Effective Action: Turning Empathy into Compassion

Last week, I went on what one read­er called a “left-wing, lib­er­al dia­tribe.” He (because of course it was a priv­i­leged white man) also said he would “exist sole­ly on my snowflake tears until he hit his goal weight” which, admit­ted­ly, is an awe­some burn that made me laugh out loud. But it did not deter me.

We’re all so tired. Every day is a new cat­a­stro­phe, and our ner­vous sys­tems were not designed to exist for long in sur­vival mode. Let’s dis­cuss empa­thy and com­pas­sion, the twin flames of car­ing for others.

Read each sen­tence and pause to notice how it makes you feel.

A young moth­er in Gaza keens over the loss of her child, a vic­tim of a bombing.

You pass a ter­ri­ble car acci­dent on the way to work.

A PhD from Turkey is force­ful­ly detained and denied bail for crit­i­ciz­ing our cur­rent administration.

A home­less man asks you for change out­side of a gro­cery store.

I can guess that you felt some anger and sad­ness read­ing those state­ments.  Maybe you placed a hand over your heart. Perhaps there was a clench­ing of your shoul­ders or jaw. Possibly, you felt a lit­tle nauseous. 

This is empa­thy, the bridge that con­nects us as a species. Empathy is the abil­i­ty to feel what anoth­er per­son feels. Empathy is emo­tion­al res­o­nance, a kind of inner echo that mir­rors the expe­ri­ence of anoth­er. It draws no bound­aries. It sim­ply feels.

Yet empa­thy can leave us vul­ner­a­ble. When we absorb the pain of oth­ers with­out pro­cess­ing that pain, we can become over­whelmed. You might have heard the term com­pas­sion fatigue, but I believe that to be a mis­nomer. This feel­ing is actu­al­ly empa­thy over­whelm, drown­ing in empa­thy, hands clenched and hearts bro­ken. Empathy over­whelm is fight or flight, raised blood pres­sure, scream­ing into a pil­low, sleep­less­ness, and hope­less­ness. We get stuck here because empa­thy is a finite resource. If we feel too many intense emo­tions for too long with­out pro­cess­ing them (in a healthy way), we shut down. I per­son­al­ly know three peo­ple who start­ed anti­de­pres­sants since the elec­tion and two oth­ers who have been put on med­ica­tion for high blood pressure. 

That’s where com­pas­sion enters, not as a replace­ment for empa­thy, but as its evo­lu­tion. Compassion is empa­thy in action, trans­form­ing feel­ing into ser­vice. Empathy feels, but com­pas­sion reach­es out, uplifts, and heals. Where empa­thy says, I feel your pain, com­pas­sion says, I feel your pain and here’s how I can help. It’s the move­ment from heart to hand, hold­ing space for emo­tion, but also doing what needs to be done. 

Compassion is thought­ful­ly respon­sive, where empa­thy is too often just reactive.

Empathy is a pre­req­ui­site of com­pas­sion, cre­at­ing the aware­ness of a prob­lem. Compassion makes us empow­er­ing agents of change.

We need both. Empathy reminds us of our shared human­i­ty, whis­per­ing you are not alone. Compassion gives us direc­tion, shout­ing let’s rise togeth­er. In a world that often feels divid­ed, the com­bi­na­tion of empa­thy and com­pas­sion can be rev­o­lu­tion­ary. It soft­ens the hard­est hearts and brings light into the dark­est corners.

So the healthy pat­tern becomes: feel your feel­ings ful­ly, process your emo­tions, then take small, direct­ed actions in a ground­ed man­ner. Let us feel deeply, but act wise­ly. Let us be ten­der with one anoth­er, and strong enough to serve.