The world today has many conflicts and tragedies and what we sense emotionally, in person or through the media, can affect our emotions.
Our community in Costa Ballena, has been impacted by natural disasters in the past, like when the reef barrier of the Parque Nacional Marino Ballena was completely wiped out, and more recently by politically disasters. We have been witnessing one of the largest human migrations of present times as people who were suffering where they lived try to make their way toward what they believe will be a better life. For many residents this has raised a variety of emotions, but for most of us, there has been a feeling of immense empathy.
Empathy is characterized by an awareness of other people’s emotional experiences and an attempt to feel those same emotions from their perspective. Feelings of the heart and thoughts of the brain are not opposites, actually they are intricately connected.
Empathy is an important emotion that begins in early childhood. Infants as young as 12 months of age begin to comfort victims of distress, and 14 to 18 month-old children display spontaneous, unrewarded helping behaviors, this is called Pro-Social Behavior. Empathy is an important trait to our overall well being and plays a big role in our emotional intelligence.
There are 3 varieties of Empathy
Cognitive empathy
Cognitive empathy let’s us understand how other people think, see their perspective, to empathize is to respond to another’s perceived emotional state by experiencing feeling of a similar sort.
Emotional empathy
Emotional empathy is where we feel what other people feel.
Empathic concern
Empathic concern or sympathy includes not only empathizing, but also having a positive regard or a non-fleeting concern for the other person
So as difficult or overwhelming as those thoughts may have been over the past few months, be thankful for them, you are aware of your emotions and the plight of others suffering. You have a big heart that understands there’s complexity behind suffering but that we are all vulnerable at times.
“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eye for an instant?”
-Henry David Thoreau
