Empathy is the ability to recognize our own feelings and emotions in others.

Empathy and compassion are qualities that promote social cohesion, cooperation and helping others. Like most human instincts, they are part of our genetic makeup because they enhance survival.

In other words, empathy induces us to help others, so it's good for the human species as a whole. Empathy is essential for a cooperative society to form.

A person that lacks empathy is called a sociopath.

There are a number of reasons I could see for empathy so I will do this in list form.

1 . Since we are all connected in consciousness as one unit we can cross that barrier of separation between us when we are worried for another to the point of all distraction blocked from our minds. This point of focus bridges or opens that door block that says I am me and he is him. At this point we feel and experience the pain and suffering of the other. I have to wonder if this experience could even turn into a duel medical problem that both have.

2 . Since everything is energy and waves of frequencies, our constant worry for the other again to the point of blocking out all else tunes us to the wave length of the one suffering. Hence we in essence of energy as spirit duplicate the one we feel for in ourselves and hence experience the suffering.

3 . Since we are emotional and we create feeling based on emotion we can get so into worry over how the other feels to the point of creating the feeling ourselves from matching the emotion within ourselves.

Of all of these the good news is that if this can be done in the negative it can be switched to the positive and thus raise the feeling, vibration and consciousness of the one suffering to your level up out of the suffering. I have seen Dr. Eric Pearl talk about this in his book Re-Connection also from the movie The Living Matrix.

I believe this has to be done from a sympathy point not an empathy point so that no matter what you keep your energy high around the one suffering (in other words you are going to stay in the boat and rescue the one drowning not jump over and drown with that person.)

I tend to think empathy comes from a place of understanding rather than fear. It's the ability to identify with and understand another's feelings and difficulties thus recognizing the interconnectedness between oneself and the other person. For that reason I'd say empathy is a derivative of Love not fear.

empathy is the way to feel stuff from other people. if you take there pain it is because you want to or they made good deeds and deserve to get cure. we are all link togeter in the golden light. experience and enjoy.

An altruistic moment of grace like i believe empathy to be, is something that comes naturally and goes naturally in any moment, but I could see how the mind could involve itself in trying to "keep" and use empathy to avoid some possible future event from occurring. The flow of empathy would be cut off if we started to strategically try to use it willfully in some way because its presence speaks to are will not being in the way...empathy flows when you no longer are identified with your own will but the will of that which flows through you

empathy is the recognition that we are connected with those in that situation,
it is not fear, which is connectedness with self-centeredness only.
impluses from the spiritual side to our ego are universal in nature as opposed
to those from our physical/sensual side which center on selfishness

I think that you may be confusing your reaction to suffering (fear at first, and horror, even) with true empathy, which comes out of a DEEP love and a feeling that YOU feel what THEY feel exactly. You see the burned man, and of course, you are horrified. That is natural. But what was underneath that horror? I suggest it was not fear so much as your true empathy for that man, which made you so closely align with his pain that you could feel it! Now that, my dear, is EMPATHY. There is an element of fear in empathy- it takes great courage to feel empathy at all!

But yet, many great people go ahead, despite their lower emotions, and heal the sick and maimed and torn-up people in the world...Thank God for nurses, for example! I had nineteen vials of blood taken from me yesterday, and poor Wade had to leave the room...It was his love and empathy for me that made it impossible for him to stay...Some would say, "Wade was a 'fraidy cat!" I say no. I say that his connection to me was so deep that if he stayed, he would have felt what I was experiencing. Remember, self-preservation is a key factor in this, too.

My daughter is getting her BSN at the University of New Orleans. She is going through some rough stuff right now. It is her empathy she is fighting, versus her own self-preservation. I think and pray for her every day. I am proud of her, for at heart, she is a real sweetie!

I guess I would have to say that if you break the emotion down into bitty-bits, yes, there is fear somewhere there. But it quickly becomes a great choice of our hearts to ignore fear, feel what that other person must be feeling, and then act!

Empathy is an action verb, and a choice.

Blessings, Jai