Over the past several days the topic of true empathy has been on my mind. Whether it’s your partner, a child, or a friend, the important relationships in our life are sustained by the empathy we give when someone we care for goes through a difficult time or challenge. Our tendency as humans is to want to join in the pain with them, thinking that is how we empathize.
To Empathize does NOT Mean to JOIN in Suffering
I remember the first time I read the section on True Empathy in the A Course in Miracles text. It was a complete shift in how I had thought about empathy up to that point in my life. It turns out, true empathy does not come from us at all. At best, all we are capable of offering comes from the ego. For true empathy, we need to turn it over to our right mind, our Higher Self, the Holy Spirit, to direct.
From the text:
To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand. That is the ego’s interpretation of empathy…The capacity to empathize is very useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let it use it in ITS way. Its way is very different. It does not understand suffering, and would not have you teach that it is understandable.
(The Holy Spirit) relates THROUGH YOU, It does not relate through your ego to another ego. It does not join in pain, understanding that healing pain is NOT accomplished by delusional attempts to enter into it, and lighten it by sharing the delusion. (ACIM Text p. 330)
So How DO I Offer True Empathy and Healing?
It almost sounds too easy. But I have done this many times now, and it is such a relief to know I don’t have to try to think of the right words to say. In fact, I now understand why the words I have said to offer comfort, are sometimes met with rebuff or frustration. Because when I try to offer empathy without the Holy Spirit, I am offering it from my ego to another ego. The text says: “The ego always empathizes to weaken, and to weaken is always to attack.”
So, take a brief moment, maybe a quick breath in and out, and then mentally ask the Holy Spirit to be in charge of offering empathy for you.
“Yet of this you may be sure; if you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate through you, you will empathize with strength.”
“You do not know what healing is. All you have learned of empathy is from the past. And there is nothing from the past that you would share, for there is nothing from the past that you would keep. Do not use empathy to make the past real, and so perpetuate it. Step gently aside and let healing be done FOR YOU.
Keep but one thought in mind and do not lose sight of it, however tempted you may be to judge any situation, and to determine your response by judging it. Focus your mind only on this:
“I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest.
I have invited the Holy Spirit, and It is here.
I need do nothing except not to interfere.”
Just Let it Be
So I turn it over to the Holy Spirit, “Be You in Charge of my Thoughts and Actions,” and just focus on mentally sending love. I even say “I love you” over and over in my mind. As I try to let MY mind rest in LOVE, it allows the Holy Spirit to share its message of healing.
In essence, I become the messenger. If a thought comes to my mind that feels like inspiration, then I’ll say it. With practice, I’ve gotten better at knowing what that is, and being able to tell the difference between a thought that comes from the Holy Spirit versus one from my ego. When it comes from Spirit, I find myself saying it almost WITHOUT prior thought. Sometimes it even has nothing at all to do with the situation at hand.
When You Meet Someone Deep in Grief
This poem by Patricia McKernon Runkle has become very meaningful to me. It’s a great reminder that when we want to truly offer support to someone going through a difficult times, that is the time to set our ego (our needs) aside and let Spirit speak. I have learned Spirit most often speaks in the language of SILENCE.
Let Go and Let Love
It doesn’t always make sense, but I have learned over time to TRUST the process of offering true empathy by handing it over to the Holy Spirit, and allowing IT to WORK in and through me. As I do this, I let go of the need to try to think of what to say. I just let the Holy Spirit be in charge, offer love, and let LOVE heal us both.
-Namaste
