An Introduction to Empathy

Empathy is often considered the most ancient of the healing arts. Legends and myths abound with individuals who took upon their own shoulders the aches, pains and sins of others. Folklore around the world is rich with stories of those who could see through the eyes of others (including the eyes of animals). Most people have heard tales of individuals who, by touching another's ache or pain have healed it.

Everyone is naturally empathic to some extent.Life conditions can heighten, close or set it to overdrive. Unfortunately, if we are unaware of our ability, it can create problems for us.

With an empathic person, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether the feelings felt are one's own, or someone else's. Even if the feelings have been picked up from another, an empathic individual will experience them as if they are their own. This is the theory, and although it is not something I could consciously claim to have experienced, every individual is just that: an individual.

Children are more naturally sensitive along empathic levels than adults. For most people, as we grow older, we build walls around us. We learn to become defensive. We have usually learned that such sensitivity in the modern world can make us vulnerable to others or we react to the expectations of others and keep quiet about things which may be looked upon as making us 'different'. I for one spent my whole childhood thinking that everyone was the same as me, and was more than a little confused when I realised that they didn't understand what I did, and couldn't see what I could. After that, I learned to keep quiet about what I knew and saw.

There are many examples of empathic responses in society and our personal lives. Advertisers use music and images to create empathic responses in those who listen to or watch their commercials. If we are not aware of this manipulation, we are at the mercy of it.

For empathics, the stresses of people around us daily are more easily picked up and taken home with us. Those who have difficulty separating work and home often need to do work on controlling empathic responses.

Empathy is a wonderful tool that can be used for diagnosis and insight into people, health and all of life. It is important, though, to develop it, strengthen it and control it. Empathic responses to life with no control or recognition of what is actually occurring will have you being tossed back and forth by whatever current in your life you encounter. If we learn to recognise it and use it we can read the currents and use them for our own benefit.