The Power of Empathy

Hello everybody, thanks for joining me again this evening. This evening I'm going to be looking at empathy, different kinds of empathy, why empathy is important, what we can get from empathy, how we can use empathy. I'm also going to be looking at where there can be a deficit, people lack empathy, why that might be, some of the reasons. I'm going to be looking as well at what's commonly referred to as a super empath, some of the characteristics of a super empath. And lastly, I think most importantly, I'm going to be looking at how empathy, when it's used effectively, how we can really benefit from it, if you will, the power of empathy. But empathy, as I often say, empathy, compassion, patience, things like that, without boundaries, without self-awareness, can sometimes be self-destructive, which is why I'm going to be looking at the power at the end of it, how we can use it effectively. First of all, what is empathy? Well, as I say, there are different kinds of empathy. I tend to look at empathy as you could see someone who's maybe struggling, they've hurt themselves, they've injured themselves, maybe their leg is in plaster, they're using crutches. You look at them, and it doesn't take a genius to work out they've injured themselves, they've hurt themselves. There's something else whenever we can look at someone who's struggling, someone is in pain with the crutches and so on. We can look at them and we can think, oh, that looks awkward, or that looks sore, so we're empathising there. There is something different, again, when we see that person in pain, they're struggling, and we ask, do you need some assistance? Is there anything I can do to help? So there are different ways of looking at empathy, but empathy, it's like a multifaceted thing, and it's a human trait that can help us to understand other people's perspectives and emotions and so on. And it's really useful, I think it's essential actually, in helping us to form connections with others. It can promote compassion, not just among individuals, but with groups as well. It can foster a sense of community. That being said, sometimes people lack empathy, and sometimes all of us may lack empathy in certain situations, but it's only because maybe we don't pick up on something. And some people, they might struggle to pick up on social cues. They might not necessarily understand why someone feels the way they do. That doesn't necessarily make them a monster or something. When we talk about lack of empathy, we often talk about narcissistic people. So yes, there is a lack of empathy there. But a lack of empathy does not necessarily make someone a monster. It means, as I say, maybe they just can't pick up on certain social cues. They may feel regret, and they may try harder. Sometimes it can cause an anxiety in them, but the important thing is there is no intent to hurt. It's just, as I say, they may just not pick up on certain things. But looking at the different kinds of empathy, first of all, there would be what's known as a cognitive empathy. Now, this is just the ability to be able to understand what other people think, why they think it, and how they might feel. And we can think about it in a way that's objectively. We can think about it objectively, if you will. Cognitive empathy is really useful for things like conflict resolution, for understanding communication. We can understand different viewpoints. We can take different viewpoints on board and maybe come to some kind of consensus. Then there's what's known as effective empathy. And that's sometimes known as emotional empathy. Now, that goes a bit further than the cognitive empathy. That's being able to resonate with other people's emotions, their joys, their fears, their sadness, their pain, their excitement, whatever. And it can lead to deeper emotional connections. It's like you imagine two people when they fall in love. There's a lot of empathy there. They're really, really buzzing off each other. There is also a compassionate empathy. Now, a compassionate empathy is, it's not just recognizing the other person's thoughts and their feelings and so on. But also being motivated to help them, not necessarily try to fix them or try to rescue them, which is something I'm going to look at later on when it comes to the boundaries and so on. But just like I said, with the example I gave earlier, you see someone, they're in pain, they're struggling, they're using crutches, their legs and plaster, they're finding it hard to move. That's when we can ask, can I help you? Or do you need some assistance? Is there anything I can do? That's the compassionate empathy. And that kind of empathy can be important in promoting a behavior that fosters care, as I say, among everybody. The thing about the compassionate empathy is it's not just taking a personal responsibility, which is important, of course. The impact we have on others, our emotional intelligence. But it also fosters collective responsibility, recognizing the impact we have, as I say. You know, when we help others out, they're going to help us, things like that. There is also something I came across recently, it's quite, I find it quite curious, it's what's known as a somatic empathy. And that's a fascinating form of empathy. It's when people experience physical sensations as a response to the emotional or physical sensations of others. For instance, again, you see that person with the broken leg and somatic empathy, someone might feel some kind of physical discomfort suddenly triggered in them. So that's a new thing. I'm really not, well, it's new to me anyway. I'm going to have a look at more depth than that. I think that's really interesting. Lastly, there would be what's known as a spiritual empathy. Now, a spiritual empathy would be allowing people to connect on quite a spiritual level. For instance, you might have two people who have a different faith, a different worldview, a different religion or whatever, but they can still connect because they recognize the core of that faith. You know, whether it's their belief in God or their belief in the universe or nature or whatever it happens to be, there is still a goodness in them. They want to bring out the best in others and things like that. So there can be that kind of empathy, spiritual empathy where people connect on that kind of level. Lastly, and this is something I've talked about on my channel quite a few times, there's what's known as dark empathy. When we talk about narcissistic people being low on empathy, it's not that they don't have any empathy. Sometimes again, they just might not pick up on certain cues. But sometimes you might get what's known as a dark empathy, and this would be more common with people who are perhaps on that dark triad. You'd see different elements of psychopathy, which is being callous, not really caring about others. There's the narcissism, the sense of entitlement, the selfishness, the being disagreeable. There's Machiavellianism, which is again being duplicitous and manipulative. It's a means to an end. They do whatever they have to do, say whatever they have to say just to get them what they want. The last part of that would be sadism, and that's when they take pleasure in inflicting pain on others. Either that or they inflict pain and misery on others as a means to an end just to get them what they want to control and dominate. But there is a dark empathy there in the sense that they know what hurts because it would hurt them. They also know what pleases because it would please them. And people with dark empathy, I've heard it described as it's having empathy without the compassion or without the sympathy. They can be very manipulative, exploitative. They can tap into other people's vulnerabilities and other people's fears, but they can also tap into other people's hopes and dreams, whatever it is that they can exploit at a later date. When you think of the dark empathy, again, there can be a cruelty there, if you will, usually because if the sadism is comorbid with it, they know what hurts. And the lack of empathy for others is not necessarily that they don't know. Again, sometimes it's getting them what they want. Other times, again, if you think of the psychopathy part, they just don't care. It doesn't matter. It's like other people are just a thing to them. They're just a means to an end. They're an object, if you will. There is another side to dark empathy, which, if you will, they're like emotional vampires. It's the people who feed off the emotions, feed off the reactions of others just to fuel their own needs. They're the sort of person that tends to leave other people emotionally exhausted, emotionally drained. So there are just some of the different kinds of empathy, but there is much more to empathy than that, because empathy, if you will, it's a very important part of emotional intelligence. And we need emotional intelligence for things like human interaction. We can pick up on nuance. We can recognize when criticism is being constructive. It's more about maybe something we're not doing properly in a way to improve it, as opposed to a harsh judgment on us as a person. Again, you know, the narcissistic types, when they lack empathy, they might not understand why someone is being critical, trying to help them, because again, they might feel as if that is an attack on their very core. With emotional intelligence and with empathy, we can also recognize the difference between maybe good-humored banter, between friends and unkind, humiliating humor, which again, some narcissistic types would engage in. They like to hurt others. They like to embarrass them. Again, they feed off the reaction. And the emotional intelligence, the empathy that comes with empathy, can also help us to be open to other people's perspectives. We can recognize, we can have a level of humility. In other words, we know we don't know everything. We know there's maybe a better way of doing something. There's always something new to learn. But again, sometimes whenever people lack empathy, it can be for many different reasons. And say, sometimes we just don't pick up on things. Sometimes we don't necessarily understand. And even very empathic people, sometimes they don't necessarily pick up on something. And I think there can be different reasons for this. I'm just going to give my thoughts, so you're welcome to tell me I'm wrong. These are just my thoughts. I think one of the reasons why we sometimes miss things could be because of, say, social media, because we can read something. And when we read something, we might not necessarily pick up on the nuance. We might not necessarily recognize it as being sarcastic, especially if we see it just by itself. We might not see it in the context of a lot of other comments. Also, with social media, there's been a huge replacement, particularly since the lockdown, and things like face-to-face connections. So again, it reduces things like cues, body language, facial expressions, tones of voice. So we can miss certain things that way. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean we're doing anything wrong, but that's just one of the reasons I think that there can be, if you will, an empathy deficit. Not always necessarily understanding what's going on. Another reason, and I'm going to be very careful how I say this, but sometimes, I wouldn't say it lessens our empathy, but sometimes trauma, emotional trauma, can have an impact on our empathy. And what I mean by that is people who have experienced significant emotional trauma and abuse and things like that, they can become very defensive because, again, being hurt so much. And being defensive isn't necessarily a bad thing. We all have defense mechanisms, and they are, if you will, they're instinctive, they're unconscious, they kick in straight away. So someone who has maybe been in a long-term abusive situation, they may find their empathy a little askew, if you will, because sometimes people become so preoccupied with their pain, again, they're being hypervigilant. Whenever someone acts in a certain way, they may assume that person's trying to hurt them. Now, that person may be, but other times, again, they might not pick up on a nuance, they might not pick up on a certain thing. Other times, the way the empathy can be affected is they can become overly compassionate. This is very common, and it's not a bad thing. I think this is a good thing, but it's something that a lot of us need help and support with. When people have been hurt, quite often, something happens to them, and they do not want other people to struggle the way they did. They do not want anyone else to have to go through the hell they did. So they become very, very compassionate, and as much as that's a good thing, the downside of that is being overly compassionate can actually leave them open to being exploited by others, especially someone who's very manipulative and might pretend that they're in pain, or they really need help. And that person is doing everything they can to help, because they do not want this manipulative person to struggle the way they did. So there are just some of the ways in which we can struggle with our empathy. But looking at our empathy deficits, the different things we can do to help is, well, first of all, if you will, just raising our self-awareness. I've talked previously on some of the live streams about building on our self-awareness, looking at what we feel, why we feel, what we believe, and why we believe it. Where did it come from? What does it mean right now? Recognizing that maybe yesterday's situation is not present today, and so this person, they may be behaving in a similar way, but they're not the same person. It can also help us with our active listening, which I'm going to come back to later on. With our empathy, we can actively listen to people. So we're not just hearing what's being said. We can hear why it's, or we can pick up maybe on why it's being said. What lies behind it? We can look at tone of voice. We can see body language. We're also listening to someone and not necessarily, as they're talking, we're already formulating an answer. Even if someone's telling us a problem, we're not necessarily already thinking, well, what's your solution? We may be thinking in different ways, maybe thinking, well, you know, does this have a solution? Or, you know, is it maybe about helping this person work through what their options are? There's a lot of different things we can do. Now, a question that came up when I talked about talking about empathy was a super empath. Now, that's the thing about a super empath. A super empath is very, very, I would say, a heightened sensitivity. It's almost like a heightened empathy. It's like an intense empathy. They don't just recognize the feelings and emotions of others. A super empath, it's almost like they feel it themselves. It's like they over-identify. They can feel those emotions as if they're their own. When someone else is really excited, they get really excited with them, for them even. Whenever someone is really angry, they might get angry with them. And I'll give you an example. I've mentioned my therapist before, you know, I'm sure she's, I don't know if she watches me or not, but I mentioned my therapist before. And again, I remember sitting with her, telling her about a situation. And as I'm telling her the situation, I could find myself getting really agitated, and I'm getting very animated, and I'm talking about this. And I could see her shifting about in her seat uncomfortably. And I'm thinking to myself, I'd better rein this in a bit, you know, I'm upsetting her, I'm angering her, she's not really wanting to hear what I'm saying. But I just couldn't stop myself. It just kept coming out as I was telling her. And it was only when I'd finished, you know, she kind of moved about a bit uncomfortably. And she said, I find myself getting really angry for you. And that was, I thought that was a very, very powerful thing. That was someone actually, again, that was the super empathy, that was heightened empathy, that was advanced empathy, that was someone feeling what I felt in that moment at that time. And it's, I couldn't tell you how incredibly powerfully healing it was. I really do waffle sometimes I go way off track back to what I was talking about the super empath. Super empaths can also have a lot of intuition, they can have a lot of insight that can be very reflective. They're very good at reading between the lines, again, very good at picking up on nuance. They can pick up on social cues that others have missed. I think super empaths are the kind of people that can, they can pick up on the mood in a room. You know, they walk into a room, they can feel the mirth, the joy, you know, maybe there was a lot of fun, someone's just cracked a joke. But they can also feel the tension. As soon as they walk into a room, it's like this heightens like their Peter Parker spider sense or something. They can have a deep compassion. Super empaths often find a deep kind of fulfillment in not even just helping others, but even just being there for others. Someone might be going through a really difficult hard time. And maybe again, there is no actual solution to it. But the super empath, that's the sort of person who will sit with their friend, they will sit with their friend through that difficult time. Even if they don't do anything, they will just sit there. They're the person that their friend can turn to, they can talk to them. They're not necessarily going to dish out advice, they're not going to listen to them, they will hear them, they will validate them, they will even hug them if I have to. They are the person that if you will, albeit we all have different things going on, they will try to make themselves as available as possible. They don't like to let others down, so they will do what they can. Now on that, people who know super empaths will often tell you that when they're with that person, they feel understood, they feel heard, they feel comforted, they feel safe with that person. They can almost pick up, there is no malice in that person, even though they may get things wrong, they may be a little inappropriate sometimes, they may tell the wrong kind of joke, whatever, but there's no malice in them and they can sense that, they can get that from them. On the downside of being a super empath, because they absorb the emotions of others, it can be a gift, yes, but it can also be a burden. Because it does allow them to connect with others on many different levels, but it can also lead to emotional exhaustion. Now, a while ago, I talked about the drama triangle, if anybody heard that, if anyone remembers that. On that drama triangle, there's three different roles and one of them is rescuer, and at the very core of a rescuer, they believe I am good. Good people do good things, they like to help people, they like to support people, but sometimes they do it at the cost to themselves. Now, sometimes you might have a super empath who believes it is their role in life to do good, to be compassionate, to help others, but when they're doing it, it's almost like they're burning themselves out, they give everybody everything they have, and then afterwards, it's like there's nothing left for themselves, they can feel emotionally exhausted. The other thing about being a super empath is sometimes, because of that heightened sensitivity, they might struggle to assert boundaries. They find it very hard to say no. Remember, good people do good things, so they find it very hard to say no, especially if they find it difficult to differentiate their own emotions from other people. Sometimes there's a bit of an entanglement going on. So yes, it can be a gift, and they can be great people to be around, they could be the best friend you ever have, but it also comes with its challenges, okay? The heightened sensitivity, the absorbing everybody's emotions, as I say, can lead to burnout, it can lead to poor boundaries, and it's sometimes putting everybody else's needs in front of their own. They find themselves sometimes struggling, okay? So there are the different kinds of empathy, there are the different kinds of empath. Using empathy as a as I said, we all have defense mechanisms. Defense mechanism is like an unconscious thing, it kicks in automatically. A defense mechanism is our way of protecting ourselves from thinking, feeling, experiencing things that are really unpleasant. Now, the thing about defense mechanisms are, some are adaptive, and we learn them throughout our lives, by the way, these different defense mechanisms. Do you want to know what I think the first one we ever learn is? Just curious. This is what I think the first one we ever learn is, is denial. And I'll tell you why I think that is. You notice a toddler, you go into your room, and you see a toddler, and there's a mess, you know, there's jam and Ribena and chocolate, it's all over the carpet and the walls, and it's all over their face. And you say, did you make that mess? What's the No, denial. Okay, so I think that's why I'm maybe I'm wrong. I think that's the first one we ever learned. But we learn them throughout our lives, we learn different kinds of defense mechanisms, some are adaptive, some are useful, some are helpful. Some are maladaptive. I often think with narcissistic people, we see maladaptive techniques, or strategy mechanisms rather. And the reason why they're maladaptive is they believe it gets them out of a moment's distress, but it doesn't necessarily solve anything. Adaptive, adult adaptive defense mechanisms can help put a stop to something can help us get through something or can help put a stop to something for good. For instance, assertiveness, I think I would think of assertiveness as being a defense mechanism. We recognize we might have to have a difficult conversation. But we also recognize that if we do have that difficult conversation, we might not ever have to have it again, because it might put a stop to whatever it was. When the empathy is a defense mechanism, when it's maladaptive, it can be, again, just like being on that drama triangle, if I focus on other people's problems, I don't have to look at my own. If I keep on saying, yes, I feel bad, and people will, you know, think well of me, they won't reject me. And so again, it's not that helpful if we're end up with nothing, if we're getting burnt out. If we're dealing with everyone else's problems, where do our problems go? It's not like they suddenly go away, all we're doing is really ignoring them. But using it, using it as an effective kind of defense mechanism. Empathy, empathy can help us maintain a positive kind of self image, in the sense that we can be, but we recognize where it's coming from. It's maybe the job we were doing, as I said, or we're not really doing a good job. So criticism is there to help us improve, to do it a better way, to do it an easier way or whatever. So we recognize that the criticism, the negative feedback is not about us. It's about what we're doing. It's maybe about the behavior. We can recognize that someone is maybe asking us to behave in a certain way, that's not going to hurt them or harm them. And again, we can negotiate internally whether or not what they're asking for is reasonable. With boundaries, we can recognize even if the criticism is harsh, even if we're being insulted, we can recognize this is their stuff. This is not mine. This is about maybe their envy. This is maybe about their issues. This is maybe about their problems. This could be projection. This could be blame shifting. Our empathy helps us to understand that. Like I said earlier, it helps us to pick up on things. It also helps us to recognize repeated patterns of behavior. Because sometimes somebody might do or say something, we automatically think there's a red flag. Now it could well be. Could well be a red flag. If they keep doing a one-off, then it could have been, do you know what, they got out of bed the wrong side. Maybe they had a hard day at work. Maybe someone has just, you know, give it to them in the neck or whatever. But we see a change in their behavior. They'll either apologize and don't do it again, or even if they don't apologize, they don't do it again. They maybe try to make up for it so we can recognize those little things. Using it as a defense mechanism as well, it can be helpful with our ethical issues, our moral issues. Because we're not necessarily going to behave in a way that's overbearing or arrogant or, you know, antisocial or something like that. We're not going to steal from people. We're not going to hurt people. We're not going to insult people just for our own pleasure. It can help us to behave in a way that can foster better relationships. Going back to what I was saying earlier about the act of listening, we can actively listen to someone again, hear what it is they're saying, why they're saying it. We can maybe come to some kind of consensus because what we're not doing, as I said earlier, we're not already thinking of an answer because if we're doing that, we're not actually hearing what's being said. If we're actually listening to what they're saying rather than us come back with what we've assumed they've said, we can actually ask them, if we're not sure, we can ask them to clarify what they meant by it. When we're not mind readers, by the way, but we can get a feeling, we can go with a gut feeling. When someone is trying to manipulate us, when someone's lying to us, when someone's just trying to dump their stuff to us, when someone's just trying to dump their stuff, we can recognize that. We know the difference between what's mine and what's yours. With our empathy as well, we can recognize the difference between a good thing and the right thing because there is a difference between the two. For instance, saying yes to somebody might seem like a good thing but is it the right thing? Are we really helping that person if we just keep saying yes to them? Because sometimes what we're doing is maybe we're enabling them. Why would they take responsibility for themselves if we're doing it? Why would they do anything at all if we're going to be prepared to do it? We can also recognize the difference between caring about and caring for and there is a huge difference between the two. We can care about someone. I'll give you an example. You've got a friend and your friend tells you that if they're late once more, they're going to get fired. So you ask them, well, why? Why are you late? And they tell you, well, I go out partying every night. Don't come home until three o'clock in the morning. I'm drunk. Fall asleep on the stairs. So I wake up at quarter to nine and I have to rush into work wearing the clothes that I slept in, still smelling of drink. And the boss says if I do it once more, they're sick of this. I've been doing it for the past month or so. The boss tells me if I do it once more, I'm fired. Now you can care about them. You could say to them, well, what's going on? Why are you out partying every night? What's going on? Do you have a problem? Are you struggling? Do you think you might have a problem? Do you might maybe want to talk to your doctor? Do you maybe want to go to an AA? Start that again. Go to an AA meeting or whatever or, you know, this job's really important. You need it. It pays the rent. It pays the mortgage. You know, you worked very hard to get that job. You'll never get another job like it. You know, we can really care about someone. We can talk to them like that. Caring for would be you getting out of your bed, maybe about six o'clock, driving around to their house, banging on their door until they answer. Then you put them in the shower, sober them up, pour coffee down their throat, then put them into your car and drive them into work before nine o'clock. That's the difference between caring about and caring for. A bit graphic, probably not as extreme as that, but I hope you get the difference. There's a difference between caring about and caring for. There's a difference between supporting and helping and trying to fix and trying to rescue. We can help someone with their struggles. We can help them in ways that maybe they can't help themselves. Maybe we have a piece of information or we have a skill set or we might have a phone number of something or somebody, whatever. We can help them that way. We can support them that way and we can encourage. That's different from trying to fix and trying to rescue. That's a completely different thing. Using our empathy as well. We can recognize when someone is talking to us. We can pick up on certain things. For instance, do their words match their actions? Does the look on their face, their tone of voice, does that match what they're saying? Are they saying it? Are they looking at their feet? You know, someone tells you, yeah, I'm fine, and they're looking at their feet. You kind of get a sense that maybe they're not. Or they may be making glaring eye contact. They may be grinning as they're telling you, you know, if you do this, if you do that, the other, you know, my head will fall off and roll down the street. It'll be all your fault. You know, the dog will hate you and everything. We get a sense of what's going on. We could be the same promise over and over again, but we're not actually seeing any action. We can also recognize when someone sounds upset, when they sound angry, when they sound as if maybe they are lying to us, or maybe they are really excited about something, or maybe they are in some kind of distress. Again, we're not mind readers, but our empathy can help us to connect on that level where we're able to see some of these things, able to see some of these things. We can also learn with our rights to all, obviously, you're wrong, or, you know, you're wrong. There can be different things going on, but what we can do, again, we can foster that sense of humility, and humility is not looking at our feet and saying, I'm no good at anything. I know nothing. Humility is recognizing that sometimes other people have information we don't. Other people can do things that we can't. Sometimes other people have an insight or an experience that we could learn from, and we can learn to be politely curious. We can ask more questions. Depending on who it is, depending on the situation, I sometimes call it the Columbo approach. If anybody remembers the old Detective Columbo, what I liked about him is, first of all, you always knew he did it. You see it at the beginning of the episode, and he just spends the entire episode asking them how they did it, and then he nicks them at the end, you know, locks them away, but if you watch him, he's always, every time he's asking them a question, he's asking them about something that doesn't make sense. You know, you said this, and yet that, so he's asking for clarity, and he's always polite. He always calls them sorry, always calls. Really, all we're doing is, we're asking, help me understand. Help me understand why you think that. Help me understand why you're saying that. Help me understand why this is important. Again, when we get the information, because some people are the information we need, and as I said, we can discern whether or not what they're asking for, whatever they're saying, whether or not it's reasonable. So that, if you will, kind of weighs through whether or not it's reasonable. So that, if you will, kind of weighs through a bit earlier than usual, but that is, if you will, that's the power of empathy, whereas a lack of empathy can lead to, you know, strained relationships. It can lead to a lack of understanding. It can lead to arguments and so on. It can also lead, depending, again, depending on the person, depending on what's going on, can also lead to an anxiety, to a stress. Some people, again, who lack empathy, they might struggle because they don't know that they may be offending someone. They don't know that they may be causing some kind of distress. This leads to a kind of anxiety. It could lead to like an avoidance behavior. They're afraid to do or say anything in case they get rejected. We can also recognize that without healthy boundaries, empathy can be exploited. Now, a lot of people watching my channel, a lot of people that watch my channel have been in situations and in relationships, whether that was a partner or a family, a workplace or a friendship group or whatever, where the fact that they cared was maybe exploited. You know, if you don't do this, you're a horrible person. If you don't give me that, you're a horrible person. Look at, you know, after all I did for you, I bought you a birthday cake, you know, three years ago, whatever. People can find themselves being exploited because of their empathy. With boundaries, we can still have empathy. We can still care. We can still be compassionate. But we recognize, as I said, the difference between caring about and caring for. We recognize what someone else's stuff and what's ours. We recognize that if someone is maybe being envious and they're doing or saying something, we recognize that maybe they're not trying to find a way to illustrate it this way. You know, you're here and someone is here. We recognize that what they're not trying with boundaries, we can recognize that. Again, we connect accordingly. So that's a brief outline of empathy, the different kinds of empathy. As I said, I'll go through them very briefly again. You can look them up. There's a lot of information on them. The first one is cognitive empathy. Again, cognitive empathy is, it's really useful for things like conflict resolution. It's good for understanding different viewpoints, different perspectives. It's good for being able to pick up on different nuances and things like that. There's affective empathy, known as emotional empathy. That's when we can understand somebody's feelings, why they feel it. We can resonate with them. There's compassionate empathy, and that's the emotional empathy. That's when we can understand somebody's feelings, why they feel it. We can resonate with them. There's compassionate empathy, and that's of somebody else and what they're going on. And there's the spiritual empathy, and that's being able to connect on that different kind of plane. The last one, as I said, it's the last one, and the one that I often talk about on my channel, is the dark empathy. That's the manipulative, the hurtful, kind of exploitative kind of empathy. So I'm going to do what I normally do. I'm going to have a look at some questions. Let's do the first one I've seen. Anne Louise Colombo was my detective. Tons of narcissist behaviors in that program. Absolutely, yeah. There was a lot of, well, if you think about it, they were all murderers and embezzlers and so on. So they're not what you call nice people to begin with. Not that I'm saying all narcissistic people are like that, but all the people in that were sort of a real dark personality types. But yeah, Colombo, again, it was always one more question, one more question, just one more question, just one more thing. Something doesn't make sense. Help me understand. And he was always polite every single time. He didn't set out to antagonize someone. Yes, he did come across as a pest, but he wasn't setting out to be a pest. He wasn't setting out to antagonize. My memory of Colombo as well, why he's my favorite, is every Saturday I used to visit my granny, and the reason why he's my favorite. It's a great day. Is that your real name? Today is a really great day. That's something I touched on earlier. Sometimes we have been in situations and our empathy can be affected. If our empathy had been exploited, if it had been trodden over, if it had been actually used to hurt us, we can become very, very guarded. We either become very guarded or, and I suppose both is possible, we become overly compassionate. And I'm not saying one is good, one is bad. They both have their strengths. Sometimes we do need to be a bit more guarded. I would say boundaried rather than guarded. We can be boundaried. Being overly compassionate is good, but also being overly compassionate can lead us to burnout. It can also leave us open to be exploited by others. Others who are every bit, if not more so, manipulative. I'm Noel. Suspect INFJs can experience somatic empathy? Yeah, I don't see why not. It's feasible. INFJs do tend to be able to pick up on a lot of things. INFJs as well, they tend to be very compassionate people in the first place. Sunflower Beth, I'm late but here. Hello Sunflower Beth, nice to see you. Talked about it recently in a video. There is what's known as a narcissistic compassion, but that's self-serving. It's more about what's in it for them and it's more about, it's like a means to an end. It's a form of manipulation. It's like a tool that they use in order to look a certain way or sound a certain way or come across a certain way. So there is a I would agree. But empathy, genuine compassion, I think comes from empathy. So there is a difference between empathy and compassion, but I think we need the empathy whenever the compassion is genuine. It's not just, like I said earlier, a means to an end. I get the super empath experience myself sometimes and it's interesting when you say you get it sometimes because I think like empathy is like everything else. I think it's on a spectrum. Sometimes it can be heightened. We can be in situations where it is really, really heightened, especially if it's someone that we love dearly, someone that we care about, someone that we think the world of. Our empathy can be really, really heightened at that time. There's a lot of care, there's a lot we want to do to help that person. Other times, you know, we might just be able to pick up on the mood. If we are in an environment where maybe there is a lot of tension already, we're going into it, but we're almost watching out for the tension. We're waiting to see what the next explosion might be. It's good to follow through with the things they promise. Their words match their deeds. At face value, it's not always easy, but it is worth paying attention. I'm not saying we study them, we stare at them or whatever, but we just pay attention. Today is a really good day. Again, today is a really good day. Sometimes I feel a thing. Sometimes, you know, we talk about over-empathizing. Sometimes we can't do that in super empaths because they feel other people's. It can be difficult, I'd imagine, to be able to separate what are your own feelings from someone else's. I can tell when I miss from a meeting, I can pick up on the energy levels, feel guilty for not being there. Yeah, that's an example of empathy. You pick up on the energy. You maybe feel as if you've done something wrong, but something worth paying attention to is you can empathize, you can pick up on the energy meetings or the energy at those meetings. Sometimes, they may be feeling something because of something that was said in the meeting or maybe something that's going on externally. It's not necessarily anything to do with you. It could be, I don't know, but it doesn't necessarily have to be anything to do with you. Empathic people, sometimes, again, they take on board what other people feel. Highly sensitive people will take on what's going on with other people as if they own it and as if they have to try to do something about it. You have to learn to say no to people. No is not a bad word. Sometimes, it's a complete sentence. No is a wonderful word. It can be. It's mentioned about always putting yourself first. Sometimes, we really do need to put ourselves first in the sense that we cannot always help other people unless we're looking after ourselves because we only have so much capacity. There is that element to it. The thing about having effective empathy, having all the different kinds of empathy, being able to tap into them, is recognizing there is the need for personal responsibility. I have to look after myself. Otherwise, I can't look after others, but it also brings the collective responsibility in the sense that, yeah, I can look after myself so that I can help look after others and recognize that, you know, in a good ideal situation, a good ideal relationship, whatever, they're going to look after you as well. It's like a mutual thing. It's reciprocal in parts of the world. It's funny. When I read comments, I read them in my accent. It's, oh, it's strange. I don't know. I keep forgetting from other parts of the world. Can you comment on the juxtaposition of introversion and super empathy, also empathy and avoidance of people? I'll have to think about that for a moment, think about the question and see if I can process this. Introversion and super empathy. Introverted people, they can look inwards. They can be self-reflective and so on. With super empathy, there is that as well. But remember, it's taking on board and almost owning what other people feel as if their emotions and so on. And the avoidance of people. Some people can be introverted. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. Extroversion, introversion, I will say there's no good, bad. It doesn't even have to be one or the other. Everything is in balance and appropriate levels and so on. Introverted people, some people who are introverted, they find other people difficult. They can become emotionally drained very, very quickly. That doesn't make them bad, doesn't necessarily make them shy. It just makes them who they are. They probably find they don't necessarily, they're not necessarily arrogant, they're not prideful or whatever. And the avoidance of people. When it comes to avoiding people, there's not really one answer for that. There could be many different reasons. There could be avoiding people because maybe we do find them difficult. There could be avoiding certain kinds of people, again, because maybe they are difficult. There could be avoiding people, but only really at certain times. Like when someone's tired, they just want a bit of space. They want to rest. They want to relax. They just want a bit of downtime. They want their own space. They want to be creative. There's a lot of different reasons. This is moving so quickly, it's hard for me to keep up. Narcissistic people with HSB traits are so hard for me to tell from HSB's with compassionate empathy. Again, none of us are mind readers. I often, as I said quite a few times earlier, it's sometimes looking at repeated patterns of behavior. Every single one of us now, when I talk about a video, when I do a video and narcissism happens to be the topic, I'll talk about the common characteristics. But what I try to make clear is the common characteristics are long-term, they are consistent, they are pervasive. It's almost like every day. Because if you just looked at the characteristics by themselves, every single one of us can be like that from time to time. Every single one of us can be disagreeable. Every single one of us can have a sense of entitlement, not necessarily a sense of entitlement, but we have a sense of entitlement in the sense that we believe we deserve to be treated fairly. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. If you look at the characteristics, they don't sound like they're bad. Even being resistant to criticism. Nobody likes criticism. But being highly resistant. And the behaviors, as I say, they're all over the place and they are long-term, they are every day and sometimes twice on a Sunday. So it can be easier whenever you start to look at long-term repeated patterns and in different situations. It might not necessarily be the same thing, but there can be, you know, if it's like good deeds, altruism, compassion, things like that, the only time it happens is when there's an audience. If there's no one around, no one to see it, you know, they could care less. When it comes to things like the blame shifting, all of us will do that. Just like the toddler, you know, did you make that mess? No, because we think we're in trouble. But again, constant denial, constant blame shifting. It doesn't matter what it is, you know, they burnt the toast and it was your fault, you know, it starts raining and it was your fault. Whatever it was, you're looking at long-term consistent behaviors. Otherwise we're just looking at something once in a while, which all of us can be guilty of just once in a while. Certainly maybe not to the degrees to that level, but we can all be a little like that once in a while. Covert narcissism means it's more hidden. Other people might not even see it. Yeah, the way I would describe the difference, if you will, with grandiose narcissism, it's almost like you see it coming because you see a lot of arrogance there. They like to be the center of attention. If I use this analogy with grandiose narcissism, it's like looking at a great white shark. It's coming right at you with covert narcissism. It's almost like a slow acting poison, but it says medicine on the bottle. Okay. Maybe that's a bit extreme, a bit graphic, but I hope you get what I mean. And lastly, okay. This helps them to be a lot less foolish for getting caught up more than once with chronically disagreeable people. Saying that their patterns aren't likely to change. Yeah, well, it really depends on the person. Some are so deeply ingrained that they've almost passed that. They've passed any help. They've no intention of changing. Other people, sometimes they get to a point where they realize something has to change. They're behaving in such a way, their partner's going to leave them and they don't know how to stop changing that way. So they might seek help or they might ask for help. They might do something and it might be difficult, but they might persevere. They might try. And then as I say, there's others who, no, it's everybody else has to change. The fault lies outside of me. Therefore, so does the solution. You're the one with the problem for how I behave. Therefore, you have to change. You have to adapt. You have to learn to live with it. Really depends on the person. Pretty much coming to the end. I hope you find this helpful. What I would like to say as I come to the end, and it's something I haven't mentioned previously on the channel, which is maybe should have. So I do apologize. It's a bit neglectful of me. Recently, I just passed 90,000 subscribers and I cannot tell you how much that has blown me away. When I started this channel, if I'd have got a hundred, I would have been doing cartwheels with excitement. It is, it's, it's overwhelming in the sense that, well, I do feel quite a sense of humility because I don't know everything. I talk about what I know, what I don't know. I have to research and sometimes I get it wrong and that's, that's only human nature, but at least I'll put my hands up. Sometimes I get it wrong. I'm mistaken. But for 90,000 people, even if it had to be 90 people to subscribe, as I say, it's, it's overwhelming. It's blown me away. It's, it's, it's very humbling as well. The thought that people do actually want to listen to Bowie Short Guy from Belfast walk along about personalities and relationships. It is very encouraging as well. And during the live streams, how will I put it this way? If you watch my videos and you watch me doing live streams, you know, I'm not a natural presenter. I can talk to a room of people. I can give lectures and I can talk stuff. I can, you know, explain things. It's easier because there's people in the room. I'm talking to a camera right now. There's, so there's no feedback. I'm not a natural presenter. I do struggle, but I'm learning and I really appreciate your patience. I appreciate everybody who subscribed, everybody who's watched. It is very encouraging. It is really helpful. And I do, I do hope that you do learn something from what I'm saying. So I always say you're welcome to disagree. There's things I miss. Sometimes I'm giving my opinion on something rather than maybe what the research says, or I might get my opinion on the research. You're welcome to disagree. People disagree with me sometimes in the comments of the videos. And sometimes I look at them and yeah, sometimes you get the odd troll, but more often than not you get, and they're actually pointing something out, something I've missed. And you know, I, I, I get as much from that as maybe someone does getting from watching me in the first place. So I really appreciate that. Thank you, Dr. McGee. Cherish Young. It's just, it's just darn, I'm not a doctor. As I often say, I'd love to be the doctor. I've even got a I'm, I'm just a therapist. That's all. I'm not a doctor. Something that maybe at some point I would have liked to have went on to do. I just never got around to it. So I'm fine with just that. Congratulations on your lovely style of presenting the issues and getting to the bits that matter. I appreciate that Ann Louise. Thank you. I do appreciate that. As I said, I'm not a natural presenter. There's a lot of guys on YouTube, people I watch and they're, they're very good. They're very slick. They're very rehearsed and they've got great cameras. They've got great sign. They've got great editing and they deliver it in a way that's really, really good. I learn a lot from them. Sometimes I'd like to be a bit like that, but until then I'm just going to mess about the way I do. It seems to be working for me. So again, thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate that. A video coming out tomorrow night comes from a question from, uh, uh, uh, what was the subject again? See my mind wanders, goes all over the place. Yeah. Cognitive dissonance. I was asked if I would talk about cognitive dissonance. Um, but then someone else had asked if I would talk about cognitive dissonance and how people, um, experience that if they've been in long-term abusive relationships. So what I've done is I've done a video. I'm just going to outline what it is, how we can experience it. Um, some of the common ways it can be experienced, some of the things that can bring it up, uh, and talk about how someone in a long-term situation, now talking about relationships, but it can also apply to a workplace. It can also apply to a family, um, any kind of unhealthy environment where someone is maybe being gaslit for so long, whenever someone has maybe had their boundaries crossed for so long. Um, so I'm going to talk about cognitive dissonance and that, um, I was going to, but it kind of run out of time. So I've left it open at the end of the video. If anybody wants me to talk a bit more about cognitive dissonance and ways to recognize when we are experiencing it and even ways to address it, then I'll be happy enough to do that. But anyway, until then, uh, this is a Sunday, which means the next time it's going to be on a Wednesday, which is going to be 10 days from now. I'm going to leave it open. As I say, um, I always ask, are there any topics you might want me to cover? But sometimes I will suggest something, which I've been doing recently. I might suggest something people might be interested in, but it comes from something that maybe someone had asked previously. Uh, let me see. Appreciate sincere over slick presenters. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I do appreciate that. Good stuff. Well said you're doing great. Do you know, everybody is just really left my ego so much. I couldn't, I couldn't begin to tell you. I really do appreciate that. Um, more information about cognitive dissonance would be wonderful. So helpful. Poison plays. Okay. You've just made my mind up for me. It doesn't matter who comments on it. I will talk more about cognitive. The video will be out tomorrow at about 6 PM my time, but I will talk a bit more about how to recognize it when we're experiencing it and some of the ways we can do to maybe address it. So until then, uh, the video will be out tomorrow as always. I appreciate your suggestions. I appreciate your feedback. Um, and in 10 days time, I'll see you live again. So between now and then look after yourselves and take care. And thanks for watching.