The Spectrum Of Empathy.

[NilsFlair]

I think it’s important to give some clarity into one of the most fundamental aspects of communication.

 

This aspect is empathy.

 

Empathy is a greatly misunderstood and overlooked phenomena in my opinion. I remember how I used to think about it years back. I thought that empathy was only the ability to be sympathetic to someone. To feel bad when they were feeling bad.

 

This misunderstanding kept me from looking into the subject of empathy and develop great empathetic skills for a long time. 

 

It was only after diving into the world of coaching that a greater psychological complexity pushed me into learning about empathy, and I started understanding both the depth and the whole spectrum of what it actually is.

 

Empathy is so much more than feeling for someone. It’s a wide spectrum of abilities all related to the emotional nuances that occur between two people when they are communicating.

 

Many of us think that we are logical creatures, but the truth is that emotion is the ruler of most of our life, we will only follow the logic if our emotions are aligned to it. Logic without the emotion behind it, is obsolete, even if it’s “right”.

 

Whenever we are communicating with one another we are primarily using emotions, even if we are not aware of it.

 

Empathy is the skill of becoming more aware of this. And the spectrum of empathy is the different ways that this awareness can manifest.

 

One of the ways is that you start to feel what the other person is feeling. Many times this will not be a clear cut emotion but it will be a mix of different things, maybe a bit of frustration, anxiety and sadness, or maybe anger, mixed with sadness and guilt, or happiness mixed with excitement.

 

If you pay attention and stay present around the person that you are communicating with, you can start to notice certain patterns of emotions, patterns that you didn’t feel before you were in the presence of the person and that you don’t feel afterwards.

 

Another thing to notice about this is how your self image might get tangled up in the emotion, feeding a sort of narrative about you and the person in front of you. “This person is always so annoying, what is his problem!?”, “She is hot, so I don’t deserve her, I better leave quickly!”, “I love this guy, he always makes me feel so amazing!”.

People will affect you positively or negatively. This depends on a variety of things, such as how you both feel in the moment, what history you have together or what history you have had with similar people in the past (the past get’s reinforced), and how attached you are to your self image.

 

The more attached you are to your self image, the deeper you will fall into the emotion, and the harder it will be for you to see things clearly. Your perception becomes very biased, and it will be easy for you to blame the other person for how you feel in their presence. This is what happens when someone “gets drained by someone”, it’s really a form of self draining that is only triggered by the other person, but maintained by yourself.

 

As you become more detached and identify yourself more as the observe rather than the self image, your ability to let go of these emotional reactions, that are often unpleasant and energy draining, increases. This leads to you seeing things much more clearly.

 

Through this process you will become more sensitive to the emotional nuances that constantly occurs in your interactions, and you will be able to decode yourself and the other person in a more accurate way. Reaching understanding and common ground very quickly.

 

The interesting thing about this ability is that it is very hard to use for exploitative purposes, since the ability is built upon emotional understanding, you will have to hide your negative intentions, and this subconsciously encourages the other person to hide something themselves, which then might block important part of the emotional code.

 

In the context of dating, this empathetic ability has quite clear benefits.

 

The most obvious ones include: 

 

-That you feel what the other person is feeling so that you can better relate to what is holding them back, help them open them up and connect deeper together. 

 

-You can better identify and let go of emotional blockages that get triggered by the other person, which makes you less affected and sucked in by the “negatives”.

 

-You will see who is a better fit for you way quicker, you will feel if you naturally connect or not, and you will not take it personal if you don’t connect.

 

-You will be able to better distinguish when someone is genuine and when someone is not.

 

-You will take your own emotional reactions less seriously, which will decrease the impact that they have on you.

 

Now this was only a small piece of information about the spectrum of empathy, this topic is huge, and I will write more about it in the future.

 

- Nils Flair

[DrewNows]

this is interesting, will contemplate it for a bit, thanks for sharing! 

@Serotoninluv(tagging you here, might like to share thoughts) 

[Forestluv]

@NilsFlair @DrewNows

 Thank you for your thoughts. I think empathy is an often overlooked mode of being. Similar to you, I would make a distinction between empathy and sympathy/compassion - although they can inter-relate. I also agree that there is an empathy spectrum ranging from a pure empath to a pure narcissist. I would consider the top 20% of people on the empathy spectrum to be "empaths". People in the middle of the spectrum have the capacity for empathy, yet empaths have a higher skill for it. Similar to how most people can understand the basics of math, yet the top 20% have an aptitude for it. I like how you discussed how empathy can be misunderstood and cause confusion and inner turmoil. As well, empathic skills can be developed. Those in top 2% on the empathy spectrum get into a hyper-empathy zone that can be a paranormal-like.

A few ideas of exploration. . . 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:15 AM, NilsFlair said:

Empathy is so much more than feeling for someone. It’s a wide spectrum of abilities all related to the emotional nuances that occur between two people when they are communicating.

 I would say it is also much more than this. You describe empathy between two communicating humans. Yet empathy can exist between a human and a tree. Empathy can also exist between a human and an inanimate thing, such as a stone. It can also occur between human and immaterial. For example, one may experience empathy with immaterial when they enter an ancient monastery.

On 10/5/2019 at 11:15 AM, NilsFlair said:

One of the ways is that you start to feel what the other person is feeling. Many times this will not be a clear cut emotion but it will be a mix of different things, maybe a bit of frustration, anxiety and sadness, or maybe anger, mixed with sadness and guilt, or happiness mixed with excitement.

I would be careful mixing empathy with a variety of subjective experiences. This adds filters and muddy the waters. An entry level view of empathy would be shared experience, which could involve emotion - yet is broader. A simple example: imagine a woman has suffered through postpartum depression in which she experienced intense anxiety of harming/killing her newborn child. She joins a support group for mothers that have experienced and are recovering from postpartum depression. As soon as the mother starts talking about her experiences with harm anxiety toward her newborn - the other mothers will know exactly what that is like. They will know what the terror of the unwanted desire to harm their baby. They will know the feeling of being a monster. They will know the fear that others may find out she is a monster. The fear of others seeing her as insane - of getting locked up. All the mothers in that room will know what it's like because they have direct experience. Some of the mothers in the group may re-experience it during the support meeting - other women may just "know". This is a form of empathetic knowing - that may or may not involve the actual emotions. . . This empathetic knowing is much deeper than if you or I imaged what it would be like. We may listen to the mother and feel fear or anxiety - yet we don't know. . . People that are empaths can get very close to this knowing. 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:15 AM, NilsFlair said:

If you pay attention and stay present around the person that you are communicating with, you can start to notice certain patterns of emotions, patterns that you didn’t feel before you were in the presence of the person and that you don’t feel afterwards.

Another thing to notice about this is how your self image might get tangled up in the emotion, feeding a sort of narrative about you and the person in front of you. “This person is always so annoying, what is his problem!?”, “She is hot, so I don’t deserve her, I better leave quickly!”, “I love this guy, he always makes me feel so amazing!”.

People will affect you positively or negatively. This depends on a variety of things, such as how you both feel in the moment, what history you have together or what history you have had with similar people in the past (the past get’s reinforced), and how attached you are to your self image.

 

Through this process you will become more sensitive to the emotional nuances that constantly occurs in your interactions, and you will be able to decode yourself and the other person in a more accurate way. Reaching understanding and common ground very quickly.

These are awesome insights about increasing awareness about inter-personal emotional dynamics. This is super important to understanding someone else's experience and perspective and gives insight into how one's self responds to various emotional stimuli. I think societies are grossly deficient in this area and society would be much healthier if they could develop what you suggest. We could call this empathy for normies - yet for empaths it is much deeper. They don't need to try and interpret the essence of another - they are that essence. They just know. Perhaps like a language. If a person is fluent in Spanish and speaking Spanish with someone, they don't need to translate what the other person is saying. They just know. Similarly, in the deeper levels of empathy - there is a knowing without interpretation or translation. It is direct. . . 

Imagine sitting on a park bench with someone and a breeze flows by. You can't see the breeze, yet you know it's there and you know the other person is within the breeze as well. There is no "my breeze" and "your breeze" - there is simply the breeze flowing through both of you. There is no need to interpret the breeze. There is knowing of the breeze. This knowing may manifest as a sensation/feeling of the breeze and a knowing of that sensation/feeling. And a knowing that this breeze-related sensation is being shared. Or, there may be a knowing of the breeze and breeze-related sensation/feeling without a physical sensation/feeling - similar to a woman at the postpartum support group knows postpartum harm anxiety even if she is not experiencing harm anxiety in that moment. . . It's much easier for someone to enter these hyper-empathic realms if they have had previous direct experience with it. Yet strong empaths can enter this realm as a form of direct experience - yet not a traditional type of experience. 

 

[DrewNows]

@Serotoninluv the depth and articulation is exquisite my friend, thank you for sharing the juicy wisdom  

[NilsFlair]

@Serotoninluv@DrewNows  I really like your observations! 

Yes I agree that empathy goes far beyond human to human communication, the reason for me putting it so was for the relevancy of the people I mainly intended for reading this (Pick up/ guys into dating).

Your analogy about the breeze hit home in my mind as well, emotions might actually be more of energy clouds rather than internal trigger patterns.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated 

[Forestluv]

30 minutes ago, NilsFlair said:

Your analogy about the breeze hit home in my mind as well, emotions might actually be more of energy clouds rather than internal trigger patterns.

Beautiful.