How Society Exhausts Our Empathy — and What We Can Do About It

You know that feeling?

When you see someone on the streets, rejected by society and left to fend for themselves.

When you see an image or video of a starving child, a decimated rainforest, a desperate refugee.

When you see somebody being treated unfairly, unjustly — abused, even.

It’s painful for us to see these things. We see the suffering of others, and resonate with it. That’s empathic distress: emotional resonance with another’s suffering.

So when empathy prompts us to help someone, the action comes from a place of a desire to free ourselves from this unpleasant emotional resonance. We can only do this so many times before it exhausts us.

Too much empathic distress, and we start to shut it out. This is called empathic burnout. It’s when we feel powerless and ineffective to help. And before long, these feelings transmute into numbness and indifference.

We start to look away.

To walk straight past.

In a world where the media is hooked on covering only the most shocking, frightening and negative events, it’s only natural.

Empathic burnout damages the amount of connection, care and concern we extend towards others. So we cut ourselves off, in a way, as a way of limiting these feelings of despair. In this way it damages us as well as those who are suffering.

Empathic distress enters our social lives, too. If somebody is in a difficult or painful situation — for example, if they have a terminal illness or disability — it can be made far harder for them when the people around them struggle to connect with them because of their own empathic distress. If somebody is worried about death, meaninglessness, self-worth, existence, it can be hard for us to talk about these things — because when they bring their feelings up, we feel them too. And that’s unpleasant for us— so we get awkward, stay silent, or change the topic. We think we’re thinking about this person in need, but really, empathic distress switches our attention back to us. Because we know we could be doing more, or that we share similar concerns, fears and pains. And we don’t like thinking about that — so we don’t.

So how can we move beyond this state to a more constructive and caring approach towards others’ suffering?

Well, we saw that empathic distress is a negative emotional resonance. A mirroring of another’s pain.

What if we could develop positive emotional resonance?

This is possible if we learn to make a simple switch.

We transform empathy into compassion.

Compassion is the wish that another could be free from suffering. If they were, that would be a positive thing, right? That would make them feel good — feel happy again. And that would make us happy. In this way we are setting ourselves up for positive emotional resonance.

We know that there is a potential in the world for those suffering to become free from that pain, due to changes in their emotional, financial, physiological or social lives. Realising that potential would make them happy, or at least happier.

In addition to this potential, we can consider the existing positive aspects of those we see suffering — their humour, their courage, their morality, their determination, their creativity, their love of the world and others. In short, their humanity. These qualities are present within all of us, even the most destitute and degraded, and seeing this gives rise to care and concern.

We see the good in the world that we can begin to build upon.

We’ve gone beyond the mere task of alleviating suffering — beyond the negative emotional realm — and entered the positive realm of bringing about happiness, wellbeing, peace, calm, and health. Now we can see how the world could be different. We’ve got a vision of change. And we become motivated to make that change, because it inspires us. The very thought of it brings joy.

In this way, compassion catalyses altruism.

And it can do so inexhaustibly — because it brings us happiness, unlike the pain of empathy which leads to burnout. It’s a sustainable solution — good for both parties, the helper and the helped.

Compassion shows us a way to give to the world without getting caught up in its pain.

It’s not necessarily that we might stop at every homeless person, as we learn to adopt this mindset. But we might at least look them in the eye and smile. Or even stop, occasionally. Just to talk — because they might love that, after a lonely day on the streets. They might not want to talk to us at all, but we don’t mind, because we’re only concerned about them. Or we might find another way of helping — 2 hours a week at a homeless shelter, for example.

It’s important to note that benevolent actions should never feel forced or fake, like we “have to do them”. If there is truly compassion, action will follow naturally and spontaneously.

There are an infinite number of ways we can give to others. In this way compassion and love are doorways to a life of creativity, since each being requires different forms of help.

We might start giving — and it could be time, money, ideas, or skills — to positive causes that inspire us. We might start creating things that others enjoy. We might start listening more. We might start projects and conversations that make the world more open and connected.

But not because we feel bad — because it makes others feel better.

Not out of guilt — out of love.