I’m so glad you brought up the spectrum of empathy. I had never heard of it before, but I swear it was the exact conversation I had with my therapist this week, but in different words. We were talking about standing strong in our own emotion and choosing not to take on the emotions of others, but I was confused about how we’re supposed to “attune” to our partners and friends while also standing strong in our own emotion. Apparently they are not mutually exclusive as I thought they were. Apparently having boundaries for our emotions is a skill to be developed. I always considered myself an empath, but now I’m seeing I just have low emotional boundaries. As I dive deeper into acting, however, I am wondering if closing myself off to others’ emotions will make them harder to access when I do want to feel them, which would be upsetting for me. Also, just knowing where that emotional boundary sits for myself is has got me worried I won’t know when I’ve breached my boundary. I tend to swing wide in my emotions. Either I’m completely closed off or sitting in hysteria and grief with others feelings. It’s super hard for me to find the middle ground or to feel like I have control over my feelings.
Unfortunately there are innocent victims in every war. Do you also have empathy for the Israelis whose family members were raped, tortured, and/or killed by Palestinian terrorists, the Israelis who are still held hostage in Gaza, and the Jews around the world who feel unsafe because of Muslim terrorists, terrorist sympathizers and their leftist supporters violently protesting in the streets for Jews to be killed?
I’m so glad you brought up the spectrum of empathy. I had never heard of it before, but I swear it was the exact conversation I had with my therapist this week, but in different words. We were talking about standing strong in our own emotion and choosing not to take on the emotions of others, but I was confused about how we’re supposed to “attune” to our partners and friends while also standing strong in our own emotion. Apparently they are not mutually exclusive as I thought they were. Apparently having boundaries for our emotions is a skill to be developed. I always considered myself an empath, but now I’m seeing I just have low emotional boundaries. As I dive deeper into acting, however, I am wondering if closing myself off to others’ emotions will make them harder to access when I do want to feel them, which would be upsetting for me. Also, just knowing where that emotional boundary sits for myself is has got me worried I won’t know when I’ve breached my boundary. I tend to swing wide in my emotions. Either I’m completely closed off or sitting in hysteria and grief with others feelings. It’s super hard for me to find the middle ground or to feel like I have control over my feelings.
Polling data suggests that about 75% of Palestinians (in Gaza and the West Bank) support Hamas’s October 7 massacre:
https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1731228679382999123
Unfortunately there are innocent victims in every war. Do you also have empathy for the Israelis whose family members were raped, tortured, and/or killed by Palestinian terrorists, the Israelis who are still held hostage in Gaza, and the Jews around the world who feel unsafe because of Muslim terrorists, terrorist sympathizers and their leftist supporters violently protesting in the streets for Jews to be killed?
Of course I do. I hope for peace 🫶