How often have you found yourself drained from trying to support a friend? Do you tend to make your partner’s problems your own, thinking this will help? Does that help, or do you end up drowning in the same quicksand? Maybe it’s a good idea to see if you can use your empathy in a better way, turning it into compassion…
First of all, I’d like to clarify the terms as I use them, so we’re on the same page: Empathy is when we’re able to understand and feel the other’s feelings. Compassion is not pity. It’s not having pity or looking down our privileged noses are other’s suffering. Compassion is to recognize the suffering of others and then take action to help. There are many definitions out there, so I would like to set a clear ground for this discussion.
This past week, for some reason, a common theme has emerged in a few of my interactions, with my friends and in my sessions. It seems many of us confuse empathy and compassion, unsure/unaware of the difference.
In one of them, a therapist friend was telling me about how she is beginning to offer sessions and bodywork to another friend of hers who is suffering immensely. In her description of their work together, she began to feel sad and started to cry about her friend – feeling despair and desperation at not sure how to help her and at how much pain she’s in – all the time basically experiencing it herself. This is something I hear often – and have been ‘guilty’ of myself: In my eagerness to help, I, myself get deeply moved and I fuse with the other, feeling what they feel. This is empathy. It’s important in that we can relate to others; we can viscerally understand what they’re going through. However, if we only stay with the empathic connection, then we lose ourselves in it!
So in this therapist’s example: She wants to help, she sees her friend’s suffering, and then she opens herself to what her friend is feeling. Leaving it at that, she begins to suffer as well. Her friend’s pain becomes her pain too. Suddenly there is a shift in dynamics: There were two people, one suffering and the other going to help. Now there are two people suffering and no one to help. Not only that, but inadvertently, the therapist has to now turn her attention to her own suffering, subsequently deserting her friend – the opposite of her original intention!
Compassion is the ability to understand and feel with/for the other, not as the other. So to my therapist friend, I suggested she keep a very clear sense of her own boundaries, of who she is, and that she is actually not the one with the pain. All the while, she keep her awareness and love open to her friend, offering her support and encouragement. We thought of ways she could do this, such as repeating her own name to herself (silently!), reminding herself that she is healthy and happy and from that secure place, that she can help her friend.
My supervisor had also said something similar to me years ago: When I am expecting a client that is going through something terrible, I should take a few minutes before the session and clear my head and heart, then create some ‘anchors’ to keep myself in that clear space as I am present and loving in the session: put a dab of my favorite perfume on my hand and take a whiff once in a while, find a lovely part of the office to bring my gaze to if overwhelmed, have a mantra in mind to reassure myself… all little reminders that I’m here to hear this person and be with them as myself, steady, secure and present.
With words much more eloquent than mine and with a strong story, Roshi Joan Halifax makes this distinction beautifully in her book ‘Standing at the Edge’, where she talks about empathic distress:
“I was serving in a small medical facility in Simikot, Nepal, years ago during one of Upaya’s medical clinics. In the early morning, a weary man, dressed in tattered clothes, walked into this rural Himalayan hospital with a grimy, reeking bundle in his arms. The lead doctor on our team approached the man, who wordlessly began to unwrap the knot of rancid rags to reveal a little girl who had suffered severe burns on her head, arms, back, and chest. Her name was Dolma.
When we examined Dolma, we saw that some of her burns were filled with writhing white maggots, and that other burn sites were raw, red, and badly infected. Her father was mute, but his eyes conveyed unbearable sadness and total resignation. Our intercultural medical team of Nepalis and Westerners immediately mobilized, taking the child into a small wooden room, where local nurses began to clean her wounds. I slipped into the room behind the team to support them as they did this tough work. We had no pediatric anesthesia, and Dolma’s sharp cries filled the clinic halls. The cleanup seemed to go on for a very long time as I stood on the edge of the tight circle of Nepali and Western nurses and doctors who were managing this critical situation. From the beginning, I was not only observing the clinicians and the child—I was also observing my own mental and physical state. […] My heart went out to Dolma, who cried throughout the procedure, her tears reflected in her father’s anguished eyes.
As I stood there, my heart rate increased and then dropped precipitously, my skin grew cold and clammy, my skin grew cold and clammy, and my breath was shallow and rapid. I was pretty sure I was going to faint, and I thought about leaving the room, but I also felt it was my responsibility to hold the space for the men and women who were performing this difficult procedure. Within another few seconds, my own internal space had closed down into a small tight fist of distress, and passing out became an even more imminent possibility. Dolma seemed to have slipped into my skin, and I was overwhelmed with my perception of her pain. […] I recognized that my identification with the child’s experience had spiraled out of control, and if I were to stay in the room, I needed to shift from hyper-attunement to care, from empathy to compassion. I was experiencing empathic distress, a form of vicarious suffering that comes with feeling the pain and suffering of another. When I realized this, I used an early version of GRACE, an approach I created for moving out of such distress and into compassion. […]
As I stood in that tight little room in the clinic in Simikot, I used this approach as a way to regulate my reaction to empathic distress and to open myself to compassion. Catching myself in this fraught and fragile moment, I took a mindful in-breath and shifted my attention to my feet, to the simple sensation of the pressure of my feet on the floor. I gave myself a few seconds to get grounded. I then recalled briefly that I was there to serve, as were all who were working with the child. I kept my awareness on my body and stayed firmly rooted to the earth. When my heart rate shifted and my head began to clear, I lent my attention again to Dolma, and I could sense how resilient this little one was. All of this occurred in a matter of a minute or so. I also recognized that although this procedure was an incredibly hard thing for little Dolma to go through (and for the clinicians as well), the doctors and nurses and aides were saving her life. As soon as that thought passed through my mind, I was flooded with warmth and a deep sense of gratitude that her father had brought her to the clinic and that our team, including these compassionate Nepali nurses, was there to keep her from death. I took in the whole room and sent love and strength to all who were there, most especially Dolma.
I saw Dolma and her father hours later, as he departed the clinic with his little daughter in his arms. Dolma’s face was bright and relaxed, and her eyes were luminous, as were the eyes of her father; years had dropped from his face. I felt admiration for him; he had walked such a long way to bring her to us. I lightly hugged them both, bowed, and saw in her father’s hands medicines that would support his daughter’s further healing.
[…]
Empathy—our ability to include another’s experience into our own—is a fundamental human capacity, one that is important to the healthy functioning of friendships, family structures, societies, and our earth. Empathy can bring the best of the human heart forward. If we can stay with our experience of empathy, keeping ourselves open and upright, we will stand solid on the earth of empathy. Yet balance is delicate on the edge, and empathy can so easily tip toward distress. If we fuse too strongly with another’s physical, emotional, or mental state, we can easily fall over the edge and into the murky swamp of empathic distress.”
Halifax, Joan. Standing at the Edge (p. 53-56). Flatiron Books.
