Empathy for Ourselves
We often hear a lot about having empathy for other people. Which means being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, understand and share feelings with them and really see and feel things from their point of view. It isn’t about rescuing the other person from their emotions or problem solving or helping them move on. It is just sitting with them in their emotion and sharing that experience together.
This is a skill that we could all benefit from cultivating. With others it allows for deeper understanding and acceptance and deepens relationships and can resolve misunderstandings.
What about empathy for yourself?
But, how often do we ever offer empathy to ourselves? I know, for me - this was a concept that I only recently discovered. Feeling our emotions can seem scary and so we distract ourselves, minimize what we are truly feeling or keep ourselves so darn busy we don’t even have a second to consider how we might be feeling.
Or, maybe we don’t want to feel like a victim (which could be from your childhood programming) and are afraid that if we allow ourselves to acknowledge what we are feeling we might be swallowed up in that self-pity.
But, emotions are just energy in motion and just need to be experienced and have the opportunity to be processed by being allowed to flow through us. They aren’t something to be afraid of drowning in.
However, if we don’t allow them to flow through us they can become stuck within our bodies and our psyche and cause much greater problems later on.
So, providing empathy for ourselves allows for a safe place for us to give ourselves the permission to feel what we may be feeling. Without judgment, without shame, without criticism, without intellectualizing and without trying to come up with a solution. Just being with the moment and the emotion.
Instead of pushing the emotions away or running from them or minimizing them or thinking about them; here is a phrase you can offer to yourself:
“How very human of me to be feeling what I am feeling right now given what is going on in my life at this time.”
For me, when I take the time to repeat this mantra in my mind I experience an immediate softening that I didn’t even know I needed. The tension and contraction from holding that emotion in and trying to ignore it is released and upon that release I am finally able to feel whatever it is I need to feel at that time.
Whenever I do this I am always surprised at the emotion that comes up for me. Emotions that I didn’t even know I was holding onto. Emotions that have been begging to be experienced and have been trapped in my body. Emotions that simply want to be processed and released.
Upon that release my entire body relaxes and feels lighter and more expansive. Yes, I may spend a few minutes in those emotions and often tears are streaming down my face before I even know it. And. . . I am learning to just allow them to flow damnit!!!
I encourage everyone to practice giving themselves empathy. Even if you don’t think you need it or if you aren’t sure whether or not you do. Simply say to yourself, ‘How very human of me to feel whatever it is I am feeling right now given what is going on in my life at this time.” You may be surprised what you have been holding onto that surface once you allow it and invite it to.
Compassion is the active arm of empathy
Don’t worry - you won’t swim around in your emotions indefinitely. Compassion follows empathy - think of it as the active arm of empathy and ask yourself, “What do I need in this moment?” And listen to the responses that come from the innate wisdom of your body.
It might be that you need a nap, a walk in nature, to call a friend, to disconnect, to read a book, to watch a comedy. . . whatever it is you need in that moment, offer it to yourself with the same love and nurturing that you would offer to a friend.