Molehills

My foot was bleeding this morning. I was sitting at my desk and I suddenly felt a sneeze coming on. I got up, grabbed a tissue, and quickly caught the sneeze. I tossed my used tissue away and as I looked down to make sure the crumpled ball of tissue made it in, I noticed the top of my foot was bleeding. I quickly cleaned it up and put a bandaid on it. Megan asked me what happened and I answered, "I have no idea." I didn't shave this morning, so my razor couldn't have nicked me and there isn't many sharp things that would skin the top of my foot.

Whenever I babysit or am around kids in general, it seems a child always ends up falling over. Some of the time they are fine and pull themselves up without a second thought. Sometimes, it really does hurt and they need some help. But most of the time, they fall and only when someone looks at them do they start crying. My mom and I decided a while ago the reason why this happens is only when they themselves realize it or someone acknowledges it do they feel the pain of falling down.

The same goes for my foot this morning. Only when I looked down at my foot (which clearly had stopped bleeding a while ago) did I feel the slight twinge of pain. Although the pity hug I got from Megan made me feel better, if I hadn't given it much thought besides cleaning it, I would have been fine. As the old saying goes, "Don't make mountains out of molehills."

For me, sometimes life seems so difficult and stressful and annoying and every other word I can use to describe an oh-so-difficult life. Of course, life can become quite difficult, but sometimes I make mountains out of molehills. That two-page paper? It becomes the largest paper I've written in my life. That meeting I attend every week and have no leadership position? It becomes the most time consuming thing in the world. And it seems when there is a slight miscommunication between me and someone else, the whole relationship is down the drain.

Hours later when I got back from church this morning, I was scratching my foot and realized I had a bandaid there. I had nearly forgotten about it. What I was stressing out about before and was the biggest catastrophe was now nearly nothing. This rings true with everything else. The paper, if I take it in stride and simply get it done, is an easy paper to write. The meeting just becomes part of routine and somethings to look forward to. And that slight miscommunication is easily worked out and life can go on. It seems if I don't give those little things my attention, they become a part of the flow of the day and not a road block.

Don't make mountains out of molehills. It's more of a pain than it's worth.

Peace!

-Nicole

Empathetic Tendencies

1. Write when inspired, even if that's all over the back of the article you're discussing.
2. Stretch your mind, even if it hurts.
3. Finding out your final paper is due two days later than you thought is a good feeling.
4. As finals get closer, look for more people wearing glasses and exhibiting jittery behavior.

It's Wednesday. It's Megan.

Sometimes (but not all the time) people turn to me with issues they're facing. Sometimes I jump the gun and run around looking for my cape so I can fly to the rescue, and other times I just try to make sure I'm around if they need me. Someone called me an enabler the other day which really, really, really threw me for a loop. The absolute last thing I'd ever want is for how I naturally react to certain situations to do more harm than good. I mean, I think I try to work towards resolving the issue and not just pacifying the outcome... I think.

I started thinking, what am I enabling? What are we all enabling when we listen to or try to help others make it through their problems? Of course it depends on the situation, but from certain Psychological perspectives, disclosing painful secrets, allowing the release of emotions, and letting yourself be open and honest with someone you trust are all positive behaviors associated with better health outcomes. That's what we enable people to do when we make ourselves available to listen.

I'm discussing empathy in my inquiry class, and as humans, our capacity for empathy serves the evolutionary purpose of creating a deep connection between us. Our brains are even wired for empathy with "mirror" neurons: for example, if you see a spider on someone's arm, your same neurons will fire as if to tell you there is a spider on your own arm.

We experience empathy because our fates are intricately intertwined. It is how we survive both as individuals and as a species. We have this need to feel connected and share experiences. Along with this conscious desire to share experiences, we also experience an unconscious ability to share in, and try to ease, someone else's suffering because we know ourselves what it's like to suffer. Humans feel the need to make life more tolerable and livable for someone else, sometimes because it's the right and compassionate thing to do, but also because we know we would want someone else to do it for us. Sometimes we acknowledge someone else's suffering in the hopes that they'll acknowledge ours--and everyone suffers in some way... at least according to the Four Noble Truths found in Buddhist teachings.

Empathy arguably arises from the acknowledgement of our own mortality. We recognize we don't have unlimited time, and so seeing or knowing that someone else is in pain is painful to us. There is an automatic desire to take on and relieve someone of that suffering. My roommate told me I have a savior complex. Well, so be it. If what I do gets people somewhere, then so be it. Empathy, luckily for us, is not confined to suffering. We have the ability to share in and experience the success, happiness, and sometimes sheer giddiness of others. Like I said, our fate and experiences are connected more than one would think.

We may all be facing our own demons, and we may all need to conquer our own demons, but that doesn't mean we can't fight them together. If you have my back, I have yours.

I leave you with a poem by John Donne as well as a link to the video that inspired much of this post.

Be well and love deeply,

-Megan

No Man is an Island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.


The Empathetic Civilisation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g