14: So. Much. Empathy

This is the Haley's sensitive person podcast, a weekly podcast for people who experience the world brighter, louder and more intensely. Join me on a journey of acceptance of our highly sensitive person traits. Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. I'm your host Kelly. In this podcast, I talk about what it's like to be a highly sensitive person and spread knowledge about being highly sensitive to help other people out there learned to better accept themselves and realize that you're not alone. You're not the only one who feels this way and that being sensitive does not mean being weak. I want to share one iTunes review from a listener named Erica B9 who wrote, "This podcast has changed the way I think and feel about myself. I no longer feel isolated in the world. I now understand why I feel such intensity about so many facets of life that most others simply miss or cannot see or feel. Thank you so much Erica. It makes me feel great to know that that these episodes are helpful to you." Today's episode is about empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another being. Highly sensitive people are very empathetic. Os HSP's pick up on the emotions of others including happiness, pain and sadness. These feelings can stay with us and bother us more than they would other people. A lot of the emotional problems we suffer from are not our own. So let's talk about some science real quick. Earlier this year Dr. Elaine Aaron studied the brains of a bunch of people to see how they reacted to photos of people who looked happy, sad or neutral and some of the photos they were shown were of their spouses. What they found was that when the subjects were shown these different photos highly sensitive people had more blood flow to the parts of their brain that are involved with awareness and emotion particularly those areas connected with empathy when compared to people with low sensitivity. This is physical evidence within the brain and highly sensitive individuals respond especially strongly to social situations that trigger emotions and in this case a face is being happy or sad. This is evidence that feeling strong empathy is hardwired in our brains. I bet if you stop and think for a few minutes you can probably recall countless examples of times that you felt empathy strongly. How about feeling empathy for a character on TV or in a movie? Or if a friend was telling you a story and you found yourself reacting more strongly than a socially acceptable? Or if you see a story in the news about violence or war and you think about what the victims are going through in detail you may even imagine their daily lives and what their thoughts might be. There are tons of examples I could talk about but one in particular popped into my head. Last year I went to a Muay Thai match in Thailand. I'd never seen boxing of any kind in real life so I wasn't sure how I would feel about it. And while watching the match I found myself wondering about the guys who were fighting. There was one round where a bunch of guys got in the ring and they were all blindfolded stumbling around swinging wildly as everyone in the crowd laughed and laughed and sometimes their punches landed. It was funny but I also felt bad for the guys because they were being laughed at. They were basically letting themselves get pummeled for entertainment. I thought things like he looks like a nice guy. I hope they're getting paid a lot for this. Maybe it doesn't hurt as much as it looks like. Maybe it's actually fun for them too. I hope they're not doing this because they're struggling and this is the only way they could make some money. These are really weird thoughts to have about complete strangers but sometimes I find myself constructing stories about people wondering about their home life. Trying to figure out how he feels. Why do I do this? Why when I see a guy getting beaten in a boxing match do I start wondering about his life? Whether he's happy or depressed, whether he's lonely, there's no benefit to these thoughts other than making myself feel sad or worried. But I can't help but wonder and be curious about people. I don't want people to suffer so if I suspect they could be it bothers me and makes me feel sad inside. I guess that's what it is on a basic level. Some other examples popped into my head too. There's one that I hadn't really thought about in over 15 years and it was interesting to examine it again through the lens of high sensitivity. When I was in high school the father of a classmate died in a tragic plane crash. I wasn't close with his daughter who was my classmate but we were friendly. Everyone in the community was devastated by his death. I remember when I heard the news I would home that day and lie to my bed and sobbed until I couldn't breathe. I thought about so many scenarios. The moment the mother found out when she thought about how she gonna tell her kids the moment she told them how they were all heartbroken together. The unspeakable raw pain. How could they even bear it? I thought of my classmate who lost her father and I couldn't fathom her heartache. It made me hurt so much to think about it and I kept thinking about it. And I wondered why no one else in my family or even the other kids around me in school seemed to be as bothered about it as I was. I felt like I didn't have the right to feel as strongly as I did. Why was I so upset about this? I wasn't that close to the family. Why was I so affected? I think it's because to me that my classmate's loss represented all loss. It represented the loss that I will have to face someday when someone close to me passes away. This is an example of a time I wish I could turn off my sensitivity and empathy. It made me act in ways that were not socially appropriate. One recent realization for me about all of this was that other people don't feel the same way. Not everyone thinks about this stuff like I do and senses and picks up on small cues of other people's feelings. When I went to that boxing match I remembered leaning over to my husband Jim and asking him what he was thinking. I asked if he ever thought about the fighters, what their lives were like or if the violence bothered him. And of course you said no I'm just watching the fight. I urge you to take a few moments and think about sometimes you felt other people's emotions and feelings. You may be surprised to discover just how often it happens. And as I'm wrapping up this episode I'm thinking okay what's my point? What's the actionable step to bring everything together? And there isn't really a nice tidy wrap up to this. It's more about just awareness and talking about empathy because it's such a big part of being highly sensitive. Thanks for tuning in folks. You can find the show notes at highly sensitiveperson.net/episode14, the number 14. And there I will have links to the brain scan study I mentioned at the top of this episode. And if you'd like what you hear please say thank you by leaving a review on iTunes. It would be very appreciated. You can sign up for my weekly newsletter at highly sensitiveperson.net and find blog posts on this topic and lots and lots and lots of other HSP related topics on the blog as well. Thanks for tuning in guys I appreciate your time.