Down in the dumps?

One of the many tent cities in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Photo taken by me in 2013

Lately, with news of the loss of a couple Army buddies, a recent tragic loss for some close friends and the addition of what seems to be a world in chaos, I can start to feel pretty down in the dumps if I am completely honest with you. I hurt for me, I hurt for those closest to me and hell, I even hurt for people I don’t even know. That is a lot of hurt to carry around. I sense actually that I am not alone in this. That we are moved to be empathetic through trainings and teachings and encouragements, and we begin to take on a level of burden that we can never really carry. We become overwhelmed by feeling what we are feeling and feeling what everyone else is feeling. This is of course magnified by social media and our ever connected lives. So what is the antidote? I am wondering if our empathy is leading us to entropy. One of the definitions of this word entropy, is the lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder. I take care here so you don’t misread me. I believe empathy is needed!! I hope you will continue to empathize with people. God knows we need it! But I wonder if you think of your mental, physical, spiritual health like I do. I see it as along a line. It has ups and down of course as all lives do, but as we empathize with everyone and everything around us, there is weight added to that movement along the line and it begins to draw us down, down in the dumps, down into anxiety, down further into depression and sometimes down into the grave.

Here is what I think about it (I’m by no means an expert or hold any credentials making me such). I think empathy, if it is to be a healthy part of any life, must lead eventually to compassion. Compassion is defined as suffering together. Like most of my writing, I like to break things down “Barney Style” for you. If I am with you and you are sharing trauma with me or something akin to it and I am being empathetic, then when you finally emote something, like crying for instance, the compassionate thing to do would be to cry with you. Think about it, when someone has shared with you something that is obviously heart wrenching do you just set there taking on the heart break and trying to be a tough solider for them or do you respond with their emotions? I was always told not to cry, not to show weakness, that people who were crying needed a “rock” to lean against in their times of trouble. Maybe the answer lies within the tears and not being the rock. After all, rocks sink and you know where sinking can take you.