Empathy vs compassion

Please allow me to share my perspectives on empathy  and compassion.  We discussed these topics during groups on this Wellness Tuesday.

Empathy is one of the neurodiversities.

It is not necessarily independent of other neurodiversities.

It is the ability to reactively mimick or mirror another’s emotional experience.

It is neither good or bad.

We all innately possess this ability to varying degree.   One possess too little empathy may more likely be a psychopathic killer or tyrannical dictators.  One possess too much may more likely be “borderline”, anxious and depressed.  Having little less may be useful for a funeral directors, a soldiers, a police chief, maybe even a trauma surgeon.  Having little more may be useful for a nurse,  a counselor, a parent, a teacher, a spouse, a friend.

While, individual’s perception of the world is influenced by this ability; the net experience can be modified by the ability to appropriately assign attention to it.

Without knowing above, two individuals on opposite side of the normogram would have difficulty understanding each other.

Compassion is not a decision.

It is the awareness of oneness.

This awareness depends on the sufficient accumulation of precise perspectives of interdependence.  

These perspective are often painfully leaned after their opposites have caused pain, suffering, illness or calamities.

Examples of such more precise perspectives are:

What my mind wants to eat is not necessarily what my body needs.

I can not truly be happy if my wife and kids are not.

My body will it get what it needs unless others grow and transport food, utility to me and take garbage and sewage away from me.

I can not really enjoy my life, if my neighbours locally and globally are hungry.

I can not truly have peace if there is no world peace.

With sufficient perspectives, compassion is a consequence.

As compassion is the awareness of oneness, then self-compassion and compassion for others is one of the samething.

Eg. 

If am truly ok just the way I am (self-compassion) then what I do for you is truly for you (compassion).

If what I do for you is truly for you (compassion), then I must be ok just the way I am (self-compassion)

Thanks for reading!