Empathize and being overwhelmed

Somehow it is difficult for me to empathise without being overwhelmed. In a lot of areas, my mind is still binary or a black-and-white thinking. This is one of the area which I need to improve.

This is because it causes me to ignore many things that happens or it causes me to be overwhelmed where I don’t ignore. When somebody is having a struggle, I often put my position in their shoes. But because I am not them, I may not have the same readiness or strength as them that I felt overwhelmed or stressed. Or maybe I have the same strength as them but I am more sensitive that I dislike any kind of challenge.

This means I do not fully empathise other people. I only look at their problems and imagine how does it feel if the same thing happens to me. But I miss the part on how it feels for them given their unique background. This is a reminder as well that something that I think is ok does not necessarily mean if the other person is struggling on that due to certain reason.

For example, if I see people are scratched or wounded, somehow I feel pain or scared. This is not because I empathise, but I just project their wound to me and then mistakenly think that I empathise with them.

So, I need to learn not only to think how does it feel to me, but how does it feel to them. Also, I need to learn not to jump to the solution, but to think what are their needs, and what’s best for them, which sometimes mean for me to just listen and pray instead of quickly do something to try to address it without knowing the negative consequences of doing that both for me and them.