Is Sympathy Really a Bad Thing?

Today I had a thought-provoking moment of time. Literally, I seemed to question my life choices and how this had influenced my previous relationship, perhaps making things better and probably hurt much less than it did.

Literally, if you don’t want me to hear me rambling through my article, here’s a quick rundown of what I talk about in this post:

• I always empathy was a mediocre thing - never really valued it as much as sympathy.
• Empathy turns out to be BETTER than sympathy. - in my opinion.
• Being empathetic makes you value other people.

Was empathy a bad thing?

When I was younger, not too young, I always thought empathy was good - but on a scale, it was not as high as sympathy. When we look at the etymology of sympathy, we can break it down into two words: sun and pathos.

Sun originates from Greek and means with, and pathos also originates from Greek which means feeling. Placing them together means with-feeling. From this, I can say that sympathy means being able to feel someone else’s feelings. Well the dictionary definition, according to the Cambridge Dictionary:

This idea of understanding is what makes sympathy what it is in its definitive form. This means you are not in their position and rather cannot feel the pain and/or suffering they are going through. Further to this, one can argue they are ‘silver-lining’ their pain and/or suffering. By this I mean, you are trying to ease the pain rather than healing the wound. I use the phrase ‘silver-lining’ as this was the ‘verb’ described by Dr. Brené Brown in a video shown in my seminar session.

Quick Biography:

• Dr. Brené Brown is a researcher, storyteller who’s spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.
• She’s a research professor based at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair - no idea what that is but sounds really cool.

Information was taken from her personal website.

Back to the post, check out the video I’ve attached below, which I’ll go through in a bit of detail.

If you don't want to watch the video, I've taken some key points I feel that's important:

• Empathy fuels connection, whereas sympathy drives disconnection.
• The main four qualities of empathy:

1. Perspective Taking: putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
2. Staying out of judgment and listening.
3. Recognising emotion in another person that you have maybe felt before.
4. Communicating that you can recognize that emotion.

• Empathy is a vulnerable choice, where you are with the person.

My Takeaway Message

I had to watch this video a couple of times to ensure I fully understood this. Empathy is literally putting yourself in that situation and putting yourself through the pain and/or suffering.

Those feelings you may get can be uncomfortable on your side too, since you are placing yourself in a dark place, secluded from the world. But on the bright side, you are the light in their darkness. Although it is not as powerful as you think it may be, you are giving a sense of hope and relief for that person. At that moment, the person you are empathising with will be glad and relieved for your support.

To finish off this post, Dr. Brene Brown made an interesting point:

"Rarely can a response make something better? What makes something better is a connection."

Thank you for reading my post! You may view my profile and see that I write posts about different niches. Whether it's about Kung Fu Panda to my last public journal - which I'm going to start again soon!