Is empathy the medicine we need?
For the three days leading up to my MBA orientation trip to Cartagena, Colombia four years ago, I cried. Meeting 250 of my future Stanford Graduate School of Business classmates for a fun-filled trip in an exotic land would be, by any normal standard, a dream. But as I began preparing for the trip, I kept breaking down.
Every day, without fail, I cried.
I reflect back on this moment often.
At the time, I did what I had been doing daily for the past 26 years: I judged myself. “Why are you so sensitive?” I repeated over and over again.
With only a 4% acceptance rate, getting into Stanford’s business school was a dream come true, and I should have been overwhelmed with joy. Instead, I asked myself, “Why can’t you just enjoy the moment? What is wrong with you?”
I wish I’d known then what I know now: I am an empath.
Or, as over two decades of research describes us, a Highly Sensitive Person.
I’ve learned to understand my experience through research from people like Dr. Elaine Aron in her fantastic book The Highly Sensitive Person. Besides processing everything more, and experiencing strong empathy, I’m acutely sensitive to the subtleties around me, and easily overstimulated. I’m also not affected solely by peoples’ words and actions, but also by the underlying energy that is transmitted between people, and that exists within us all.
It was that energy — the collective angst of 250 people desperately wanting to make a good first impression on their classmates, and unsure of what to expect from the trip — that I was feeling. It was wearing on me — filling my space with insecurities, fear, and anticipation. In truth, I’m grateful I was able to cry, it’s one of the coping skills I’ve learned to release the energy I was managing; energy that was not mine, and that threatened to overwhelm me.
Until I learned coping skills, my default was to internalize that stressful energy, and even today experiences like that often leaves me sick, fearful of the world around me, or deeply skeptical of my own ability to function like a “normal person.”
Just last week, in an effort to put up an emotional boundary with a coworker, I ended up curled in a ball on my bed, and missed attending my friend’s wedding reception. While to anyone else, all I did was exchange a few late afternoon Slack messages, in truth I’d been internalizing my coworker’s frustration and stress for hours, which left me debilitated. I simply had no energy left for socializing.
I know I’m not alone in these challenges.
In fact, research shows that approximately 20% of the world’s population experiences the high sensitivity of an empath.
However, we live in a society that fails to validate, much less support, sensitive people.
In the years prior to getting accepted to Stanford, I developed better and better coping skills to hide the parts of myself that were “too sensitive,” while at the same time sinking further into shame and blame. It was always my hope that I could develop ways to function like “everyone else.” In truth, I became so skilled at containing and hiding my real self and my true abilities, that this blog will be the first time many people from my early life will learn I identify as an empath, a highly sensitive person, highly intuitive, a clairvoyant.
While this high sensitivity has been challenging to hone and develop, now I wouldn’t give up these abilities for the world.
I get to experience life unfiltered.
The raw beauty of a sunset leaves my skin singing, as does the touch of a loved one or settling into an awesome yoga or meditation class. I feel ALL of these things deeply (seriously, all of them. Just ask my roommates). On the one hand there is the ecstatic joy of a new job or a budding romance, and on the other, there is the absolute heartbreak of an animal or a child in distress — whether in real life or on TV. They both get me.
Judith Orloff, a physician with fifteen years of medical training who is an empath herself, describes us as “emotional sponges who absorb both the stress and joy of the world. We feel everything, often to an extreme, and have little guard up between others and ourselves… As a consequence, we absorb into our own bodies both the positive and stressful energies around us.”
It’s probably no surprise that empaths make incredible partners, parents, friends and coworkers — we’re deeply attuned to those around us, able to easily anticipate a person’s needs and feelings, and driven to heal others.
The problem is, others rarely, if ever, validate our experiences — not in our homes, not in the workplace, and not in our daily interactions.
As a result, I’ve seen many who experience these highly sensitive feelings cope by emotionally numbing or medicating. Others remove themselves from daily life altogether to become spiritual retreat junkies, wanderers, or some version of “the other”.
When these people remove themselves from society, it’s a huge loss. Empaths have so many gifts, and a unique way of understanding and experiencing life.
As Orloff reminds us, “empathy is the medicine the world needs.”
I feel fortunate to have developed tools over the last half decade that help me thrive because, rather than in spite of my sensitive abilities. These tools have empowered me as I move through my life at a fast growing startup in San Francisco. They have also helped me love wholeheartedly and make decisions that nourish and inspire me.
Yet there is more for me and the world to do. This blog is a space to explore that possibility — how we can thrive as both highly ambitious and also highly sensitive people. A place to share and reflect on the experience of pursuing traditional professional success as well as intuitive understanding.
I dream of a world where everyone feels validated, supported, and in community; and if one person expresses more self-compassion because they resonate with my experience, or learns a new tool to empower themselves as they move through life, then I will have done my part to build a more empathic world.
I hope you’ll join me on the journey.
