When the Empathy Link is Broken

With my daughter I am reading a book series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The book is set in modern times but the Gods and monsters from Greek mythology are all still part of the world. The main hero, Percy, is best friends with a satyr named Grover, a creature that is half goat and half human.

Grover’s thing is that he is in love with nature and wilderness. He has a passion for living things, and he feels everything very deeply. Because he and Percy are so close, Grover establishes what he calls an “empathy link” between them. Even when they are far apart, they can feel each others’ feelings and they can tell if the other person is in distress or OK. Because of this link, if one were to die then the other would likely die too. There is a risk involved in their bond, yet they always choose to keep the bond.

When we form bonds of empathy, we become more vulnerable.

Before my daughter was born my friend Andres told me that becoming a parent had made him feel painfully vulnerable. Here was this child that Andres had no control over, making their own choices, in charge of their own fate, and yet Andres’ fate was wrapped up in it too. If the child felt pain, Andres hurt too. When a child is 5 years old, a skinned knee brings tears. When they’re 15, a broken heart. At every age it changes, but I have found it to be true: I feel agonizingly vulnerable with the existence of this empathy link.

This is precisely what we need in order to survive through this time of transformation.

We don’t need to practice empathy. Empathy is natural. We just need to stop blocking it. 

In her book “The Empath’s Journey”, self-described highly-sensitive person Ritu Kaushal describes what makes her want to reject her sensitivity. Somewhere in her she knows it is a great gift, but she says “the world was too much for me. Too big, too large, too hurtful.” When we witness suffering, it is natural to try to minimize its impact on us by shutting down our link to empathy.

Ritu grew up exposed to poverty in Delhi, India. She would go to the market with her mom and be overwhelmed by the need she felt from beggars in the street. “There was so much suffering in the world, so much pain and just by going out, by being near these people, I had absorbed it. It was as if their pain had seeped inside me, colored me through. I couldn’t control it...Over time I would become a little better at numbing myself, turning away from that pain, escaping up into my mind.”

Why would we want to block empathy?  Kaushal is talking about the difference between mind and heart. Now, Kaushal doesn’t actually use the term “heart”. What she means is that she can engage in certain thoughts, certain logic, which allow her to experience fewer feelings in her body. More thinking, less pain.

What makes us want to block empathy?

Sometimes I shut down empathy because feeling empathy would stand in the way of what I want. There is an outcome I want to achieve and feeling empathy for someone would threaten that outcome. 

Investing in the stock market is a natural example. Frequently, the details of a company’s environmental or social justice record are not researched when we buy their stocks. If we pay attention only for the financial return, we may be supporting companies who are antagonistic toward causes we care about. In order to receive the financial return we want from that investment, we break our empathy link with marginalized people, or the environment, or other valued groups of people or stakeholders. 

Our natural state is to feel empathy, and yet for us to be able to make complex decisions sometimes requires actively shutting off that channel. We must go up into our head.

Another reason we might shut off our empathy link is to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Feeling too much can hinder our ability to function effectively in our lives. Kaushal says, “Even then I had known this was the best part of me, this ability to feel compassion. But it also made me vulnerable… (It) made me feel like something whose shell had been removed, whose flesh had been exposed.” Kaushal tried to tone down her empathic abilities because she didn’t know what to do with the pain she absorbed from others. 

It makes sense that we would want to avoid pain. But we can sometimes experience great benefit from pain. Pain can crack us open so our hearts are open to the world. Pain can strip away the irrelevant aspects of our lives and leave us with a crystal clear insight into what really matters. I think the empath, through her or his ability to allow pain to exist, can remind us how to feel. 

This change can be felt somatically. I feel it as a shift from fear (which feels like a gaping hole in my gut) to heartache (which feels like a gaping hole in my chest). When I feel a bellyache because I am afraid of something, it is yucky and hard. But when I feel that emptiness in my chest, when I feel how badly I want something and how deep my loss is, it feels even worse. Yet, in this state with chest-broken-open, I become braver. 

When we accept our feelings, they can empower us to take more compassionate and effective actions.

How can empathy change the world?

Empathy is not highly valued in our Western culture. To varying degrees, we accept the problems of the world. We accept the devastation that colonization has done to Indigenous cultures, or the damage done to our oceans by single-use plastics, or the fact that a big portion of society is working poor or homeless. You or I personally may not have accepted these things, but they are embedded in the structures most of us live with. 

We can move forward with our lives in the face of these devastating truths more easily when we cut off empathy. But what would be the value in reforging that link? If empathy makes us feel more vulnerable and unsafe, why would we want it?

The gift empathy gives is healing. So many of us feel shut off. We are disconnected from each other, disconnected from our world, and even disconnected from our own hopes and dreams. This starts with empathy.

For instance, we may feel like the mistreatment of Black or Native people started so long ago that there’s nothing we can do to resolve it now. We may feel like providing reparations for slavery would be the right thing to do, but could never be accomplished. Especially with systemic challenges like racism, the interior dialogue keeps us from feeling sadness or grief. The problem is just too big. 

When the empathy link is cut due to this overwhelm, it is easier to have an either-or attitude. “Yes, it is wrong that Black people are profiled by law enforcement, but I am mad about seeing destruction of property at some of the protests.” Instead, when we feel empathy, it doesn’t need to be one or the other. We can feel our anger at the destruction of property while also feeling the pain that Black and Brown people are experiencing through racial profiling. By remaining open to all sides of the story, we let our guard down and we heal ourselves. The boundaries between our views and someone else’s don’t seem so solid. Empathy shifts us from a state of defensiveness to one of mutual trust. 

Through empathy we can see ways through either-or thinking and have fresh conversations about world-changing problems.

Empathy is who you are

Empathy happens. It is automatic and natural to everyone to be sensitive to the emotions and needs of others. We’ve even discovered cells in the body—mirror neurons—which reflect each other. Therefore, if we shut down our empathy link we must be doing so for a reason. A part of ourselves, either conscious or unconscious, feels compelled to protect ourselves from what we are feeling.

We can bring more healing and peace into the world by noticing the moments when we block empathy; remaining in a state of not-knowing and openness; allowing yourself to feel. The more you can feel, the more you can understand what is really happening, and the more likely that you can bring about substantive change into your life.

And it may make a big difference in the lives of others.