Soy empática

Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.'' - Alfred Adler

My blog site's new tagline sums it up:

How do we live at a thousand miles an hour and escape with our mental health in tact? Is it sustainable? Does it leave any room for humanity? Time to stop trying to just survive it and slow the f**k down. 

2025 Hannah isn’t where she wants to be. I don’t think I’m alone in that either. In fact, I know I'm not. Life is heavy AF right now.

It’s been a tough winter. 

As soon as the days began to get shorter, my energy dipped.

It hit me harder than it has in a long time.

Life suddenly felt heavier and brought with it a lot of stress and a need to hide from the world.

I don't do well living in the darkness. 

 A number of different factors contributed to a tough few months....

• An intense project at work that rumbled on for around 7 months and had me running on pure adrenalin by its conclusion. A passion project for sure, but passion projects often take all you have.

• The selling of our flat and buying of a new house which will have taken us 6 months to complete by the time it is finally done in all likelihood. 

• The fairly high levels of anxiety I battle with every day in the juggle of parenting 2 kids under 7. Those who know the reality of the work and school/nursery run will feel this hard.

• Other personal events and factors which have affected us as a family. 

• The constant horrific news cycle of human cruelty that I just haven’t been able to turn away from because I need to believe I can help to try and make this world a better place for my sons. But after 15 odd months of near constant absorption in it, I simply had to step away and breathe, even if just for a short time. That comes with its own guilt though.

• Oh yeah, and America swore in a new president. (And that really, really does matter)

Christmas came and I crashed. And it’s now early February and I still haven’t recovered. I still feel

utterly exhausted. Following the crash came peak anxiety, then a low the like of which I haven’t felt for years. 

No amount of exercise, fresh air, mindfulness, switching off from work, seemed to fully shake it off. And although there have been some better days, occasionally the sadness is there in background, holding on.

How ungrateful of me. I have a roof over my head, I have food to eat, I own my own home, I have friends and family who love me and who I adore. That shaming voice of guilt "other people are far worse off than you". But that awareness that others are far worse off than me is actually contributing to this sadness. Its part of it. Because like it or not, we are all inextricably linked. We may think that we aren't affected by what is happening in the world around us, but we really are. Not being aware of it and disconnecting from it is worse for us if anything. That is where empathy goes to die. It's where we slowly but surely lose touch with our humanity. When you think about that, it's actually really frightening stuff.

I've done a lot of reflecting on empathy over the past 15 months. I've thought long and hard about why so many people in the western world seem to be so able to turn a blind eye to what is happening in the wider world. How are they so able to dismiss or ignore the true meaning of these unspeakable acts of human cruelty going unchecked?

Most of us like to think of ourselves as good people, right? Caring people? People who would look out for those we love? Well why not for those we don't know and love? Then it was suddenly clear. We don't have the space. We are all so busy trying to survive life at a thousand miles an hour, with stress levels at an unhealthy high on any given day, that we just can't let it in. For many of us, truly facing what is happening in this world would break us. So, we have had to push down and compartmentalise the part of ourselves that feels in order to survive the barrage of consume, consume, consume that we are met with every day. It takes conscious effort and strength to break away from that addiction. Because it really is an addiction, and a survival mechanism. Consuming keeps us distracted, stops us questioning, keeps us compliant, keeps us moving but ever further away from who we were meant to be.

I know not all of us are born to be philosophers or even deep thinkers, and of course that's ok. I'm not writing this from my pedestal thinking it means I have all the answers. I truly don't. I'm constantly torn between a life that is too fast for me most of the time, but that I don't really know how to extricate myself from. That I don't even know if I want to fully extricate myself from. But I'm not prepared to let go of that part of me that is willing to acknowledge the suffering of others and be a voice for them. Was this attitude of not really allowing ourselves to feel our feelings, to deal with trauma a product of the war years? The British "stiff upper lip" was certainly something put to very good use in this country at a time of great national trauma. And those years we lost to Covid where we had to curb our human desire to congregate with those we love at times of hardship, what has that done to the national psyche? Has that too meant that we have forgotten how to deal with trauma and left us with no room for the trauma of others? I'm no psychologist (D at A Level, cough) but I think it is very likely. And isn't that sad?

But how on earth do we remember who we are? How do we hold onto that humanity and empathy and feel all the feels without succumbing to despair about the way of the world? One word. Hope. For it is through shared empathy that we find that hope. Through sharing it with others. Reminding other people we actually give a f**k. Don't stop doing that. It'll remind you who you really are.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that showing empathy or giving a damn about people is a weakness. (I have come across many such people in my life). It's a STRENGTH. Cutting off the part of yourself that cares is the easy way out, it's the holding onto the empath in you that's the harder way, because it involves feeling and looking at yourself. But it has the potential to bring you, as well as others, joy. And that, surely, is worth fighting for.

Meryl Streep once said that "the great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy."

So what are you waiting for? You've been given a superpower, get out there and use it.

“Empathy is, in fact, an ideal that has the power both to transform our own lives and to bring about fundamental social change. Empathy can create a revolution. Not one of those old-fashioned revolutions based on new laws, institutions, or governments but something much more radical: a revolution of human relationships.” - Roman Krznaric