Empathy

Empathy: the ability to understand, be aware of, and be sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of another without those thoughts and feelings being communicated explicitly.

Empathy is one of the concepts I’ve briefly written about before because I very strongly believe that empathy is so lacked in our communities. Actually we’re not even at the point where we lack empathy yet because so many people are unwilling to even try to understand where people come from or why they are the way that they are.

Genuine acceptance of what someone’s telling you is one of the biggest steps in the right direction when it comes to gaining empathy. A lot of times people hear what someone says to them without actually hearing the person out. How can you be there for someone if you don’t try to listen to their story when they’re telling you it? A lot of people are scared to open up about themselves out of fear of not being understood and that’s living proof of our lack of empathy. Understanding peoples backgrounds goes a longer way than you’d think.

June 2021 was one of the roughest periods of time that I’ve had in a while. It consisted of a lot of internal battles that I was having with myself while also trying to learn that I deserved peace. I unapologetically gave myself the space and time I needed to return to genuine happiness conveniently around the same time that I was going to be traveling a lot. The reason I gave myself this space to begin with was because at one point, after a whole month had passed, I realized that I wasn’t going to waste the next month of my life being hurt or upset over something that was temporary and would eventually fade away. I also realized that I needed to move past certain events that had happened and look at the grand scheme of things. My conflict was external but my battles were becoming internal and the only one that was losing the happy moments of life was me. I ended up coming out of this time period with more empathy for others, but also more self-respect in realizing that at the end of the day, my decisions were my own and accepting that life has its hiccups. I also turned to God tremendously during this time and realized the importance of and the effect that having faith has on a person and their well-being.