I’ve had people tell me on occasion that they were very sensitive to other people’s feelings and would feel what other people were experiencing. For instance, if a family member was depressed, the sensitive person might start to feel down and depressed too.
Being sensitive to what other people are going through is a good quality, for it opens our eyes to where healing is needed and hopefully impels us to help. However, the kind of sensitivity which allows us to become a victim of the same suffering is not a good thing, because it saps us of the spiritual clarity needed to bring healing. And it may cause us to suffer too.
The best kind of sensitivity is spiritual sensitivity.
To be spiritually sensitive, is to know what is true with God about any given situation.
Rather than agreeing with anger, depression, indifference, and their kin, and letting them take over thought, the spiritually sensitive thought would disagree with the negative mortal attitude, and replace it with a spiritual healing attitude and outlook.
We can see the suffering our neighbor is going through without suffering with them. We can help them with the spiritual truth that lifts their thought to a higher level. And to do this, requires spiritual sensitivity—the ability to take thought to God, to see what is spiritually true about any given situation, and then to apply that truth for a good effect. In this way, we do not suffer, and we help our neighbor out of suffering too.
Be sensitive not to evil, but to good. Be Truth-sensitive, and heal!
Very good advice, Evan – thank you!
Very timely for me. Thank you very much!
Being honestly sensitive to Truth’s laws is what I wish for having God govern me. Being more gracious, grateful, and responsive to God’s love of me and of all. I am
so grateful for this lovely reminder and for Love’s ways in pointing them out so we can pray to meet them daily and overcome them with the grand opportunities for doing so. ” Am I really grateful for the good already received?”, asks Mary Baker Eddy.
“Yes I am” is my response for my loving the opportunity to do so! Thank you Evan!
The compassion that heals isn’t a weathervane, but a compass. Thank you, Evan!!
Right on, Evan. Thank you.
SpiritView brings such wonderful blessings each day! Thank you, Evan and all! Today’s post is such a strong reminder to be sensitive to Truth, good, for the purpose of healing, blessing. It’s also helpful to think of compassion as a compass, not a weathervane (thanks, Jay!), in our healing prayers and practice.
My practitioner once told me a C.S. nurse told her, “Don’t climb in bed with the patient!!” I love that! Our sensitivity and empathy render us useless if we latch on to the lie!
Exactly Janet! My late prac wud tell me don’t try to jump into their dream!
Thank you Janet and Colleen for those analogies. I was thinking about them in regards to others and then I realized it was very helpful to turn that around on my own “false sense of self.” If I’m struggling with something I don’t need to jump into that dream or that bed with my own false sense of self! So timely because I woke this morning feeling uneasy after having several weird and bad dreams last night. I so appreciate how we all help each other in this SV community. I’m so grateful Evan and all. What a beautiful and powerful thing.
Gratitude helps us to grow spiritually, as well. Its a privilege to share Truth..I too am so grateful for all I’ve learned!
Yes indeed. There’s a lovely testimony on JSH of a CS visiting a neighbor who was close to hysterical about her ill child. The CS’s thought was so calm, so assured of God’s presence, of that child’s perfection, of the nothingness of any claim of suffering or harm, that the mother just couldn’t stay upset. She kept glancing at the calm smile of her neighbor and I guess wondering what she (the mom) was so distressed about. The crisis passed and the child was shortly well. TRUTH is FELT!–because God alone is true. MBE says error is a coward before truth.
Really helpful to remember this morning, as I read pages 390-434 in S&H, that God, Truth is all-present — and that means all-present in conscious thought, sub-conscious thought and unconscious thought. That means there’s no level of consciousness for error to infiltrate. .God, Life, Love is All, and all.
Thanks buddy.
Feeling with others what they are feeling, and then experiencing it yourself, such as worry, fear, depression or disease, is empathy. Seeing the Truth that heals the negative experiencing of others is sympathy., Jesus was sympathetic, he was not empathetic. Sympathy positions one to be a healer, empathy disallows healing. Sympathy does not ignore but recognizes what needs to be healed; it keeps us seeing, hearing, feeling from the standpoint of the Truth, Life and Love which antidotes the erroneous human picture.
Beautiful reasoning Loren! Thank you.
Thanks – such thoughtful comments from all!
And heal! Be sensitive to your friend’s woes – become alert to the problem, AND HEAL! It is not enough to know the truth. Once you know the error, activate your healing thoughts.
Loren – I think you got the of the two terms turned around. Empathy is the ability to understand another’s feelings, whereas sympathy is having the feeling of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. If we pity someone and feel badly for them, that will impede our perception of them as God’s pure child. Empathy doesn’t ignore, but recognizes healing. Jesus was empathetic. Thank you for bringing out the important point that, as we pray, we do not ignore mortal mind’s false claim by “skipping along the garden path” declaring all is love, but not face it down.
Leah and Loren I think Jesus was neither empathetic nor sympathetic. They both require accepting and getting hung up in the issue on some level with the patient. Jesus was compassionate. He recognized the reality of the false influence that seemed very real to the patient and healed them of the false influence.
Thank you, Trista. It appears that none of the terms, sympathy, empathy, or compassion specifically apply because by definition they each imply some degree of involvement in the false claim by the one praying. I think Mrs.. Eddy’s words are very useful, though: “The poor suffering heart needs its rightful nutrient, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father’s loving kindness.” (Chapter XII, Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures).
I did a web search of empathy and sympathy and I tend to agree with the way Loren characterized these two words. Below is a link to one web page that explains the differences between these two words. At the end of the web page it has the following summary which I found helpful:
– sympathy is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters
– empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another, which is why actors often talk about it.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/empathy-vs-sympathy/
On page 75 of Science and Health is the following statement:
Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it.
Whenever I’ve realized that some issue is “not real” healing has always happened. Even when we are in the presence of others that are suffering, we can keep in thought the “true idea” that counteracts the suffering (as Evan explains in his wonderful blog today and has also been explained in the wonderful comments today). But there have been other times when I’ve spent years futilely trying to use Christian Science to change some “bad material condition” into a “good material condition” only to finally wake up to what I was mistakenly trying to do (i.e. trying to raise Lazarus while thinking he is dead). It wasn’t until I realized that the “bad material condition” was “not real” at all because God didn’t create it that healing occurred.
Each individual who is Truth-sensitive IS a Christian Science practitioner, whether they are listed in the Christian Science Journal as such or not. What a lovely and on-target description. Thank You.
So true Sharon, thanks for that wonderful Truth remark! 🙂
Thank you very much, Evan, for your very good advice, as Annepat said. Love your helpful words in the last paragraph: “The ability to take thought to God, to see what is spiritually true about any given situation and then apply that truth for a good and healing effect.” We can pray and listen that this ability will be given us from God – if we do so, it will certainly be given us for the purpose of healing and comforting our neighbor. I am so grateful and glad that with every SpiritView of Evan I learn more and more the spiritual and true spiritual view of the things!
Thanks for that so very loving picture of sweet doggie! 🙂
Very sensible and encouraging – thanks Evan
Thank you All, a deep understading of our morning prayers that Christian Scientist practice sets our mind on God’s Perfect unfoldment Of His Perfect Day including our blessed spiritual sense because all communication is direct from God to Man, establishes the full effulgence of Divine Influence seen and felt denouncing the powerlessness of any false influence in our own atmosphere of thought. It is so important as the morning prayer is made manifest and meaningful for our daily experience.
Here it is as a reminder: I acknowledged This is God’s Kingdom. May the REIGN of Divine Truth, Divine Life and Divine Love Be established in Me (spiritual sense) ; and rule out of me( personal sense) all errors. May THY WORD feeds the affections of All mankind (at all stages of progress ). I always include Let the Mind of Christ be reflected through Me today. Then watch “the Love filled heart” and “One Mind” graces my day.
That is perfect Pauline. Goes straight to the Absolute Oneness of God.
Thank you Evan…this post reminds me of something my mother always used to say. She was a great Christian Scientist and used her understanding of God in all situations, so we had many healings. I often “feel for” people too much, in a not so helpful way and she would say “Do not confuse sympathy and compassion. If someone is drowning in a lake and you can’t swim, would you jump in with them and sympathetically say “Oh don’t worry, you’re not alone- we can drown here together” NO! You must stand on the shore, from a place of solid ground (thought) and throw them a line to pull them out of danger. You must bring that person to safe ground but YOU must be on it to start with, otherwise, you both end up in the same “boat”! I have had to remember this many many times over the years and even again a few days ago.
thank you Diane w for your so logical truth!
That is do helpful!
Thank you a l l for your good comments.
Thank you. Will probably be referring to this often as I’ve had a lot of trouble with that for much of my life. I know that it’s a matter of how they’re looking at the situation and I sometimes still can’t help but get irked at people’s constantly playing martyr/victim and I’ve been wondering how I could be sensitive without getting dragged into it myself like what you’re saying above. 🙂