I’ve come to realize how much baggage I’ve been carrying by running Empathy Lab as a company and brand over the years. Not only do I try to embody an empathetic practice for myself, I’ve tried to support, guide, and coach others to do the same. I just recently started to take REAL inventory of my boundaries as well as the energy and baggage I am cultivating/carrying. I’ve also reminded myself of the enmeshment reality that I see in other people, yet rarely have i turned that light on me. I am so totally enmeshed and inundated in emotional contagions from others that I am suffocating on emotional empathy.
I don’t believe over indulgence in others emotional cocktails started when Empathy Lab began. It started way back in childhood and along the way I have created milestones to enshrine my chronic habit in fools gold. The milestones are still incredible parts of my life, my kindness with others, my relentless energy as a decathlete in undergrad, my pursuit of psychology and industrial design as professional foundations, my marriage and amazing kids, starting Empathy Lab and most recently Helper-ID, I’ve surrounded myself with incredible totems. Unfortunately, I did many of these things without boundaries and at the almost total surrender of myself and my being. I learned this habit from my mom at an early age and also learned to make fools gold out of things, experiences, and people from my grandparents.
I am not a wreck, nor am I broken. I am overloaded with other’s emotional baggage that I’ve told myself to carry because I am decathlete strong and I hold the Empathy Lab flag that must never droop, drop, or be stained by apathy. The emotional contagion I take on from neighbors, family, friends, of Facebook, the slower I will go and the harder it has become to hold this flag of empathy. I’ve taken on burdens, actually stolen them from loved ones and friends, neighbors and complete strangers because, “I AM STRONG”. How does one steal burdens, I take them on and tell others, “don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
I have t-shirts stating that this is my role in life, “empathy” on a green shirt, “vote empathy” on a blue shirt, and “empathy athlete” on a black shirt. This is my wardrobe for the most part and while the tri-blend shirts are comfy, they have retained stains and smells over the years and while I am out, I feel the need to perform for what’s written on my chest. These shirts have turned into modern hair shirts.
There comes a point where carrying all this needs to come with the questions, “Why?” I don’t have a good answer and “just because” is a horrible excuse. It is time for me to stop carrying, stealing, and being infected by others. Time to start holding my own emotions with love, pursue goals other than carrying things for others, and rebuild Shelton, Shai, and Bashir from the heart up. How does one drop something that others expect you to carry? How does one set boundaries in the collective experience of family and friends if they didn’t exist before? How do I, the proprietor of Empathy Lab retain the objective and change the story? I don’t have a direct answer quite yet, but I do believe that the answers might be discovered where empathy is hated.
My process so far:
Step one, recognize that I am in a state of overwhelm and my ability to help others is profoundly reduced.
Step two, take small actions to regain control of myself and shed the baggage that I’ve been carrying or allowing others to place on me. I am taking off my “empathy” uniform and renewing my love of myself beyond Empathy Lab, Intimacy Lab, or even Helper-ID. I am identifying the habits that are personal pitfalls and hijacking them. Facebook, Instagram, NPR News, Reddit…I have had many issues with them over the years and while going completely away from them, I need to reform my use of these platforms for as much personal growth, fun, and joy as possible.
I’m taking off my empathy t-shirts not because these people are right, but because I’ve been fighting their fight for them—carrying burdens they refuse to examine in themselves. – Claude AI Suggestion that I agree with.
Literature Collection on the Hate of Empathy
Here is something I wrote about “Hate of Empathy”. While it doesn’t go deep into all the aspects of where the hate is coming from and how it is manifesting, it does give you links to others blog posts and articles where they do go deep into the hate of empathy. From Elon Musk fear that empathy is destroying western civilization (I tend to agree in part, but it’s the weaponized empathy that’s doing the destruction) to evangelical Christians thinking empathy is the stairway to hell, there is a lot there to start educating yourself on.
Read my Hate of Empathy post in these places: 👇🏽
Hello, I am Shelton. 