(I wish I could find the study I was reading because it was important but you know how … SQUIRREL!… And I’ve tried to find it again and just can’t. If I do find it some day, I’ll come back to this and update it.)
Onward… I was reading a study recently that came to the conclusion that perhaps — perhaps — almost 50% of the human population lacks the brain connections for true empathy.
Read that and weep. Or not.
If that stat is even close to true, it explains a lot about our world. It explains a lot about the seemingly endless struggle between people who focus on their own concerns and those who wish to better the world for everyone. (To put it all in compact and polite terms.)
That’s the macro look at it, but on the micro level, it can explain struggles we have with family and friends and even strangers when it comes to understanding motivations, the extension (or not) of care, the tangles we get in to over expectations, and on and on.
We are truly playing with different decks.
But with all of that, I bet in your mind, you’ve been focusing on the idea of empathy around difficult challenges.
There’s more to empathy than that and I’ve always sensed it but didn’t have the language for it.
It’s something I have been conscious of doing in my work since the beginning. I intuited that a huge part of what I do is really about making space for people to feel their feelings including BIG JOY.
That picture at the top… I love that moment between the two women on the right (Mara and Julie). They aren’t talking. They are simply finding shared joy in their playful embodiment.
Turns out there is language for this: Empathic Joy.
You can listen to a short podcast about the science of it right here.
Science, schmience… as usual it comes from an ancient philosophical/”religious” system: Buddhism.
And in Buddhism, it’s a practice. Of course, it is.
Mudita: sympathetic or unselfish joy, or joy in the good fortune of others. In Buddhism, mudita is significant as one of the Four Immeasurables.
(The other four immeasurables are: love, compassion, and equanimity. You can read more about them all over here.)
When someone gives us good news, do we start to think about our own lack of good news or are we just totally present to them, reflecting their experience back to them?
When we see a happy person out in the world, does that make us feel grouchy or judgy? Or do we take the opportunity to feel good with and for them?
This is the practice: all day long, watching for those moments of knee-jerk reactions that are grounded in jealousy or malice and checking them and replacing them.
I love this.