And then a tasty morsel suddenly jumps out at me. My Finnish cousin’s daughter, who now lives in Vermont, puts the most poignant, thoughtful and creative posts on her Instagram feed most days, and today I found her post particularly touching and a wave of emotion swept through me. So what makes us connect, empathise, react in such a way? It’s not just the content surely? Well (as in a previous post) I don’t think anything ‘makes’ us react. It is we who are reacting in our own, very personal and individual way. We call it empathy, but we can only experience our own emotions, not others’ surely? (As a counsellor, the phrase “I know how you feel” is a real NO-NO!)
For lots of reasons too complicated to describe here I have a particularly strong connection to this ‘first cousin-once removed’ (a dry and formal description that is as far from the connection as it’s possible to be) and so my reaction to her posts never surprises me.
I think that we often experience strong, warm emotional reactions to others because we see and hear ourselves reflected in those others: we hear the echo of our own words and thoughts, and so we like what we see. Self-love and self-care are problematic concepts in a society steeped in the English, Protestant ethic, and yet they are the foundation of a ‘healthy’ self-image and grounded self-acceptance. It’s not about believing that we are better than others, it’s about feeling that we each deserve our place in the world, along with everyone else. But sadly, many people do not feel that way about themselves: some to the point of no return.
So perhaps what we call empathy is just a safer place where we can experience that warmth, feel that love and respect for ourselves and also feel our own pain: when it’s reflected back at us by another? The empathy is actually for ourselves, not others?
Of course the flip side of empathy is that barely-suppressed rage, the gritted teeth and exasperation that flares up inside us when in the company of certain ‘others’. Surely that can’t be a reflection of our own self? Can it?