When Your Own Empathy Hurts You
by Criminal Attorney on 2007-09-23
Is it possible that your own empathy can hurt you? Under certain circumstances empathy may get in your way and cause you unimaginable pain. This roadblock may have a direct impact on you being seriously injured or killed. Yep, spousal murders are just one example. Something can be done if we only knew.
When your brain processes information that involves others it has a natural ability to include in its analysis for action a projection of another’s feelings. This projected analysis may restrain or encourage action for someone else’s benefit. This is your empathy at work and it takes conscious effort not to follow the produced desire for action or inaction.
Haven’t taken a complete population survey, but I would guess that most of us have done something that put into motion a painful outcome that was felt by another. Your action, whether through words or body movement, caused someone harm. My next guess is that when you discovered your part in the causation of pain, guilt was your minds reaction. Who hasn’t heard the plea of one riddle with guilt? Empathy creates this guilt and reasoning changes behavior. So far, so normal.
Now imagine a circumstance where your actions did not cause pain, but another blames you anyway. Anytime you find yourself in a situation where your guilt does not arise out of your own mind - beware.
When you are blamed for an action that is not your own you will accept this blame or not. This is the moment your own empathy may get in your way. When you accept blame through the mind of another or start down the road of fixing another’s behavior you a treading in extremely dangerous territory.
There are individuals on this planet that will use your own empathy against you. Never allow your gut feelings to be overcome by another. Own your own blame and never, ever try to change somebody else’s behavior. That is their work. Unfortunately some will never be aware they have work to do. Let them go.
The more experience you have on the road of life the less likely you are to own what is not yours. Wisdom keeps your empathy in check when the director is not your own mind. You know the problem lies outside your behavior. No adjustments necessary and none made. Contact with the blamer may continue or be broken off immediately. The wisest of us ends involvement with the blamer’s initial proclamation that is obviously inconsistent with the facts.
For others their empathy kicks in and they are sent down a pathway of attempting to adjust another’s behavior through words of explanation. This cause is futile. Some people will never experience guilt in their lifetimes. Your consistent loving attempt for them to see the error of their ways causes you enormous frustration as you witness repetitive inappropriate behavior from your subject. Your empathy keeps you on this quest until you have nothing left to give. The ending is an emotional basket case (you) and an unchanged controlling individual (the blamer.)
The silver lining in the above example is that the changer maintains some semblance of control over their lives. When the decision is finally made you have nothing left to give to the unchanged individual you have some form of a life to fall back on during your road of recovery. Might take a number of years to discover you can not change another, but you do have some foundation to move on forward from. You will have learned a great lesson and your future has a shape.
Finally, the scariest result of all is taking on blame that is not your own. Anyone who owns what is not theirs gives up control of their empathy to another. Empathy is a behavior modifier. If your internal barometer is controlled by an individual who does not possess this barometer, your resulting actions will be highly inconsistent with your otherwise normal behaviors. You are totally controlled. You are at the mercy of the blamer and their desires have no constraint. Some outcomes of this highly dangerous liaison have many scratching their heads trying to figure out what went wrong.
What went wrong is too many people residing on this planet have no clue that some of their relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers have no empathy. These folks legitimize themselves by controlling the empathy of another. These empathy robbers do not accomplish this without perceptible behavioral cues along the way.
Unfortunately the one who needs to perceive these cues will not. Either the victim is hell bent on making a change and forgives the behavior in the interest of the big picture or they have completely lost control of the very sense in which to assess the behavior.
If you know anybody in the above described situations they need help. A great way to accomplish this is by letting them draw their own internally created solutions by presenting the question. Often times we tend to coach others to our own solutions. They will arrive at their own conclusions so long as they have an accurate question to focus on.
A victim of outside force empathy control has lost sight of reality. They go around and around in their heads between what they feel inside and what they are lead to feel from the outside. Help them focus on their own internal empathy monitored assessments. This may kick start them on the road to taking back their empathetic control. Try never to blame their controller, lest you be the one rejected. Allow them to come to this on their own.
Empathy is the tie that binds us together. Realizing your own natural response system to stimulus may be the cause feels unnatural. Under certain circumstances being unnatural could save your life. It may boggle your mind, but compare this to the alternative.
Now that is mind boggling!
When your brain processes information that involves others it has a natural ability to include in its analysis for action a projection of another’s feelings. This projected analysis may restrain or encourage action for someone else’s benefit. This is your empathy at work and it takes conscious effort not to follow the produced desire for action or inaction.
Haven’t taken a complete population survey, but I would guess that most of us have done something that put into motion a painful outcome that was felt by another. Your action, whether through words or body movement, caused someone harm. My next guess is that when you discovered your part in the causation of pain, guilt was your minds reaction. Who hasn’t heard the plea of one riddle with guilt? Empathy creates this guilt and reasoning changes behavior. So far, so normal.
Now imagine a circumstance where your actions did not cause pain, but another blames you anyway. Anytime you find yourself in a situation where your guilt does not arise out of your own mind - beware.
When you are blamed for an action that is not your own you will accept this blame or not. This is the moment your own empathy may get in your way. When you accept blame through the mind of another or start down the road of fixing another’s behavior you a treading in extremely dangerous territory.
There are individuals on this planet that will use your own empathy against you. Never allow your gut feelings to be overcome by another. Own your own blame and never, ever try to change somebody else’s behavior. That is their work. Unfortunately some will never be aware they have work to do. Let them go.
The more experience you have on the road of life the less likely you are to own what is not yours. Wisdom keeps your empathy in check when the director is not your own mind. You know the problem lies outside your behavior. No adjustments necessary and none made. Contact with the blamer may continue or be broken off immediately. The wisest of us ends involvement with the blamer’s initial proclamation that is obviously inconsistent with the facts.
For others their empathy kicks in and they are sent down a pathway of attempting to adjust another’s behavior through words of explanation. This cause is futile. Some people will never experience guilt in their lifetimes. Your consistent loving attempt for them to see the error of their ways causes you enormous frustration as you witness repetitive inappropriate behavior from your subject. Your empathy keeps you on this quest until you have nothing left to give. The ending is an emotional basket case (you) and an unchanged controlling individual (the blamer.)
The silver lining in the above example is that the changer maintains some semblance of control over their lives. When the decision is finally made you have nothing left to give to the unchanged individual you have some form of a life to fall back on during your road of recovery. Might take a number of years to discover you can not change another, but you do have some foundation to move on forward from. You will have learned a great lesson and your future has a shape.
Finally, the scariest result of all is taking on blame that is not your own. Anyone who owns what is not theirs gives up control of their empathy to another. Empathy is a behavior modifier. If your internal barometer is controlled by an individual who does not possess this barometer, your resulting actions will be highly inconsistent with your otherwise normal behaviors. You are totally controlled. You are at the mercy of the blamer and their desires have no constraint. Some outcomes of this highly dangerous liaison have many scratching their heads trying to figure out what went wrong.
What went wrong is too many people residing on this planet have no clue that some of their relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers have no empathy. These folks legitimize themselves by controlling the empathy of another. These empathy robbers do not accomplish this without perceptible behavioral cues along the way.
Unfortunately the one who needs to perceive these cues will not. Either the victim is hell bent on making a change and forgives the behavior in the interest of the big picture or they have completely lost control of the very sense in which to assess the behavior.
If you know anybody in the above described situations they need help. A great way to accomplish this is by letting them draw their own internally created solutions by presenting the question. Often times we tend to coach others to our own solutions. They will arrive at their own conclusions so long as they have an accurate question to focus on.
A victim of outside force empathy control has lost sight of reality. They go around and around in their heads between what they feel inside and what they are lead to feel from the outside. Help them focus on their own internal empathy monitored assessments. This may kick start them on the road to taking back their empathetic control. Try never to blame their controller, lest you be the one rejected. Allow them to come to this on their own.
Empathy is the tie that binds us together. Realizing your own natural response system to stimulus may be the cause feels unnatural. Under certain circumstances being unnatural could save your life. It may boggle your mind, but compare this to the alternative.
Now that is mind boggling!
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