loathing that we nurtured for so long while waiting for sympathy to make us feel whole. 

    To breathe, rather than gasp, we must live with conviction, and have the courage to see ourselves for who we are and not how others perceive us to be. 

    We always show our best side to society, and hide the worst for the quiet moments of torment that is rarely shared with others. In those quiet moments, we either learn to love ourselves, or loathe ourselves, and the choices of others has no bearing on those moments whatsoever. 

  • Dramatic Trauma

    I’ve always been curious about the impact of our perceptions on the reality we seem to contend with. This became even more prominent in a recent discussion regarding the way in which we perceive or interpret various experiences and how it subsequently affects us.  One thing I realised is that I don’t recall ever looking at any of the many colourful experiences in my life and feeling distinctly overwhelmed or traumatised by it. The thought of it being traumatic never entered my mind.

    Sure, there would be times when I would describe the experiences of others as traumatic events in their lives, but I think there is a very important difference between how we describe something for effect, versus how we experience or internalise it. This rings true to my views about labels and how that also drives conditioned responses within us. Without intending to rob others of the gravity of their life experiences, I would suggest that the moment our internal conversations suggest to us that we’re experiencing a traumatic event rather than just a challenging event, it reinforces the sensations associated with feeling attacked, as opposed to raising our awareness of our response options instead.

    It reminds me of moments when the responses of others towards an event in my life seemed to have heightened my awareness to the impact of it compared to how I felt a moment before they said anything. This has happened to me often regarding death or near death experiences. I would cope with the reality quite well, but would be jolted into a deeper sense of loss or betrayal when I saw the emotion in the faces of others that were witnessing the events unfold.

    It’s like the contagion of a yawn. We tend to feel a need for rest after watching someone else going through a really hearty yawn, even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with our energy levels before that. I think this is the same response we have towards people that express raw emotion around us. We’re drawn to it like a moth to the flame. Sometimes it grounds us in compassion, but often it sucks us into the victim state that makes it that much more difficult for us to emerge from it. More destructive than this is when we find a sense of comfort in the sympathy from others that dwarfs any level of comfort we experienced in the normal course of our lives. That’s when the weak and neglected among us play to the sympathies of others and remain bogged down in a phase of their lives that ultimately defines their existence, not because the event itself is too traumatic to let go of, but the attention and significance it afforded them is too rare for them to want to give up. Rare in the context of their lives.

    It’s that dramatic emotional response that leaves a lasting impression. It makes a mediocre life noteworthy,  and when that fleeing moment threatens to pass, a cycle is spawned where we seek opportunities to create triggers for yet more sympathy because as long as others sympathise, the true frailty of our lives would escape us as long as we enjoy the sympathetic embrace of others. That embrace tells us that it’s ok to be broken. It tells us that simply surviving is a triumph in itself, and that any lack of conviction or courage to move beyond that point is completely understandable.

    That’s when we fail ourselves, and we fail others. When we gauge the intensity of the struggle of our lives relative to the weaknesses of others. It’s for this reason that we need to look towards those that rose above it rather than those that coped. Unfortunately, our celebration of mediocrity makes it increasingly difficult to tell the difference. Couple that with our innate fear of exposing ourselves to the same opportunity that earned us betrayal and you have a perfect recipe for a victim’s regret that is despised on the inside and dressed as strength on the outside. If only we put as much energy into moving on, life would be so much more endearing.