Hey everybody!
Happy Thursday.
Now today's FAQ question is a good one,
and I've heard from a few of my Kinions
who are having a hard time
and I've even struggled with this myself,
and the question is: How does one refill their empathy
when it seems to have run completely out?
More importantly, can we run out of empathy?
or is it never-ending?
I thought this was a really good question,
I actually found a really interesting article
I'll link it in the description, it was from Berkeley I want to say?
Anyway I loved it
I read that one, I read a few others
this was a really great question for those of you
who asked me on Twitter
and I found it really, just so interesting so-
and so educational it's great to understand us as humans
and how we work, am I right?
So the truth of it is that yes,
we can run out of empathy.
Empathy isn't something we have endless vats of
and that's for two reasons, okay?
So let's break it down
The first is, and this was what was most interesting to me,
is that empathy as a whole is a great thing, right?
and we always think of it as
something that we should all be .
We should feel for others,
we should help others, right?
We should be like Mother Teresa, we should do all these things
and so we see it as something
that we all should strive for.
With that being said, we can't be
empathic to everyone
that could really fuck us up, right?
We could actually like
mess up our life if we're too emphatic for others
and don't care about ourselves enough
and put ourselves first, right?
If we are always looking to other people and
we feel for other people
that can be so overwhelming at a certain point because
we, as humans, have our own limitations
emotionally, physically, etc. Am I right?
you following?
Because the truth of it is that if we cared for everyone
there's nothing left for us and that was
one of the things that when I was reading
about it was like wow...
and even going to talk to, if you want to read the article,
they talk about how it's actually easier
for us to be empathic for one person
versus having empathy for groups because
groups just feel overwhelming and then they even
quote Mother Teresa when she's like
''If I looked at the masses,
I could never get anything done,
I could never help anyone but one at a time,
you can make a difference.''
Gotta love you some Mother Teresa.
But the truth is
that that is how it is, like if we look at all
these people were trying to help all
these people we, as a one person *sigh*
may just need a nap.... because it's too much and
we can't do that much ourselves
emotionally, we'll be completely burnt out.
The second thing is you can kind of see
what I am aluding to, is that we have to
fill our own bucket first before we start
pouring out into others, meaning we have
to have have time for self-care and if our
self care or mental health
are slipping, then we have nothing to give
we can't feel for anybody else if we're
having a shit day I can't listen to
someone and be like "aw, I'm so sorry I'm here for you"
In my head, I'm just like, are you kidding me?
Argh, today is terrible, I don't have time for this garbage!
We can be really short-tempered
We can be really frustrated
It can be hard to be soft
and empathic towards others
Therefore, make sure if you're putting a lot out,
if you're helping someone, if you're a nurse,
or a doctor, if you're any kind of mental health professional,
if you're a teacher
If you're a customer service representative
If you work serving the community
In any way, like you're at Starbucks, or if
you're a bagger at a grocery store,
If you interact with people everyday,
understand that that's a lot out,
were empathising and we're carrying a lot
we're doing a lot with others and so
we need to make sure that we are putting
back into ourselves
otherwise, heck yeah our empathy runs out.
you know how I talk about how we have like poker chips in life?
like when we wake up we have a certain number of
poker chips and if we wake up and we
haven't slept well we like already dropped
like half of our poker chips
poker chips almost being like, your patience, your empathy,
your whatever, your strength and we run
out of them throughout the day and we have to
you know, to disseminate them across
like scatter them evenly
so that, we get throughout our day without like, lashing out at someone.
Are you following? and so,
thinking of this and empathy with regards to that
we have to like, restock our poker chips
every day otherwise, the next day we don't have any.
and so the truth of it is that,
how do we refill our empathy when it
seems to have completely run out?
My advice would, be: take a break.
Take a break from being empathic towards others.
That doesn't mean: be an asshole.
I'm not giving you permission to just be a jerk
I'm just saying that we can take a break from
feeling so much and trying to care for people.
You can simply not engage in
those conversations or if someone tries to
come to you for advice you can say "You know,
I working on myself this week so
I'm just not, I can't talk about that right now, and
I'm sorry, I know you're probably having a hard time
but i'm not in a place where I can help."
that's ok, I know that can feel like a big asshole move
Especially when we're totally
empathic people were like.
"Oh, but you're probably having a hard time"
Do your best to not put yourself in those situations
But if it happens, know that you can completely throw up a boundary
and say I have to get back to myself.
I've been having a really hard time
and that's the end of the conversation, period.
poof.
Therefore, then we can actually refill it.
So that's the answer to the question.
it seems to run completely out,
that's because you're not filling up your bucket
and also going back to the first thing,
we should kind of be
specific about who we want to emphatic towards
and if we struggle to do that
and we feel like we are responsible for everyone,
then that's something that you
should talk about in therapy
because a lot of that has to do with asserting ourselves,
having respect for ourselves
and even kind of self-confidence because
that comes into like putting boundaries up
and what's appropriate and what's okay
I'll even speak candidly, we have a
very large community and I do my best I
read all of your comments and approve
them each and every day I'm on the website,
i'm on twitter and I'm interacting as much as I can,
but I'm only one person, right?
I don't have any minions doing my bidding, hence
the name Kinions,
but I can't get through every comment and I can't get back to everyone
and I know if I try to do that
I feel terrible and my mental health suffers
so I have rules and boundaries
around when I'm going to answer questions,
I always say I'll try to get
through as many as I can which is true
and I get on my website and I answer
some of those and I just do what I can
but I've let myself off the hook,
knowing that if I'm having a hard time,
I don't have anything to give.
And I had talked to this astrologist a while back,
probably a year ago now, wow.
But she had said I'm completely out of water and
and water, in that realm,
means like self-care, and she was like you have
to get back to yourself,
you're completely out of water
and so, I love the bucket analogy, like I have to fill up my water,
meaning, I have to love on myself before I can
pour out and fill your cups to make sure
that you have the love you need too.
So, keep those things in mind.
But know that, heck yeah we can run out of empathy.
It's not a never-ending well.
It's like a little bucket.
And we have to make sure that we fill our bucket.
Okay?
Hope you found that helpful, I thought this was such a cool question,
and so interesting.
I hope that you like that I didn't really edit much of this video,
because, it's coming to you like an old FAQ. Woo!
But I will see you next time, I love you, bye!