Dispassionate Empathy

This oxymoronic term resonates curiously with what is (possibly) true.  And the seeming truth of dispassionate empathy is that it is momentary, usually fleeting and almost always misunderstood.  Why is this?  Dispassionate empathy is a delicate (yet powerful) experience that can never be static, contrived or a destiny to be reached.  Like presence or wisdom, it's a movable feast, something we travel in and out of on a momentary basis.  Our human propensity is to make and understand things hard and fast, to have things known, to be static; black and white.  Dispassionate Empathy can not be a given known.  It's an experience in an often 'gray' moment, not be harnessed.

dis·pas·sion·ate  not influenced by strong feeling; especially : not affected by personal or emotional involvement*

Dispassion is a place a lot of caretakers find themselves after having their compassion take one too many trips on the heart-pull roller coaster.  It's a survival place, a space to operate from where one can feel accomplished in their skill efficacy without taking the risk of entering the healing relationship.  It keeps them emotionally safe, fairly free of confusion and armored to the hilt.  Being habitually armored is a slow, numbing soul death, not to be wished on anyone. All caretakers are required to be compassionate, yet struggle to maintain a professional distance to avoid over-involvement.  This is between a rock and a hard-place.  Burnout is a given when sitting between these two stools, or hanging open or closed hearted; it is to be expected when a study and a practice of a therapeutic (double sided) empathy has not been seriously undertaken.

em·pa·thy: 1. the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it;  2. the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner*

I almost did not include the first definition of empathy above, as it seems to be counter to the second definition.  But I am curious and appreciate the other side of the coin, as it completes the entirety and ultimately the whole rings more true.  The imagination (being an integral part of the human makeup) is open to coincide with being available to impressions.  In that act, one's knowledge/experience base is recognized and tweaked; one feels a twinge of familiarity.  Having experienced well a feeling scenario one can:  project it onto another (if a healing hasn't been had and self asks to go there again to be healed) or if a healing has been had, one usually feels compelled to merely be with it while witnessing another find their way, somewhat separated and internally active while being externally passive (another intriguing oxymoron!).

This is a practice.  It's also a spiritual quest.  The spirit is infused in the back-and-forth of the dual action/effort of separating and resonating.  Listening, staying close to the response (not the reaction), witnessing the pull and resistance that moves from inside to out and back again.  The practice of dispassionate empathy is allowing light to filter into the quiet of an observation, remembering one's place, applying restraint when necessary and affirmation otherwise.  Mostly, dispassionate empathy is about maintaining one's inner and outer vertical, losing it and reclaiming it again, repeatedly.  It is a practice.  Some moments we are better at it than others.  When it arrives, we hope to celebrate its manifestation.  When our personal tension keeps it at bay, we hope to forgive ourselves.


* m-w.com