Empathy and Your Empathic Response
by Elektra Porzel, Director Language of Consciousness Institute
Human beings were originally created to be and are one connected whole. They were and are the individual spirits comprising one Human Soul. Like the cells of a human body, where each cell acts on behalf of the healthy functioning of the system, the organ and the whole body; each Spirit likewise impacts the health of the One Human Soul. At one time humans lived in communities where they recognized that unity and those interconnections. We respected all life and related to it as part of the same whole that we were part of. What happened for one, happened for all. In those days, the word ‘empathy’ was not needed in the languages of that time, because the people experienced themselves as interconnected with each other and all life. They ‘got’ their unity with the Eternal, with the Universe, with each other and with all life.
Even at late as 2000 years ago, this can be seen in the Aramaic language and the ancient Hebrew language. Somehow, somewhere, sometime since then, the human species lost its sense of connection and of being in unity with all life. Probably around the same time, our languages started to reflect a separation from other humans and other forms of life. Remember in 1966, when Time magazine’s cover asked, ‘Is God Dead?’ I believe that this reflected the separation from religious institutions that Americans were evidencing. Our religious institutions no longer connected the people to the eternal and to all life. We were separate in our religions and our religions were separate from our daily lives. We had begun to experience our own and our family’s survival as being on our back alone. “Pull yourself by your own bootstraps’ battled ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ in the American history. The lone cowboy is honored. The matriarch or patriarch of a family or village is not.
The drive to live in community has been evidenced for centuries. In the 19th century there were several notable attempts to create communities of unity. Each of those communities were separate from the larger society though, so that sense of unity of connection did not translate to the larger culture. In the 20th century, there arose other attempts to form community that did not either create a sense of unity in the members or had leaders that did not protect the lives of all the people. It feels to me that this deep craving for living in connection with others is unity is a core remembrance of the human species of the time when we lived in unity with all life and with the eternal. We would not have that longing, that craving, if that experience had not existed in the history of humanity. It persists because we crave to be in connection with others and with the eternal in a field of unity.
In this century, we are searching for ways to be in connection with other humans, with all life and with the eternal. One word that is used to express an experienced connection with another is the word empathy.
“Empathy is the glue of connection under all conditions and all circumstances. Empathy is the tether between all life that has life be alive and vital. It is also what protects the species from extinction. Ask any good therapist. When a person can be comforted in times of anguish, their system returns from a traumatizing experience faster. This is empathy. It doesn’t matter if it is called sympathy or compassion. We are reclaiming the word empathy through our craving to be able to be connected to the unity of life again.” Tantra Maat
Some of us are called an Empath. That’s a title that refers to our ability to recognize another’s experience physically, mentally, spiritually etc. There are many kinds of Empaths. Being an Empath does not mean that you act on that awareness, it just means that that specific sensitivity of awareness is a capability that you carry. It does not mean that you make an active Empathic Response. Empathy is the activity of awareness of connection. Your Empathic response is the action that you take when you have experienced Empathy.
Now, because we all connected, it feels like we have an empathic response when we experience compassion or sympathy. We say that we pray for another or that we are holding them. Given those statements, it seems that we are more compassionate that we are active in response. What would it be if, when sensing this compassion for a state of another, we chose to take action that was life-enhancing or life-generating for another? Perhaps it is a physical action like protecting someone from injury or trauma or assisting them in healing. The stories about sick animals being helped by volunteers are good examples of Empathy and Empathic Response. The volunteer recognizes that the animal is in a trauma situation. They take action to care for the animal until they are safe and healed. That is a in-the-world empathic response.
What if your Empathic Response is more in the energetic realms? I sometimes image that my intention/prayer goes up into the Eternal/God/Goddess and then light/healing energy comes down from the Eternal onto the person bringing them peace, healing, etc. what I want for them or what they have asked for.
We are one. We are interconnected with all life whether we consciously recognize that or not. Think about it. Sense in yourself what are your registers for Empathy in your body, in your energetic field? What have been your Empathic Responses? These are actions that you take that acknowledges your interconnection with others. These are always something life-enhancing, life-generating. We are one Human Soul. What we do for another we do for the whole of us. Make your Empathic Responses life-enhancing, life-generating for your fellow Spirits in the One Human Soul.