Once you begin to use your humanity and empathy to look around you, you discover that those whom you love – as a friend, sister, neighbor, coworker, or other souls that you connect with – you recognize that you are both survivors and that is a connection of strength and acknowledgement.
Trauma comes in many different forms and scars form around our hearts. No matter how positive we are or how “perfect” we try to be, there is no such thing. Life brings us highs and lows; we experience feelings and scenarios that we never expected. There is no vindication or justice. Whether it is addressed in the world to come, or through Karma, or the passage of time…… our pain is real and the feelings that we have attached to our particular situation.
To anyone who is trying to continue to be strong, we feel our pain deeply at times when we face it head on. Many may avoid it through different means and masks to stop feeling. Others, need support for those times that they are dragged under in deep emotion, longing, despair, or perceived weakness.
True survivors, and those who continue to learn from their struggles and challenges, have learned that a trial by fire can enlighten. We can lessen pain for someone else by sharing ours, or empathizing as no other can, by our shared humanity.
We know what it feels like to be estranged, traumatized, abused, mistreated, suffer, grieve, mourn, and experience loss in a myriad of ways. Each time, it feels as if someone has asked us to remove a limb, a solid piece of our beating heart that feels as if it will never return or regenerate to make us whole again.
But, we can fill the spaces, however temporarily, by reaching out to another and acknowledging their fight and survival without diminishing it or labeling it. We can merely hold their heart in our hands for a few moments and help to carry the too-heavy load for just awhile so that they do not have to walk alone.
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Thank you for stopping by. I hope that you enjoy your visit.
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theempathyqueen 
2 Comments
Sadly, I find that by far the most effective way to grow spiritually, or in our humanity, is to suffer. Suffering stretches the heart and makes us more compassionate. Either that, or it closes us up and makes us bitter. It’s probably one of the most important choices we ever make in life. Which will it be? Empathy or solitude? Thanks for your message. Perhaps the trauma and unrest we are going through as a nation will make many people more compassionate!
Thank you for your well-considered and deep comment. I really appreciate it and it certainly gave me much to think about.