Why are we here in this state of sustained historical cruelty? The pondering of this actuality leads to all kinds of heart wrenching possibilities.
, author of on Substack offers: we are here due to “a poverty of empathy.”A poverty of empathy.
poverty = the state of BEing in scarcity or lack; insufficient in amount
empathy = “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another. Also: the capacity for this” - so says Merriam-Webster
We are here due to an overarching inability and unwillingness by far too many to stand in the shoes of another. To view life through the lens of a neighbor. To imagine both the heart ache and the heart reach of someone who looks, lives or loves differently than you, I or we do. To remember we are but part of nature rather than lording over it.
This begs the question, what is underneath all that?
While FEAR seems both far too simplistic and way too obvious, it may just be spot on. Inherited fear, fear in response to true threat, fear in response to perceived threat, adopted fear, conditioned fear…however it arrived, it lurks and lives within all of us. And if allowed to flourish, its appetite devours the very nourishment that empathy requires.
I can speak only from my perspective and lived experience, and the fear I will address here is subversive fear. Not the kind arising in the moment of true threat, yet rather that insidious, old fear I carried around for ages from who knows where or when. The fear I inherited from my parents? From childhood trauma? My first confrontation with a bully? The chill conjured in my gut when authority figures dressed me down? That confounding fear I longed to finally understand so I could abolish it.
Then a truly helpful guide suggested that fear is part of the bricks and mortar of existence. We don’t abolish it. Rather, we learn to live with it in its proper size.
When I shifted my lens to gaze upon it that way, I recognized this ancient fear was the one I assigned as driver, over and over again. The one I fed and propped up because it was such a familiar thread within the fabric of my life. What might happen if I ceased to feed this parasitical force? Ordered it to the back seat while I took over the wheel as driver? Or maybe even thanked it for keeping me safe in past times of true duress, while letting it know that it’s once useful service was no longer necessary? Could I live with fear, now viewing it as part of my life force, yet in new relationship with it like taking off a pair of painful shoes that no longer fit, yet knowing full well they were still in my closet?
And let’s not get those shoes confused with walking a mile in the shoes of another, which brings us round to wonder what any of this have to do with empathy?
By nature, I am an empath which is both a blessing and a challenge. It is a gift to attune to the energies and emotions of others, yet it is something else entirely when that old fear kicks in because of what I am sensing in another human, transforming me into a shapeshifter in order to accommodate, keep the peace, or to avoid conflict. People pleasing is not empathy, yet rather a survival mechanism born of subversive fear that disconnects me from my authentic self and short circuits the healing that true empathy brings.
Fear stands as the great disruptor that pulls us from access to the largesse of our hearts and genuine soul. I don’t know how it manifests in you, or shades the actions you take within the world. How it impacts your voice or the way you show up. The way you view and treat others. I’m simply offering a glimpse of how it has operated within me, so as to declare that I’ve got no space nor time for this great disruptor to drive me around.
There’s truly vital work to do right now in opposition to both individual as well as collective cruelty coming through our fellow humans, who no doubt are fueled by their own relentless fear. I need to show up in my truth, rather than bend or shape shift to quiet or comply with the demands of their cruel run wild.
Empathy bridges rather than divides. Heals in place of harm. Can we begin at last, as a species, to build a wealth of empathy as antidote to this egregious lack of it? This calls for each and every one of us to own our fear, whatever well it springs from. OWN IT! Stop feeding it, reposition it to the back seat, and allow empathy the space it deserves to grow and flourish between us all. We finally take off our cruel shoes, so we can actually stand in the shoes of another.
EPILOGUE
The words below arrived in a flash while I was riding a bike years ago. A story longing to be sung. So they became a song. I sang this song solo a year later in the world premiere of the performance piece IN THE COMPANY OF GHOSTS.
As I did then, I do now. I raise my voice to the deep roots of the fear within me.
CRUEL SHOES
© 2017 Lyrics by Adrienne J. Wehr - Music by Frank Ferraro, Wehr, Bud Kelly & Beth Claussen
I’m taking these shoes off
Don’t wanna wear you any more
Taking these shoes off
Live in the corner, over there on the floor
Taking these shoes off
More than enough without you on
Taking these shoes off
You no longer belong
Get out of my mind
This is not your place
Devour as you will
Give me my space
Cruel Shoes
You break me
Cruel Shoes
You save me
Parasite
I’m stopping the fight
When I starve you
You can’t harm
Ahhhhh
Seeing you
right-sized now
As a strange
sort of charm
That teaches me when I face you
That reaches me when I misplace you
Shows me the way
Nearly every day
Oh
so much I need to say
so much I need to say
Like
getting comfortable
with the ache
Yeah
That’s the ride
That carries me forward
Beyond this place I hide
Cruel Shoes
You break me
Cruel Shoes
You save me
Not gonna wear you
Not any more
Live in the corner
Over there
On the floor
Above photo by Heather Mull https://www.heathermull.com/
Meet you next time in our next float on The Golden Boat.
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