BEING EMPATHETIC

Young Philosophies

Painting: "Empathy"

Writer: Rizim

What do you see? A guy holding onto someone, either being comforted or comforting the other. Curious? Read..

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When you spend years drowning in self doubt, uncertain experiences, people pleasing and extreme dislike for yourself, you end up being this person who is apparently 'too nice’ or 'too deep’.

Being empathetic, for the most part is great, it’s easier to understand people, how they feel and sometimes it helps to get an insight on their thought processes too. I can talk about how amazing it is, but that’s the thing, it’s not all good or true.

"seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another, is empathy.

The simple fact about being empathetic is that you feel sad for people who completely behaves different because you see the pain behind their anger, restlessness, grief or anyother behavior . You see the betrayal that made them that way. You know ‘way too much’ psychology to be mad at someone.
Seeing the good in people has never been a bad thing, it never should be. Everyone has a reason for why they are a certain way, so it’s not fair to assume the worst about someone based on their attitude. After all, attitude is something faked all the time, I do it myself. I make myself seem to care less than I actually do. Kindness is often taken advantage of, so I’ve learnt over the years to keep up a front.
The thing about being an empath, is that you feel EVERYTHING. 

There's a phrase spreading around, "It's a curse to feel everything deeply", do you agree with this?

Being empathetic without having boundaries is damaging. It almost reaches a point where you feel like you’re living another person’s life. You see the flicker of anger in their eyes towards someone else and suddenly your scalp tingles with annoyance. You catch a stranger nervously rub the back of their neck and you can feel your own stomach churn.
All these feelings sometimes get too much, and then, you shut yourself out. You spend days alone, minimal conversation because your body is buzzing with all these untamed forces and sometimes the only way to get rid of them is to isolate yourself from as much as you can.
There’s always another side of everything, like coin?.  Yes, okay empaths are generally very warm and sensitive but the thing is, they’re very good at being aware of our surroundings, picking up on the unsaid words, and being able to see weaknesses in people.
This makes manipulation and exploitation of those weaknesses very easy. From my experience, people don’t realise this. You’re seen as this floaty being who couldn’t hurt a single soul and that’s all bat-shit preposterous. If you’re an empath, it’s highly likely that you’re the confidante of your friends and the people around you. You almost know what makes them tick, therefore you also know what can break them. This is similar to narcissism in a way, but the difference is, they have a conscience, they won’t use others weaknesses against them, but there is always the possibility of them doing so. And, we call them Dark Empaths.
Being empathetic is also VERY confusing. Sometimes you can’t differentiate between your own emotions and someone else’s. Despite being close to people, you feel a barrier because you feel too much and you want them to feel the same way, so that they can have the same level of emotional connection. This makes one feel misplaced on a group of people. That's just who he is in the painting above, The guy is not the one being heard but the one who's listening, the comforting one. The Empath. 
Every word, action, silence and touch has a meaning and goes straight to one's heart. It's very hard not to care. No matter how much we fake it.

Being empathetic is hard but not to be is harder.

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