“Disciplined empathy is not self-dissolving but self-opening. It reshapes my own desire, not lessening it but strengthening, clarifying— widening it.” —Catherine Keller

“Empathy doesn’t require that we have the exact same experiences as the person sharing their story with us…Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance.”—Brené Brown

As we’ve talked about different feelings over the past few months, I’m betting you’ve felt some of them well up within you. Perhaps these posts have even reminded you of specific memories which helped bring up those feelings. Welcome to empathy! At its most basic, empathy is the emotional skill of relating to others (or to works of art, films, songs, etc.) through shared feeling. To empathize, we need to have a well-defined sense of our own feelings, and sometimes we may have similar experiences which lead us into even deeper empathy. Of course, empathy always calls on us to draw a boundary: I never truly know another person’s sadness, but I know my own sadness, and this helps me relate. The most empathic people are the ones who have the fullest understandings of themselves.

But hey, before I talk much more about empathy, there are a couple of misconceptions I want to clear up:

Empathy Is NOT a Lack of Emotional Boundaries
A few years ago, a Desiring God article titled “The Enticing Sin of Empathy” started making the rounds on social media, and the author’s mindset seems to be common in many conservative Evangelical spaces. I won’t link the article here, and I’d advise against reading it unless you want to throw up in your mouth (which I did— never underestimate my devotion to this blog’s readers). The article misconstrues empathy as a complete loss of self in another person’s pain, as opposed to compassion and sympathy which, by the author’s definition, maintain firmer boundaries. Like much of the clickbait troll fodder on the Desiring God website, this article misconstrues its subject matter for fun and profit. In truth, empathy very much depends on healthy boundaries. When empathy loses its boundaries, it ceases to be empathy and becomes toxic codependence instead. Admittedly, picking apart a two-year-old Desiring God article, while fun, probably isn’t the best use of our time, so I’m not going any farther down this rabbit hole

Empathy Is NOT an Innate Superpower… Probably
While I’m open to being wrong on this one, I’m skeptical of people who claim to be natural empaths. Call me cynical, but I believe all of us start life a little self-centered, and empathy is a learned skill by which we better relate to the people around us. Empathy helps us get a fuller picture of the human experience and step into worlds beyond our own. That being said, I’ve encountered and read plenty of people who claim to be naturally more sensitive to others’ emotions, to the point of feeling them almost instinctively:

Of course I understand!
[dramatic flourish]
I am an EMPATH!

Invariably, the people I meet who claim to be natural empaths either project their own emotions onto others or their “empathy” looks a little more like cold reading. While some people are genuinely more disciplined at empathy, I’ve learned not to trust the people who advertise it or claim it as an innate ability. I believe everyone has the capacity for empathy, but we also need the willingness and the discipline to hone it.
So no, I don’t believe in “empaths.”
I believe in “humans practicing empathy.”
(Except for dogs. Dogs are totally empaths.)

At its core, empathy is a learned discipline of placing yourself in someone else’s world and drawing on your own emotions, thoughts, and experiences to relate to theirs. It’s not a superpower. It’s not a sin. It’s not a blurring of boundaries. It’s a helpful tool for being human. Next week, we’ll talk a little more about empathy and how it differs from sympathy.