The Vaccine for Humans’ Emotional Endemic

What if I tell you about the possibilities of this world becoming a safe place for everyone? What if I tell you that there is a magic ingredient “Empathy” through which you can make your life merrier, simpler and calmer. Not only this, you don’t have to spend a whopping amount of money to buy it; in fact, you already have been blessed with it intrinsically. Empathy – ehsas, a kind connection between two souls, the emotional human in me, fearlessly connecting to the emotional human in you. A sense so feathery-fine, yet so powerful; a lack of it can disrupt relations, society, nature, create wars and the abundance of it alone is enough to make living peaceful, joyous, flourishing and make the world a better place to live in. Often confused as sympathy, Empathy is a distinctive capacity of being sensitive to the needs, experiences, feelings and emotions of others without biases. While sympathy is to be there for others, empathy is to be with others, crying their tears with them, being compassionate to their emotions, putting oneself in another person’s shoe.

Often talked about as a skill, empathy is what we are all born with naturally. Ever noticed how children pick up on emotions so seamlessly? They might not know the word to explain it, but they feel it when the parental figures are sad, happy, angry in pain or unsafe. However, along the way in our journey called life, with growing fears from experiences and the constant need to be strong, we lose the sense of empathy. When we don’t have people who understand and respect our emotions, we adopt emotional disconnect as a way of being, a survival mode. We tell ourselves to conceal, don’t feel, neither our own emotions nor that of others, hence the natural instinct to process emotions goes numb with each reminder.

Let’s take a moment to pause and think, in a friend’s hour of need, how do we lend a shoulder? Do we sit with them in silence ensuring they know they are not alone, without worrying about time or thinking about the tasks undone, and just be fully present? Or do we say things we feel are right and leave with a heavy heart to become busy with life? How often do we follow up on them again? When was the last time we merely stopped the car to give way to a pedestrian without him having to ask? Have we all not seen fathers too busy earning bread and butter for the child to pay attention to the child’s emotional needs, from his perspective. After all the years of hard work, the kid grows up aloof, thinking his father wasn’t there for him, while the father feels exhausted being a great earner, yet heartbroken to see son not available for him. In day-to-day life, it is in the small moments that we experience immense lack of empathy, a disconnect from emotions, which amplifies to a point that we feel alone but can not reach out, we see someone in need and find it hard to offer help.

The good news, however, is that it is never too late to reignite empathy in us and talk it out in our society. It all begins with ourselves by being aware of our own biases and our fears. The realization reveals what needs to be healed resulting in conversations without judgment. That’s how we create a safe space for ourselves and people to express fully, we raise empath children, we tell boys it's ok to cry, we tell girls to speak their heart out. Let’s commit to do our part in building this world a happier place to live in. After all, that is what superheroes do.