"Empathy is the ability to feel what someone else feels. In moderation, it can create deep understanding and trust. But when overused—especially in caregiving, therapy, teaching, or leadership—it can lead to what researchers call empathy distress or compassion fatigue. Here's why: Your brain's mirror neuron system activates when you witness another's emotions, lighting up the same areas as if you were experiencing them yourself."
"I used to think compassion meant feeling everything everyone else felt. If a patient cried, I had tears in my eyes. If a friend was angry, I got angry on their behalf. If a colleague was anxious, I carried their worry home like an extra bag I didn't remember packing. It felt like caring. Until I couldn't anymore. The day I realized I was in trouble wasn't dramatic."
Empathy involves feeling what someone else feels and can build deep understanding and trust when used in moderation. Overuse of empathy, especially in caregiving roles, triggers mirror neuron activation that lights the same brain areas as firsthand experience and keeps the nervous system in a chronic state of stress. Chronic emotional merging can lead to exhaustion, cynicism, physical illness and empathy distress or compassion fatigue. Heartfulness is the willingness to stay present with another without merging or judgment and to hold their reality without taking it into one's own body. Establishing boundaries and grounding practices allows caring without absorbing others' pain, supporting sustainable compassion.
Read at Psychology Today
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