Day 2
It’s not even day 2 yet and I’m already writing. Maybe you could tell because I’m still on the “Empathy” thing. But it’s unfolding. Right in front of me and I have to capture it. This podcast will be written and THEN recorded. Believe it or not, some people actually still like to read. Pastor Wilson, this is for you and all the newsletter READERS out there. I hope you enjoy it.
God just revealed something to me about empathy that I had never really considered.
Empathy takes Imagination. Matter of fact, I don’t think you can truly be empathetic u less you HAVE an active imagination.
Webster’s Dictionary defines Empathy as : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.
I mean. The definition literally says all but IMAGINE that you feel it. IMAGINE that you have that awareness. IMAGINE the feelings, thoughts and experiences. If you really contemplate it… how ELSE could you empathize?
I looked up the definition of “imagine”, too. Imagine : to form a mental image of (something not present).
To FORM a mental image. So to EMPATHIZE with someone, you have to form a mental image of their situation. You have to imagine it. When you begin to imagine it, things become strangely clearer. Actions start to make more sense, tears have substance that’s personally understood by you, pain begins to hurt your own heart… the way theirs must have.
When you imagine… when you empathize… your emotions might get caught up in there. Dare I say that this is yet another reason people don’t have empathy? Because it’ll cost them something. Not JUST the emotional effort of imagining their situation, but also the pain that might rub off on you. And not JUST the pain that might rub off on you, but wait for it, the pain that THEIR pain might trigger in YOUR life. And God forbid its unresolved trauma. A persons pain might not look like their pain anymore, it might have the scent of your own hurt. Your own suffering. Your own problems.
How do use my imagination to better empathize with the people around me?
Well… I don’t know that I have the answer fully figured out but I know that I had to do it recently with my own kid.
I don’t share a lot of her life in my writing or speaking but this just seemed to hit the nail on the head as far as a perfect life example of the practice of empathy. I realize that there is a mental conversion that we have to make that essentially allows us to better digest the content we consume.
Recently my daughter was “talking to a guy”. They stopped talking the other day. I’m not going to get into all the details of it, but what I will share, is that I found myself in a really tough spot because I’ve never personally had some of these experiences. Things are just very different for her generation. The same way they were different for our parents and our parents parents. There are always generational differences and it can become difficult to understand, much less be empathetic.
This generation is more afraid of commitment than any generation before it. There’s a stigma against commitment. They’ve seen US make enough mistakes and they don’t even want to ALLOW themselves to be hurt by them. Relationships, friendships and acquaintances are a screenshot away from destruction… constantly.
Honestly, it’s gotta be scary for them. But, before I really “went there” and talked to Hannah to really understand the actions and the mentality, I didn’t even have the tools to use to properly IMAGINE it. And, for one of the first times, I felt estranged from my daughter.
After I listened more and more, I could hear the similarities to the hurt that I’ve know. I could hear the disappointment, the embarrassment, the feeling of wasted time. Yeah, maybe it all was packaged differently, and I didn’t like the packaging… but I didn’t let THAT stop be from digging deeper. I had to learn first, so that I could IMAGINE next, so that I could empathize ultimately.
And I did.
And yeah… I knew he was a goofy little b-boy that didn’t deserve my kids’ time of day… but I also didn’t let MY personal opinion and my JUDGEMENT blockade me from getting to empathy for her.
Even in this example, we can see how many places Empathy can be snatched out of our hearts. It’s almost like we have an exorbitantly more difficult time of maintaining empathy because we grasp on to everything else that we can logically understand first.
“He wasn’t good enough, anyway”
“It’s his fault”
You are so great and don’t deserve XYZ”
What does any of THIS ⬆️ have to do with the way my kid was feeling in that moment?
All my kid needed was for me to listen, learn, imagine and then empathize. So that’s what I did. Especially since there are so many generational differences, it finally clicked when I used my imagination to put myself in her shoes… and then respond from THAT place.
Before you offer anything… did you listen?
Before you judge anything… did you put yourself in their shoes?
Before you wrote them off… did you imagine life’s intricacies ALSO occurring for that person? Yeah it’s easy to have your own perspective and your own coulda/woulda/shoulda’s but… is that what THEY needed… right now?
Don't you want to be closer to them?
If it was you... wouldn't you want to be heard?
Have you ever needed to be heard... seen... listened to?
We can do better for each other and truly empathize wot each other if we do a little better at imagining.
close with prayer requests
Geneveve
Tim Kim's dad
Andres Banos
my whole family
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Day 2 - Imagination for Empathy