Hope Lab Recap! On Empathy.

Yes, there is such a thing as too much empathy. Here's how to rein it in.

A few weeks ago, one of our members asked for help dealing with the constant onslaught of desperate, angsty text messages from friends who were drowning and looking for a human life jacket. Before they were even finished asking the question, everyone else in the room was nodding. “Yes,” someone else piped in, “I’m a real empath, and 'I’m exhausted!”

There’s two issues here - one of communication and one of empathy. To be completely honest with you, I don’t really know what to do about the first. We currently can access one another via 482 different apps anytime we want, and there are no boundaries or rules or really any social mores because this is all so new. And so, the expectation is that we are online, available, and answer immediately - whether it’s a string of memes or a panic attack. As an introvert who really didn’t want a cell phone, I find this completely overwhelming.

Because we don’t have set rules around this, we also don’t check in with each other about what we’re flinging around. We just smash the send button, we don’t ask, “Hey, can I send you a string of what might be super triggering threads about a famous internet therapist?” Nor do we say what we need when we get something flung our way. “Hey, I actually don’t think I can read this essay about Palestine today, I need to focus or I’m going to lose my job.”

I actually do have a few close people that I communicate with like that - and everyone in the group said something similar. They have one friend who they feel comfortable with saying, “Actually, not today.” But why isn’t this the norm? I think part of the reason is because we equate more with better, and that includes empathy.

When people say, “I’m an empath!” they are generally indicating what they take to be a positive personality trait. “I feel what you feel! The more empathy the better, right?” Actually, I hate to break it to you, but no. Empathy is not just some swimmy, vague emotion that no one has really thought about before that one lady made that one video on TikTok. It’s a personality trait that has been really well-studied as it is a key component of social cognition, cooperation, and pro-social behavior.

That means we know a lot about it, and the good news is that if you suffer from too much empathy, there’s a lot you can do! You don’t have to suffer as an empath forever! The attached slides have all the info on the different kinds of empathy, and three exercises that will help you to lean out of the one that will surely drown you.

And? Fascinatingly, it is not the case that narcissists have no empathy. In fact, they can have loads of cognitive empathy - it’s one of the things that makes manipulation so easy for them. So, there' you go.

Tonight, I would love to do a little internet-therapy-drama round up. There’s at least two major things going on online that really matter - one is this situation with the famous internet therapist who I am not going to name here. It’s worth reviewing just for a moment for clarity. And the second is the current drama around polyvagal theory, which I have found myself embroiled in. A-whooops!

These things aren’t just about gossip, they’re actually really important because they reveal some broken systems and I think that’s important to talk about.

Slides and link below for paying members of The Hope Circuit, see you at 5pm!