Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Empathy, as you said, is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling. It's the attunement. You're actually almost becoming them energetically for a short time, and then you withdraw your energy. The skill is learning to observe when you're feeling somebody else's feelings, but not absorb. But the difference between compassion and empathy is that compassion is thought of as a little bit of a more action oriented, where you feel compassion, you want to do something for someone to help them. Empathy is more the feeling resonance, state of connecting. But empathy and compassion work together. They're friends.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Deborah Rosman, and a warm welcome to our listeners.
Each month for the Adheart podcast, I have the privilege of interviewing individuals who are contributing to the creation of a more heart based world.
This month I'm interviewing Doctor Judith Orloff to talk about her new book, the Genius of Empathy, which just came out with a foreword by the Dalai Lama.
Judith is a psychiatrist, UCLA clinical faculty member, motivational speaker, and author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Freedom. Sure all want that. She speaks at medical schools, conferences, Fortune magazine's most powerful women's summit, and has been featured on TikTok Day show, CNN, Oprah magazine, the New York Times. Welcome, Judith.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Thank you. It's so nice to be here with you, Debbie.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate everything you've been doing. You know, the world needs to shift to more heart care, and empathy is so key. And your book, the genius of empathy, you say, offers practical guidance for connecting our minds and hearts to embody our most authentic, fierce and compassionate selves. How does it do that? What's the genius in empathy?
[00:02:04] Speaker A: The genius of empathy is that when you begin to feel empathy for someone, even if you don't like them. And when I mean empathy, it's like the shortcomings, perhaps, or the crippling of the heart or the unhappiness, have empathy, at least for something. What that does is open the heart, and the heart is the healing energy. And so your act of empathy opens your heart and allows the healing energy to go through your body, and in turn, that's transmitted to the people around you and even the greater world. So I think that's the greatest service something could do for us.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: And that's what you mean by genius, that it's so important, the greatest service.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: It's the missing piece to changing our patterns in the world today of polarization and blame and shame and us versus them. Empathy is a force that will bring us together, and we need that more than anything now. We're getting split apart. And so empathy and the power of the individual, I elevate the power of the individual to create these changes, and I know the power of one person doing it. So anyone listening, don't think that what you do doesn't matter. It's everything. It's like one candle lighting, and then that will light another one. So be confident when you begin to show self empathy, which is a chapter in the book, and so important. The place to start is yourself. And the place to start is having empathy for yourself, which in turn opens up your heart and the healing energy.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: That's beautifully said. You know, people, empathy, to me, is the ability with someone else is the ability to feel what another is feeling.
And most of us, self empathy would be acknowledging what we're feeling, feeling what we're really feeling, which so many of us have been trained to stuff aside from childhood. But there is so much intelligence, so much power, so much awareness in acknowledging what you feel. Because that's information that can help you make better choices.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. And it tunes you into your body intuitively. It integrates everything. Mind, body, spirit, need to be integrated. And empathy is what will open your heart to begin to create more of that heartfelt energy as it travels through your body and through other people. So we need to start with ourselves. People often make a bit of a mistake starting with everyone else. When you start with yourself, you get stronger and you get more heart centered. And that doesn't mean you're a doormat. That doesn't mean people are going to walk all over you or take advantage of you. It just means you have empathy, and you can set very clear boundaries. In the book, I've made it absolutely clear that we need to set boundaries. We need to say no to people. We need to limit negative energy as it comes in and learn how to breathe it out and use the heart to filter it out if we happen to absorb it. And so self empathy is the starting place. And that does mean we have to be aware of our bodies. We need to be embodied, as well as an active mind.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: What do you see as a difference between compassion and empathy?
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Yes, good question.
Empathy, as you said, is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling. It's the attunement. You're actually almost becoming them energetically for short time, and then you withdraw your energy. The skill is learning to observe when you're feeling somebody else's feelings, but not absorb.
You don't want to absorb other people's stress and problems. It won't help anything. And so the practice is the heart. Practice is learning to observe and not absorb, not to overly identify with other people's pain and let them have it. Part of compassion practice is letting them have it. But the difference between compassion and empathy is that compassion is thought of as a little bit of more action oriented. Where you feel compassion, you want to do something for someone to help them. You want to go out and get them some food if they're hungry or whatever you want to do. Empathy is more the feeling resonance, state of connecting. You know, it's connection, it's less action oriented. But empathy and compassion work together. They're friends. You know, we need both of them. And sometimes, literally, I don't have the energy for empathy because it asks a little bit more of me, because if I'm tired but I can have compassion and I could do something helpful for someone, that for me is less of me energetically than actually tuning in to them. So it's a choice. It's a choice of where you're at yourself and however you can help. Either way or both is just beautiful.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, we work with, at heartmath with a lot of nurses, and the term compassion fatigue is really common. But what we found is that compassion is really regenerating. It's like care. It regenerates the giver and the receiver. But when the mind gets in and we get. It's a cover all word at times with sympathy or unmanaged. Empathy, that's the term we use, the bleeding heart or pity. Or it can go down into worry and we think we're being compassionate. We get sucked into another person's problem and drain our energy. And it's so important that we come back to balance, balanced and managed empathy that can sense the suffering, others feel it, but maintain our own energetic composure. And I know you talk about that. How do you suggest people learn that fine line? Because obviously emergency medical technicians have to learn it. You can cut off the heart and not care, but keeping your heart open and at the same time balancing that empathy so you don't suffer with others. That's an important distinction.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Absolutely. And some of it involves loving detachment where you're not so much involved, or jumping in their bodies where you're helping, but you're a little bit more distance from your helping. You can resonate like a tuning fork. That's empathy resonating. I feel what you're feeling, and my heart goes out to you, but the risk is absorbing it and the compassion.
I've worked in emergency medical situations for years. I was on call every third night. During my residency training and thereafter, I worked in various ers and the psych ers, the medical ers, and what kicks in, it's really interesting. That surprised me was the whole aspect of selfless giving protected me, was not thinking about myself in those situations. Things are going so fast, and you just have to do what needs to be done, period. You don't have time to let your mind wander anywhere.
And so I just wondered why I didn't get as drained by those situations where I was clearly present in my heart as much as I could be, but I wasn't as drained.
And I think it was the aspect of selfless service. There's something about that that is very replenishing, at least in my body.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I think these distinctions are so important because, again, in family situations or in friendships, there can be the empathy. But then you're attached to the outcome. That's right. When you're attached to the outcome, that can really drain your energy, because then you're two people walking off the cliff together, so to speak. It's so true, and it's so important to learn tools.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: That's what heartmath tries to do.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Like in our book, Heart Intelligence. Primitive techniques to pull the energy back into your heart. It's not to cut off your heart and just get in your head or detach in a way where you're not feeling, but to pull the energy back in your heart and then radiate back out. Acceptance, kindness, love, care and unattached desire for the highest outcome. These are things that can keep us centered while we're still keeping our hearts open, which is what it's all about, right? Keeping the heart open. So we really release the separations and the polarizations and all, like you talked about, where people are so divided based upon different beliefs or perceptions, but in our heart, we really all want the same thing. So it's so important to learn these distinctions. And I do think it's a genius. So I'm honored that you're talking about it.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it says, well, yours is a genius, too. It's the same genius.
It's the same genius effect of the heart and empathy.
But it's also important to realize that it's not a service to take on other people's stress. It doesn't make you more compassionate. A lot of people are brought up with the thought, if I'm compassionate, then I'll just be a martyr and take on everything. And sure, you can do that if. Do it consciously, if you do it but you won't have much longevity in terms of healing yourself or the world. You're going to be so tired all the time, you know, so it's a choice what people want to do. But I'm not suggesting that path. I'm suggesting, you know, learning how to differentiate healthy giving from codependent giving. There's a big difference. And codependent giving will drain you. Healthy giving won't.
And I make the distinction in the book. There's the mind, which has a lot of assets. I use my mind a lot, and I really value it. And there's the heart. But the mind will come up with a million excuses not to have empathy. Because it says, why should I have empathy? If this person hurts so and so, why should I have empathy? You know, if this person didn't fulfill their obligation, no why? Why? And no reason to have empathy. And then. But if you shift into your heart and you see that from the heart perspective, the reason is, and you have to feel into this. And feel is a critical word. You got to feel. When you show empathy for somebody's shortcomings, not for their horrible actions, but for their shortcomings, your heart begins to open and you begin to separate from that person so they're not glommed on to you. And the resentments don't continue that you're able to let them go and create more positive energy. You know, in the long run. There are all kinds of people out there in the world who are difficult and destructive and harmful to you or humanity and. Or just plain annoying or, you know, no emotional intelligent education, so they don't know what to do, so they create chaos. There are all kinds of different possibilities in relationships, and if you could have empathy for whatever, that little part of them that you could find it for, maybe that little boy who is stuck in the closet and locked in there by his father or something less dramatic, or someone, a child who was neglected, whatever. If you can have that empathy, that starts a new pattern that's starting all over again with our pattern of how we relate to our fellow humans and the imperfect ones, and we're all imperfect, but really the damaged ones who damage other people.
You're going to change everything, and everything needs to be changed now. We can't go on the way we're going. It's not working.
So this is a powerful, genius way to change. Turn, make a U turn. Let's start different direction now.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: You know, I think we all in our hearts agree. What I have found, what we found in Heartmath is people need to practice this. We're so conditioned to habits of survival, of self protection, of all the things that keep us from having empathy or even compassionate care for the other person. And that's, again, basic, simple practices, even like what we'll do with our heart meditation at the end of this podcast. Just practicing heart focused breathing can help us recenter and then get more objective or detached from the minds, wanting it to come out a certain way or judgments of the other person. And then we can pay more attention to the intuitive feelings because the heart's intuitive promptings are right there. If we have compassion, empathy for ourselves, it raises our vibration, so we have even the mind can have more balance perceptions. And I find that I get a signal from my heart when my empathetic care starts to go over the cliff, become unbalanced, and I get depleted. That's a signal that you're not, that your mind has taken over in some way or expectations, and it's time to go back to the heart, that you actually can reset, go back to the heart, breathe through the heart, and just begin to put out that genuine care, compassion, acceptance, and that can keep us from getting pulled into the other. And these types of practices are so important for people because it doesn't happen automatically. We're so conditioned. We need to learn how to practice emotional composure as we relate to each other.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: And we have to allow the feeling, good feeling that goes along with that is when your heart begins to open, you're going to start feeling this rush of warmth, or however you perceive it, to go in your chest, and it becomes more and more a way of being because it's so pleasant. I mean, I wouldn't want to be any other way, but I want to say, some days I'm just not capable of living a heart centered. I mean, maybe a heart centered life, but I'm not capable of too much empathy because I'm too tired or I just need to, like, sign off the grid and give myself a, you know, revive myself again. And I just want to say, that's a normal part of this process. You can't be on high empathy 100% of the time. It just doesn't work that way. We have so many ups and downs, especially if you're an empath and you're highly sensitive and you tend to absorb like an emotional sponge. You know, we need our alone time. We need that quiet time where nobody's asking anything. You don't have to do anything. You just try, try to be nice to yourself so you don't beat yourself up as people. That's what they do. Until they learn some of these techniques, they just. Their default is to beat themselves up all the time. But it's good to take some time off and just even a day. And if I feel I failed miserably with empathy, because it's a value every day, I want to feel it as much as I can.
I just go to my meditation altar, I do a quiet meditation. I go to bed early, and I just start over the next day. You know, you just go back, re attune, go back, you know, you all replenish. But I just want you to be human in this quest for empathy and not have these super high expectations that you're never going to feel bad or you're never going to not be. Not able to do this. You know, sometimes you're just too. Everything's too much.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: You know, even when that I do, I experience. You can always have compassion, compassion for yourself, compassion for others. It's like holding. It's like it lifts your spirit.
You don't have to bleed. You can or deplete. You can recharge with genuine self care and compassion. And it's actually then makes your next steps more effective. The research has been showing that, you know, Heartmath research found that as we practice heart focused breathing and then activate compassion for ourselves or someone else, it lifts our spirit, it sends a signal to the brain through the vagal nerve that creates coherence all the way to the frontal lobes, which is where we have our compassion and mirror neurons. It lifts our perception. And that is what I find is so needed. And compassion, then you can hold the light up for yourself and others with out feeling. You have to even feel the empathy if, like you said, if at that point in time, you need a break from feeling.
But true compassion is incredibly powerful because it's almost, it's embraces the other, but where the mind and heart are together as one. And you talk a little bit about, I haven't had a chance to look at it.
The neuroscience of empathy. What have you found in your research on empathy and compassion?
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Oh, it's so fascinating.
There was a study done where it's called the Mother Teresa effect, where if you view an act of empathy at a distance, let's say somebody is incredibly helpful to another person. Or like the other day, I was in the gym and I watched a woman lift her husband, who was in a wheelchair, onto the machine so he could do his arm exercises. But she had such love and light as she.
And so it was a beautiful act of compassion. But if someone would have drawn my blood at that point because I was in the ecstasy of washing them, what she was doing, if someone were to draw my blood at that point, my immunity will have gone up, my stress hormones will have gone down.
The parasympathetic nervous system would be activated, and the vagus nerve, which is the transmitter of the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms us down, would be activated. But simply by watching somebody else show empathy, all these good things can happen in our bloodstream. So just imagine if you make it a way of life. I mean, that's the genius. Or you try to make it a way of life. I do want to. I want to emphasize, you know, maybe play the devil's advocate with you, that sometimes people can't get to compassion. Some days it's like you're so mad at somebody, you're just. The best you can do is hold on to it and sizzle and then go to sleep, and then the next day, maybe you can do it a little bit, or maybe you can't do it for a week. So I'm just. I don't, you know, I'm just giving people an out here that you don't have to be perfect with this, right?
[00:21:55] Speaker B: You can have. You're having compassion for our humanness when we don't.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Sometimes, you know, we're just so triggered, we can't do it, right.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: And so you can always breathe consciously and go back to the heart and just ease. Breathe calm. Breathe forgiveness for yourself. Breathe self compassion. That's what I do. And I think there's always something people can do to care for themselves at another level, and it involves their heart.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. Let's hope that they can reach it.
And it's beautiful. It's only a plus when you can.
And I just want to make a point that I'm not talking about emotionally bypassing anything, because sometimes before you get to empathy, you've got to feel anger, you've got to feel hurt, you've got to grieve. And that sometimes you can't get to empathy or compassion right away because you're in a different state. And so that's okay. You know, there's not one. One rule fits all here. It depends on the situation. But what is consistent is the self compassion.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Having self compassion as you're going through the ups and downs of life, and life asks so much of us. There are so many things that happen here that God knows how we get through them. They're so stressful, you know? But the self compassion can be your friend as you travel through the life's adventures. And it's something you always want to keep near your heart. This is something you have with yourself. This isn't something you reach out to somebody else for. You feel it in yourself. So as you develop your self compassion and self empathy, you become stronger.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm so glad you said that. I think we can always have at least an attitude of it, you know? But you're right. People have to acknowledge what they're feeling. The feeling is so important. And then that's what allows us to move into an intelligent response to what we're feeling. If we can. We're going to close with a heart meditation that anyone can do on compassion and self compassion. So if you feel down, or if you're upset or you need some extra compassion for yourself, you can always do this. Or people around you, especially. Like you said, Judith, in these stressful times, with so much uncertainty in the world and so much polarization, our situations individually, collectively, that we really need to remember to have compassion for ourselves.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Hey, let's start with quiet breathing while radiating feelings of love and care for someone, a pet nature, something that's easy to feel love and care for, because that helps open and warm the heart, which actually increases our heart rhythm coherence.
When you're in heart rhythm coherence, it's easier to feel or activate even the attitude of compassion for others or self compassion.
So let's radiate that genuine feeling or attitude of compassion out from our hearts to our whole body, all the cells, to our minds, emotions.
Then radiate that feeling and attitude of compassion out from your heart to the world around you, to the people in your life.
Send out compassion as radiance and care with an empathetic understanding of what people are going through during these times.
Now let's send our compassionate care to all who are suffering from. From health issues, wars, famine and other hardships across this planet. Just feel the radiance of your compassion making a difference.
Imagine the light of compassion lifting the hearts of others as it radiates through the energetic field.
Now let's envision the collective compassion of all of us coming together in the heart to work things out through care and empathy, kindness and a deeper understanding of each other's points of view.
See that expanding throughout the world.
Now let's close by, radiating and co creating a reservoir of compassionate heart energy that each of us can tap into over the next month. When we feel stressed, drained, or need clarity or support, and feel that tapping into that reservoir to connect more with our own heart's intuitive direction.
Thank you for sharing that heart meditation with Judith and me. And to me, the genius of compassion and empathy is really love.
That's what we're talking about.
Judith, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?
[00:30:00] Speaker A: I just want to say what an honor it has been to come on with you, Debbie, and how much I admire heart math and the incredible work you've been doing over the years and how it's benefiting humanity.
And everybody who listened to your meditation will have their heart begin to open and hopefully a start to empathy a little bit more for yourself as well. And just be happy. With small baby steps, you don't have to make huge strides. I like small changes because they last. So everyone just beginning to develop compassion and empathy. And I love beginners. In the beginner's mind, just start with yourself. Just say something like, you did a great job. In a hard situation, you're okay. You know, even something as simple as that, suddenly you feel better. So you want to give yourself that.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: That's wonderful. Thank you.
Now, as a free gift to our listeners, I want to remind you, you can watch the intermactive heartmath experience. It's an online video course for free, and you just go to heartmath.com dot and you can find it. Or check out the amazing new Heartmath app at your App Store that has techniques like the meditation we just did that you can use to transform stress and live a more heart based life. And I also want to remind you that the third Tuesday of every month, we publish a new episode. Be sure you subscribe so you don't miss our next guest and topic. And check out Judith's book. It's available on Amazon. Take care.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: Thank you for listening to the ad Hard podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you can catch the latest episodes. If you're wanting even more heart inspired content, find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Look for Heartmath and also the Heartmath Institute. Both organizations are committed to helping activate the heart of humanity.
