I had a pretty heavy realization recently. It's a been a struggle for me dealing with finding my sexuality and with all of the hatred happening in the world and in my country I've really begun to realize that as much as people can sympathize with someone's struggles, some can simply never even begin to understand the things others go through. I've always been open minded towards everyone, but specifically people of color because my mom used to tell me about how it shouldn't matter what color skin someone has. It personally affected her because she married a mexican man who she had 2 children with, and dated multiple black men afterwards and always got flack from other family members for it. Lgbt never came into her life in any significant way, though she always said that she'd always support anyone no matter what and that everyone should be treated well, and as equals. Since exploring my sexuality and really coming to understand where I fall, it's been hard for me seeing videos of people saying that lgbt people should die, and how were scum and evil people. As if we're not even human. It hits me in a way that I never understood before. Something so personal coming from a person who doesn't even know me. Although i'll never walk in their shoes, I really understand what people of color mean when they tell stories of being black and standing in an elevator next to a white woman and watching her clutch her purse tighter. Or being of eastern indian descent and automatically being labeled a muslim terrorist. Or watching bi-racial kids get shunned because they're not black or white enough. I could and would always sympathize with them and treat them as my friend regardless, but it wasn't until recently that I've begun to truly understand what that means. It hurts. It just goes to show that you can't understand unless you're really put into a similar situation.
I really work on empathy. I do want to feel and understand what other people feel. My take may be imperfect. In fact, is has to be. But listening without doing that "Well, actually..." thing is a lot more helpful to binding yourself to other humans than anything else I can think of.
Definitely, listening is vital. I'm a bit of a know-it-all and I know that. Not to an extreme extent though it's something I'm trying to work on every day. I try to be patient and understanding as much as I can, so that I don't get caught up in my own problems and ignore the people around me. Oh the joys of being human. What I lack in drive I make up for in passion. Finding a balance is harder than I thought.
As social creatures we are endowed with empathy, it is a natural part of who we are - however, the extent to which one has empathy can vary greatly, depending on the birth of the person and on what life throws in their way. Me, for example, am very highly empathetic. Thinking of terrible things like the Crusades or the genocide of the natives of North America, even though it happened centuries ago, can make me cry. Today, I watched a comedy skit that also had a touch of social criticism on just how hard it is to get a job nowadays, not only practically but also emotionally for the individual - as I said, it was comedy, but I broke down crying. I'm a listener on a site called 7 Cups of Tea, where I listen to people's problems. I've often started crying reading about their stories. But then there are people who only care about themselves, or only care about their stupid ideologies, and put that before all else. The world is diverse, and there's a lot of nasty things endemic to it. That is the simple fact of the state of things. But the ideas that antagonize the innocent can be fought, and have been so before.
You can actually understand, empathize, and connect to someone's discomfort without having been there. If understanding and empathy truly required having walked in those shoes, therapists and counselors would never be able to do what they do effectively. The key is, one has to really be able to listen, not just to the experience someone is going thorugh, but also the anguish and discomfort that comes with it. One of the things that makes empathy so difficult to do well, and to understand, is that in order to truly connect with empathy, we must be able to go to a place inside ourselves where we have felt similar feelings to what the other person is feeling. But those feelings can (and do) arise from many, many different types of experiences, so the necessity is about connecting to the underlying emotions (which we have all experienced) rather than the specific experiences. Also, empathy requires vulnerability. It doesn't feel good to go to those dark places to connect with a friend or client. And so the person connecting must have done their own work, explored those dark places, and feel comfortable going into them in order to relate to the other person. For that reason, empathy (at least, *good* empathy) is among the most difficult interactions to master.
