The power of Empathy

This is my own answer to my own rant… This is partly coming because of a “Who do you think you are, you’re not the only one who suffers” message I got from a friend last night, one of the people I love the most in the whole wide world; and to the second part of the partly is because to me, there is only one thing that I believe is greater than the power of release, and that is the power of empathy.  When I do this ranting-blog type of thing, which has been many times over the less than a year that I’ve kept the blog up, it’s not because I’m looking for pity, or advice, or acceptance, or even for compliments…  Well, I will always say thank you to compliments, but that’s another matter, hehe, because it’s not so much about how much people like us or not, it’s more about the fact that when a compliment is given, the energy of it just fills so many spaces with positivity that resonates for very long in everybody.  That’s why I am so enthusiastic on giving them, because I love to see the people I care about resonate so amazingly…  And that is also why so many people tend to think I am in love with quite a few of my male friends!  Yes, you boys, don’t be shy and look up… it’s not me who’s said it, but I tend to get the questions of “Why don’t you get together with so-and-so?”, “Why don’t you marry this one?” or “Are you in love with that one?”  Oh, if it at least were that easy, right?  But when two people lack chemistry, that’s called friendship, and it can be just as deep as caring as romantic love but that’s it I suppose.  And even when I answer that I wouldn’t because they’re gay, I’ve gotten the most annoying response: “Oh, surely you can turn them straight”.  Um, No.  And if anyone from my thwarted past of actually falling in love with my best friend is looking into this, please be assured that my initial (non-yet-romantic love) feelings and respect for you have not changed one little bit, and I’m still wishing you all the best…

Whoa, super long tangent there!  Why doesn’t anybody stop me when I do that…?  Never mind… as I was saying, I believe there is something even bigger than the power of release, and that’s the power of empathy, and it’s something that can really go a long, long way, especially when you realize that you don’t know the full story of the person, and I don’t mean just their life story, but their week, their summer, their day…  Come on, there have been little moralistic stories about this going around the Internet since email was invented. We all read them, we all nod in approval, and then we just stash them away and when the next person comes with a problem we all go “Oh, man, that’s nothing!”.  So, we all make mistakes.  And I’m not saying this for me right now! Yes, my whole week has been absurd… The passive aggressiveness of someone who’s been judging your whole world for weeks and then starts to repeat She’s a b*tch into her phone every time she walks in the room or whenever she conveniently takes a call right outside your own door (and also go “I feel so bad, why did she do that?  I feel so bad!”), all of that can break anybody, so how do you think it makes someone in my shoes feel…?  And all of that passive aggressiveness, you wouldn’t guess what made it happen: it started because I had the *audacity* to apologize for saying something that deeply offended her: that we are a group of 5 full time workers that just happen to live in a really big house, so that even if I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen about 3 times a week (which I did do over the past few weeks), there’d always be a bit of lint here, a bit of makeup there and so on… and *because* I apologized, then she turned it around by saying that I was trying to make her look bad, hence the little scenes described just above.  So for me it was pretty easy to release that one, even if the other things behind it are rather harder to let go off… but I’m just giving you a live example of the little things that can be happening in a person’s life that can lead them to a breakdown, or to even a complaint…  I did apologize to some of my friends in the other blog entry, the one I will post in a few weeks, because I broke my own rule in Glastonbury: I got annoyed at someone complaining, and even if it was for just a moment and we both understand the things that what were stressing both of us (and we are very close anyways), I just saw a dark side of me that could run wild if I didn’t check it now…  I know this because not so long ago several of my friends in Mexico told me that I was becoming harsh and judicious, and I believe them cos I love them with heart and soul and know that they wouldn’t say something like that if it wasn’t true… So I think it’s time for me to bring back my golden rule: do upon others as I wish to be done upon me, and that’s empathy!

So, that’s why I said I don’t mean all of this just for my benefit… how many of us are also going through the same need right now to have someone tell us “Yes, I do understand you”?  That in itself can be the little switch that will bring healing to mind, body and soul.  Now, that same friend that sent me that message?  I ended up helping him thru the night, even after it had been me calling him over and over the night before posting the entry, crying my eyes out and coughing my lungs out and asking for help.  To me, the fact that he didn’t give me any help and afterwards came back with that message, then turned it into a plea for help, means even more than if he had posted an entry asking for help himself: that’s the moment when you realize how hard it might be for people to even come up with the words “Help me”, and you know they’re not being a bad friend, they’re just as deep in scary beliefs and self-doubt as you are…  So I did the only thing I could do:  I reminded him that the whole path he’s thread has been done by his own merits and that I knew for a fact that a huge amount of people believe in him and his skills, and that when he is phased by a huge decision, like last night, he should trust himself a lot more because it’s been his outstanding decision-making that has led him on that path of continuous growth…  We all have that in us, not the same set of qualities and skills, but rather that little “It” that can make us feel proud of what we’ve achieved, as small or far-long-ago as it may seem at times, but that “It” can help us remember that there is always a reason to believe in ourselves again.

Empathy is the one thing that can bring a person back into the light, and don’t get me wrong, I really believe that there is nothing wrong in going into the dark side every so often, because we’ll always suffer, and we’ll always doubt and struggle, all in different amounts and times in life, which should never be treated as competition!  Because we can never know how much that person is really aching, and because we can never know if that’s the only bit that’s causing that particular ache…  So like I said, I don’t necessarily mean for me right now, because I have been flaunting about my healing path, and one thing it does (the path, not the flaunting) is wap me back into my feet in no-time.  Yeah, I have no idea what wap means, either, so shall we go with that I just invented a new word that means “get to” but sounds much cooler?  That doesn’t mean that I will never have dark days again, especially since my disorder is that particular one that everybody talks about now cos it’s finally stopped being a taboo: depression.  Yes, even my illness is something that I cannot physically prove, how do you like that for irony?  (I do, actually… fits in with everything else that’s funky in my life…).

So then, as if we were on a roundabout, I will come back briefly to my flat mate: I have absolutely no idea what could make her go Drama Queen and hurt people with her words… so I was an easy prey, big deal! The reasons behind that must be huge, cos really, aside from the fact that I can actually set to work from my bed, she’s got really nothing to be jealous of me for! (Well, unless she’s one of those models who actually wish they had a curvy body, but even then, it really doesn’t apply…)  Anyhu, since she’s nothing to do with me I can just wash my hands of her, cos I’m really not the doctor (er- not even gonna try to make a pun there… I was trying to go full-on Alanis Morrisette, but I now realize I can’t ever go back to that song… to the meaning yes, but not to the lyrics, lol!).  Seriously now, none of us are the doctors, and even if we were, visiting hours are nine to five, and other than that, we’ve got a life to lead…  Where does empathy fit in here, then?  Well, sometimes it might be more empathic to just let the person be and make it clear that you don’t have a problem with them per se, and everything else will just be easier for both: you won’t have to deal with the continuous flow of attack, and they won’t have to come up with new ways to torment you…  oooh that might work with bullies, too!  Whatever happens next in their path, that’s theirs to deal with, and that just reassures us that it was never a personal thing in the first place, so let it go…

What happens when it’s someone we do care about?  Well, to being with, do try to help as much as you can, but like I’ve said before, do not carry them! Ever!  Carrying a second weight will just make you reach your goal slower, and it’s not about who reaches first (cos goals are all set in different places for different people, so there should not be a competition in that account, either), but about how we can help a little so that those we care about get there easier and quicker…  That’s why I said I felt that pull that actually keeps me going: if I didn’t have anyone that actually cared about me and tried to make my path feel easier, who knows when I’d have given up…

My friend said: Why do you feel so behind?  You’re in London, you’re in the place you’ve always wished to be!  Yes, I am in London, but I’m in London with no name, and not the pretty, poetic, “I’m anonymous in London so I can make my own name as I go along” thing I was hoping for, but the “Only about 20 people here know I’m a writer” kind of thing… that and the proof of address thing I said yesterday, and the fact that it was so hard to find a new room! (The hardships were coming from my lack of proof of life, as you might remember…)  So, yeah, I had a dark few days, and that’s fine.  I had to work it all out by myself, and that’s also fine… but if I believe in the power of choice, which I do vehemently, I choose to remain empathic.  I choose to remain alert to the messages of the universe, and I choose to keep complimenting people… oh, and my female friends?  No one has ever asked me why won’t I marry you, so don’t worry, I’m not giving you that kind of look or vibe (although you are all so top notch that I know for sure that you also deserve top-notch… those of you who have the right ones, those of you who are still searching, and those of you who are on the verge of beginning the search again, cos the one that you thought was right was actually wrong…  and that goes for both male and female preferences of course).

Super quick random disclaimer: whenever I’m doing energy work about my possible future partner I only talk about heterosexual preferences, but that is because I want my partner to be a man, not because of anything else…  I think that even if I was a man I would like men…!  Oh, wait, but then if I was a man then it wouldn’t fully be me, right?  Cos the initial cells even from conception would have been entirely different and whatnot… So there is no possible way of knowing, and then I could possibly be perfectly happy with a woman… but then it wouldn’t even be me trying to decide, it would be someone else entirely…  What I mean is, I do not ever use my gay/lesbian friends as examples in my love-seeking energy work because I’m looking for hetero, but I fully love to see you guys and gals happy with your respectful partners, or deeply wish for you to find them soon, if you’re also in the search…!  Did I ever tell anyone here that my parents originally thought I’d be a boy? And that my name would be Sandro, of course.

Okay, weird tangent…  Well, the tangent was perfectly fine, it was rather the placement of the tangent that came a bit odd… well, I did say it was random…  Anyhu, just to close, I’d like to say one last thing about the feeling behind bit: to begin with, it’s not really like I imagine it like a race, cos there are some people slightly ahead and there are a few stragglers every once in a while, but I also see people remaining in certain places which are their goals, and being happy; and sometimes I see people who were at their goals and just had a hankering for a new one, like we always do, and rejoin the run…  so technically I’m not the last one *in the race*, but I am the one that people get ahead of most easily, and also the one who’s goals sort of seem to drift away from instead of looming closer; name it visa requirements, amount of time spent rearranging a novel, years lapsed since my last serious relationship, whatever, they’re all one and the same, cos they’re all important, and to see them oh so far away makes me go into my dark space every once in a while…  As for everyone else, one of the reasons I find it so easy to respect the people that I care about is that I can see that they all got to where they’ve been and where they are by their own merits and their own strength; and that when they get to the next goal it’ll still be like that.  Sure, I know a lot of them had plenty of help, but they’ve managed such amazing things with it!  Do I feel lucky to be in London?  Yes, the luckiest woman in the world, and the most grateful one, as well, cos there is no way I could feel proud of who I am if I had not accepted the help that I am being given… but that does not mean that I won’t have my dark days, that I won’t fall down for a bit and cry and maybe cough a little more… that only makes me human.  Then I can bring back the sunshine and happiness, or the singing rain, if I’m feeling poetic… and I can even make myself sprint faster, although sometimes I’m not entirely sure which direction I’m going…!

And for those who do compliment me when I write stuff, do not even think for a second that I forget about you: you are some of those people that pull me forward, and even when you swerve away to a particular goal, I know that I can be happy for you and that even if we don’t see each other for a while, our energies will keep in touch so that when we do meet again, not while we run but while we brunch or have a nice coffee one afternoon, it’ll be as if no time has passed…

For me that’s empathy, that little bit right there.  The person who can be confident enough to pull someone forward, but also the person who will allow others to follow their path without standing in their way out of selfishness.  Of course it consist on many other little and bigger things, but that’s the bit that will maintain a friendship going, no matter what…

So, my friend and I, not because there was an apparent lack of empathy does it mean that we don’t care about each other anymore, but maybe it was just a moment of wake-up that we both needed to go thru… And also, there is the thing about the fear, the one my first therapist had been saying ever since high school and so many others afterwards but I refused to believe:  If I get ahead of people then everyone will hate me…  Ding ding ding!  So this, like everything else is a blessing in disguise, because now I can work with my Galadriel archetype and move on…  (I’ve known I’ve had the archetype for a few months now, but I hadn’t really hit the right angle on it… thought it was just the power-crazed part of it, but it’s got another side, doesn’t it? Sigh, fear of success, let me get ready to tackle you…  I just have to get my gear on!).

So yeah, I like this catharsis thing, it’s just like psychotherapy, only instead of talking you’re writing, and instead of it being private you get to share it with the world… and it can be scary as hell, but it’s also liberating and stimulating…  and I recommend it to anyone that could be having troubles with keeping their mind in place…

That’s it for now, I wish you all a good day, night, or whatever it is wherever you are! xo