Empathy is Your Superpower

Empathy is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, and to imagine what they might be thinking or feeling. It’s your capacity to put yourself in their shoes and relate to others. Resilience is another superpower. It’s your ability to recover quickly. It requires mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility that allows you to adjust to the demands of life. Without resilience, empathy can turn into compassion fatigue.

Prolonged exposure to dealing with other people’s problems can make you vulnerable to compassion fatigue, especially if the Caregiver archetype is a part of your personality. And even more so if it’s also a part of your day job.

Most caregiving and helping organisations provide professional supervision for their staff to manage compassion fatigue, but if you operate a solo business without engaging in regular professional supervision for yourself, then your level of vulnerability to compassion fatigue can get out of control. If you’re a solo therapist, you might be compassionate at work, at home, with friends, in your community and towards the environment. You’re flat-out spreading compassion all over the place.

In a way, when your empathy switch is always on, and without adequate resilience, you’re at risk of living vicariously through other people’s problems, and their distress or trauma. All of which will increase your risk of succumbing to compassion fatigue.

At the very least, too much empathy and not enough resilience can bring you to the point where you’re wary of giving and caring. You hold back caring or avoid others that you know will reach out to you, or you find yourself resenting them when they intrude on your already depleted energy levels.

I can say this because I’ve been there. Doing too much, giving too much and expecting too much of myself. Even though I was meditating, journaling, exercising and minding my diet, it was not enough to make up for what I was trying to achieve. I was not listening to my body. I was just going through the motions.

Compassion fatigue disconnects you from your true Self, which is sacred. It drives you to act out of character. When you’ve been giving too much, and your resilience is low, you’ll know you’re suffering from compassion fatigue if you’re constantly exhausted, having trouble sleeping, feeling anxious, or suffering from constant headaches and stomach upsets. Compassion fatigue can make you impatient. It can lead you to care less as a usually caring person, so much so that you begin to question your purpose, your relationships and even your existence. If the symptoms are severe or persistent or both, then your physical and mental health will be in jeopardy.

Regular professional supervision is crucial. And so is resilience. Building resilience is not straightforward. Learning to manage your personal energy budget can help. Here’s a quick, daily check you can do:

Out of 25, how would you rate each of the following:

1. your physical energy level today?
2. your emotional energy level today?
3. your mental energy level today?
4. your spiritual energy level today?

• How did you score out of 100 percent?
• What’s the total of your energy today?
• Is it enough energy to function effectively?
• Do you have enough energy to fuel your capacity for empathy?

The health of your daily personal energy budget will influence your capacity to be resilient.