Empathy is just the ability to understand and feel what other people are going through.
I can feel what you’re going through and still not give an absolute fuck about you.
This is the #1 thing that people don’t understand about empathy. It is nothing more than a capacity.
A good place to start in learning empathy, is to empathize with past versions of yourself. When you were younger and didn’t know any better.
It sounds like you’re talking more about the compassion, care, kindness and love that can come from empathy.
Your real question is, “why should I give compassion to others when nobody ever gave it to me?”
You’re under the impression that compassion has some kind of transactional value to it. That’s why your fear is rooted in giving and receiving.
When I was little, no one ever gave me cookies.
I have friends that I love and I will surprise them with cookies. I never think “well shit, nobody ever brought me cookies so why the fuck should I do that for people.”
I’m good, with or without cookies. I don’t expect anything or need anything from other people. It’s just my genuine expression. I love life, I love people, I love moments, I love smiles. Inside out.
I don’t see it as me doing a “transactional favor” for somebody that I’m expecting to be appreciated and returned in some form or another.
I’m just genuinely expressing myself, based on how I feel and what I want do to.
Fill your cup and express yourself. The compassion you have for yourself will naturally project out onto others.
Empathy is the most selfish and dominant thing ever.
I put myself into your shoes, without even asking you.
My Jordans now.
Once you’re cup is full and your powerful… then you become the standard for people around you. In your friend groups, family, work, etc.
You begin to lead with empathy.
It’s about coming from a place of power. A place of being full. Selflessness, is an incredibly powerful frame.
I don’t have nothing to lose because I have nothing…
I have nothing to lose because I have everything.
Do you get that?
When I was in the darkest hell holes of my life, completely depressed and alone… nobody gave a fuck about me. @bombayduck the world turned its back on me and hung me out to dry. I had nobody.
When I look at some people, I know that I’ve been to darker places than them.
“They don’t know what that was like. They would have turned their backs on me to. Fuck them. It’s a tough world and everyone is selfish. Everyone only cares about themselves.”
This is how I used to think. It’s because I was looking outwards through my own emptiness. I was coming from a place of lack and unfulfillment, then projecting it out onto the world.
Once I changed the filter within myself, I changed the filter through which I viewed the external.
To touch on Empathy a little more:
Understand that people don’t see, feel or perceive like you. They’re a different piece of technology. Everyone is like their own little unique package.
There is something to admire in that.
I feel like the more content and comfortable you are with yourself and your own expression, then it’s like “well I’m good”, so then you naturally start looking outwards and admiring the expression of others. It all starts with your own internal growth.