I Prayed For Empathy

As you may have gathered from past entries, I spent most of my life feeling very detached. I actually think it is a big part of my personality. I always hid my feelings rather well, and until very recently, I took pride in being “numb.” I actually enjoyed feeling “nothing.” Now don’t get me wrong I always felt happiness, joy, and emotions like anger, but I wouldn’t really allow myself to feel pain, or true sadness. I remember telling my mom that I loved feeling nothing, and that feelings are a waste. When I would have those moments of sadness I would complain to her saying “I just want to feel nothing again.” Now this can be beneficial in many instances because you don’t get that “stuck” feeling after a break up, or a lost friendship, but it is kind of unhealthy in a way. Growing up I did cry, and I wasn’t completely heartless LOL, but I definitely had a detached sense about me. I remember trying to force myself to cry at funerals, because I felt bad that I had no tears. I would walk into a funeral and try and conjure up some sad thought to make myself cry. When things in the world would happen like the Gulf War or some other tragedy, I felt nothing. If it wasn’t directly affecting me, I just couldn’t empathize. At dinner each night my parents would end the prayer with the longest list of people they were praying for. It included everyone from the poor in Somalia to all the souls that had departed. I was always thinking to myself, “Why are we praying for dead people?” These souls were not even grouped together. One by one, each name was said aloud. As I got older, and more “ballsy”, I was able to win Joe G over with my humor; I would say “Ok now let’s eat our cold food.” What an asshole I was, and still am, at times hahaha. During the moments when I had to really look in the mirror, and truly see my flaws, I had to be honest with myself. I realized that not being able to be truly empathetic would leave me never having true connections with people. I saw sadness and pain as weakness. I saw feeling anything negative at all as weakness. Even in this very moment as I sit here and share with you my true feelings, I feel weak. I think it will always be like this for me because I spent thirty-six years living this way. When I finally came to this realization of what was going on inside my head, I decided to pray for empathy. I asked the Lord to make me feel everything those around me were feeling. I wanted to feel it all. Well, The Man doesn’t love answering every prayer in a timely manner, but for some reason He answered this one in what felt like minutes. One by one, I started to actually feel the pain of those around me. In Brene Brown’s Netflix film she discusses why it is that most men struggle with vulnerability (I highly recommend watching this if you haven’t already). It makes total sense why most men cannot share when they are experiencing moments of what may be perceived as “weakness.” I don’t have a penis, but I get it hahaha. I understand it because I felt like this, too. I never saw my dad or my brother crying when I grew up. I remember the first time I saw my dad cry, a friend of his died, and if I am honest, it freaked me the F out hahahaha!! I was like, “shit this is awkward!” I ran away…..literally. I ran upstairs, and was so freaked out. That is an awful reaction. Years later, I have to admit I just simply thought men had no feelings. I viewed them all like this, and I actually thought it was great! I wanted to be like that, too! When you allow yourself to feel, then you open yourself up to pain. Even when I saw Rob cry for the first time, I felt super awkward. He was actually crying because I was crying. I don’t remember why we were crying, but I do remember immediately drying my tears when his started streaming down his face. Once again, I was like “ok… yep awkward!!!” I am laughing about this, but it’s not funny. It’s messed up in a way. I don’t know how you feel about zodiac signs, and I am not actually sure how I feel about them either, but right after I typed this I looked up “Aquarius woman.” I just chose the first site, but this is what it said: “She cares immensely about the plight of humanity, and wants to do whatever she can do to heal the world, and help make things better. There is a detachment to her passionate characteristics, however. As much as she is involved in trying to help save the world, an Aquarius woman can lack empathy for her closest friends, and family. Displays of intense emotion from other people often make her uncomfortable, and she sometimes mistakes others’ vulnerability as weakness.” YIKES, YIKES & more YIKES!!!!! Right?

These were the exact words on this site. On my way out to Pitt this weekend I thought about these words some more, and the fact that I clicked on this particular website. It was all just too eerie. What are the chances that the word detached would pop up? I looked at other links too, and while the description was similar the word detached was not there.

Admitting these traits feels awful, but it WAS true. Notice I said was, and not is. As I have often said in this blog, some of our flaws and personality traits will always be there. There is just no way around it, but that does not give us an excuse to just say F it and accept that this is who we are. When we finally become extremely self-aware we can adapt, and change.

Please don’t think I was cold-hearted because that was never the case. I showed love the best way I could, which was mostly through gifts and generosity. When someone needed me… I was there, but I wasn’t usually embracing them physically or with much emotion. I am extremely loyal and would give a person the shirt off my back. I have a big heart, and I am very thoughtful, but I would never describe myself as “sweet.” Even just last week I was saying something really nice to my mom, and she said “Oh Reen you are so sweet.” I said, “Mom let’s be real. I may be thoughtful and kind, but I am NOT sweet.” LOL Her response was amazing. She said, “You are right. You are bitter sweet!” HAHAHA. That is such a great description. While I have improved much in the category of empathy, I will never be “sweet.”

Over the past year or so I have become SO much better at verbally communicating how I feel about others, and not to someone else, but to them. Most people have to back their words with actions, but I am the opposite. I have to back my actions with words, because for the first 35-36 years of my life, I was basically all action and no words.

Shredz can tell you that when it came to sharing beds when we traveled that she and Alison would joke by saying, “Give the unemotional one her own bed.” HAHAHA These memories make me laugh so hard. I must say that I freaking LOVE my friends who just understood me. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for knowing that my loyalty, generosity, and actions was me loving them the best that I could, at that time.

Like I said in the beginning of this entry, I have so much more to say on this topic so, I am wrapping things up here. As I leave you this week you must know that just like I lacked empathy towards others, I also lacked it towards myself.

Definition of empathy

1 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

The challenge is to examine your own life and experiences with being empathetic to those around you. Do you, too, need to pray for empathy??

“True empathy requires you to step outside your own emotions to view things entirely from the perspective of the other person.” Anonymous

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To Be Continued……

All My Love,

Reenie

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