Sympathy, Empathy, or Compassion?

What's the impact? What do you think?

Every once in a while, I suffer from an insatiable curiosity to understand something. I love to read, research, and wonder.

These days, I’ve been wondering about sympathy, empathy, and compassion and am curious about what makes us choose one over the other and are our choices based on our experiences or lack thereof?

Last month, for fun, I held a poll to satisfy my own curiosity about the meaning we make and take from these words (please note, this is not official research or evidence in any way shape or form but is only to serve my own curiosity) and thought it would give me an interesting topic to muse about.

The Poll

In my last blog post I asked some of my readers which they’d prefer to receive –sympathy, empathy, or compassion – if they were facing a journey of suffering. I also enquired which they’d prefer to offer someone - sympathy, empathy, or compassion.

This is how they answered for:

1. What they’d prefer to receive if they were suffering:

• 40% wanted to receive Empathy

• 60% wanted to receive Compassion

2. What they would prefer to offer to someone suffering:

• 41% would offer Empathy

• 59% would offer Compassion

The one thing that didn’t occur to me, until afterwards, was to include the term “avoidance” or “doing nothing” when faced with someone’s suffering.

Yikes!

We don’t often think of avoidance as an option and tend to throw around terms like sympathy, empathy, and compassion instead. But if we are really honest with ourselves, we could probably add avoidance as the fourth on the list – because let’s face it, it does exist.

Poll Reflections

The one thing I did notice was that the definitions for these words seemed to hold different meaning for those who responded, leading me to believe that the expectations and reasons for choosing one over could also be different.

I think that the key in knowing which options we may use, in any given circumstance, takes some reflection, self-awareness, and understanding of the context, relationship, as well as our values, limitations, and boundaries, etc., not to mention our personal motives which all influence how we make choices and follow-through on them.

Humans are such complex beings!

My first-hand experiences with sympathy, empathy, and compassion make me wonder if these are characteristics we learn to express through education and practice and if they are related in some way to one another.

Starting with my Definitions

I’m going to attempt to share my own definitions that I’ve come to understand and would challenge you to wrestle with your own definitions as well.

Words mean different things to different people. Somehow, someday, maybe together, we can find greater clarity about these in particular.

Here we go…

SYMPATHY: This is something we offer to the one suffering because we feel pity or sadness for their suffering.

Our Goal: Is to let the sufferer know we have a level of concern “for” their suffering.

Focus: This is when we let our feelings of concern motivate and direct our response in a very limited, arms-length way.

Example: Sending a note, card, or verbally expression that we are sorry for their suffering.

EMPATHY: Includes offering sympathy as well as a safe empathetic presence. As we build an inner awareness or understanding of another’s experience, through the act of being empathetic with them, it gives the suffer an opportunity to be seen and heard, by a safe other who acts as a witness to their journey of suffering.

Goal: Is to understand and share “in” the sufferer’s feelings through active listening skills.

Focus: This is when we try to uncover details of the sufferer’s experience through listening, understanding their experience, and connecting with their feelings.

Example: Visiting someone over coffee, listening to their story, being emotionally moved, and acknowledging that their journey is difficult. After the coffee time, you may part ways with no motivation to relieve their suffering in any way.

Challenges: Unskilled empathy with non-reciprocal dialogue, over-emotional responses, judgment, or unsolicited advice-giving, can may make the sufferer feel unsafe or vulnerable due to unwanted probing, story comparisons, lack of healthy boundaries, trite, dismissive responses, negativity, or unwanted advice, etc. The focus is on the listener acquiring information in order to experience the sufferer’s emotions without helping in any way to relieve the suffering. This type of experience may inadvertently leave the sufferer feeling worse. The visitor may be here one day and gone the next leaving the sufferer wondering if they ever really cared or just wanted to pry for information.

COMPASSION: Includes offering sympathy, acting as an empathic presence, along with an offer of compassionate action, by being moved to meet some of the needs of the sufferer. The one offering compassion is willing to be moved or allows themselves to be motivated to respond in some compassionate way to relieve the sufferer’s suffering – be it through a small or large action. It involves a level of effort or self-sacrifice that means putting the sufferer first over their own needs.

Goal: Is to be “with” the suffer in their journey, offering some kind of help (small or large) to relieve their suffering in some way for a duration of time.

Focus: Uncovering a way to meet a need of the sufferer, helping through a personal sacrifice (time, resources, skill, etc.) with no ulterior motive for personal benefit.

Example: Offering to do a grocery run for them because they feel ill. Extending an invitation to go for a walk and talk with a friend needing connection and bringing a meal with the intent to lighten their load.

The next thing I wondered is - how do they fit together, or how do we choose one over the other – both as the giver and the receiver.

As I reflected, I realized I’m more likely to offer empathy and sympathy when I feel confident in how I can approach someone suffering. In my case, that seems to have increased as my life experience with suffering increased.

The simple fact is that I’m much more compassionate now than I was before I became a cancer survivor or autoimmune warrior.

Isn’t that interesting.

Consider This Chart

I compiled this chart mostly out of my own experience and curiosity about why we do what we do when we are responding to someone facing suffering. It wasn’t long before I noticed that when my life experience is low or I’m fearful about a person, the situation, my reaction, or level of anticipated commitment, etc., I might avoid responding. However, if my life experience is greater, I may still be a bit fearful to do anything except express sympathy.

Yet, because of my own journey with suffering, I find that now, I’m more confident to step out and offer empathy, as well as compassion because I remember clearly how much I appreciated receiving such care myself and how greatly it impacted my journey of healing.

Without that care I wouldn’t have done so well.

Since I don’t want anyone to walk a journey of suffering alone, I like to offer empathy and compassion when I am able to, and when it is appropriate to do so.

Simply put, this is why I believe our responses are influenced by our life experiences, emotional responses, and maybe even our values, relationships, faith, and calling, just to name a few.

What do you think?

Imagine the Impact

Then I began to wonder if sympathy, empathy, and compassion could be put side by side along a spectrum of skills, that can be learned, and when we authentically learn we have the potential for some personal growth and formation.

Imagine the impact we could have on others (and ourselves) if we were to become intentional about building our skills in order to grow and develop expressions of sympathy, empathy, and compassion to our fellow mankind.

The impact could be immense and bring a much different experience for us.

These days, many of us are so busy with work, family, and other responsibilities that influence our availability to respond to others in need. Busy-ness influences which character quality we offer the ones suffering. We respond with sympathy alone, when our responsibilities and commitments are full. We may want to be thoughtful but don’t really have time to get involved.

However, when there is time, and when we are not stuck by fear, and more confident with what to say, we may choose empathy without any long-term commitment.

When we choose compassion we choose, with intentionality, to make time, entering into the messy circumstances with the sufferer’s situation, experienced or not, walking alongside the one who is suffering, with the selfless goal of trying to lessen the burden for them in some way – small or large without expectation of personal benefit. This is founded in love for mankind. (Matthew 22:36-39)

Those of us who participate in this kind of caring see their lives as a response to a deeper calling on their lives.

The Call for Intentionality

So how do we learn, grow, and move along that line of cultivating sympathetic, empathetic, and compassionate characteristics so that we learn to be intentional people embracing a life of compassion because God calls us to love one another?

If we wish to acquire characteristics that impact our world, we must be intentional about how we do it by releasing our expectations, holding our hands out willingly to be used mightily for the benefit of others.

It is said that hindsight is 20/20 once we have experienced tragedy, heartache, loss, or other kinds of suffering. Rather than waiting for a situation to just show up and learn as I go, I’ve decided to be more intentional and have learned to ask myself hypothetical questions that help me consider how I’d like to respond should a situation present itself.

1. Consider my responses in advance.

• If my family member were to be in need, how would I respond?

• If a work colleague were to be in need, how would I respond?

• If a close friend were to be in need, how would I respond?

• If an acquaintance were to be in need, how would I respond?

We have many options available to us. Avoidance, sympathy, empathy, or compassion.

Consider what a non-response reflects about the core of our character. Perhaps it’s fear, or anger, or resentment, doubt or shame. Each of us needs to wrestle with this one.

A great question to ask ourselves is:

“What do I want to be known for?”

Another one is:

“What is God’s call on my life when it comes to offering care to our fellow man?

I think that responses of sympathy, empathy, and compassion come when we allow our hearts to be broken by what breaks the heart of God. We are putting another person ahead of ourselves, our emotions, and maybe even our pride or baggage.

After seeing little children suffering in Korea, a man by the name of Bob Pierce founded the well-known Samaritan’s Purse ministry in 1970 with the following prayer

‘Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God’.

I clearly recall reading this prayer on a wall plaque, as I sat in the reception room at Samaritan’s Purse Canada, over 25 years ago. It has always stuck with me, and I have prayed it regularly for myself over the years and believe that it has formed much of who I want to be as a person.

Perhaps this prayer resonates with you too. May I challenge you to join me in praying this prayer while waiting with expectancy to see how God will show us where we need to be placing our focus, goals, and responses when we are faced with someone who is suffering in our sphere of influence.

What About our Motives?

I also like to double check my motives when I’m faced a decision to make about how much I can offer to help. I ask (and challenge myself about the influence my thinking, my emotions, my responses, and my actions have on my attitude and what I choose):

1. Am I choosing to act with sympathy, empathy, or compassion? Which is most appropriate given my history with this person?

2. If I am choosing to not act, ignore the situation and the person, I have to remember that the act of ignoring sends a strong message – usually a very negative and hurtful one. Is this the kind of message I want to send, or do I need to leave pride, judgment, and unforgiveness recognizing that forgiveness and compassion is more important when someone is facing suffering? What is it I need to release to step into what God is calling me into?

3. What is it I want to be known for?

If I choose sympathy, how can I best do this in a loving way?

If I choose empathy, where is my focus? On the sufferer or myself? How can I change this to be more supportive and person focused?

If I choose compassion, where is my focus? Will this act of compassion require a practical act that I can do, that may also be a sacrifice on my part? Will I be able to follow through or do I need to make a change elsewhere in my life so I can follow through?

Then we must also ask ourselves, if this were me suffering, what would I prefer to receive: sympathy, empathy, or compassion and ask yourself relevant questions using the 5 W’s – who, what, where, why, and when? When we are able to put ourselves in the shoes of another person it can give us a great deal of insight if we let it feed into our decision-making process.

Reminders about what God Teaches

One additional thing that I like to remember is what God teaches us:

• We are all made in the image of God.

• God is a good God and as God of compassion and kindness.

• He teaches us to bear one another burdens (Galatians 6:2)

• He teaches us to love one another, be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32, 1 Peter 3:8))

• He has sent us a great model of the kind of people God wants us to be, through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ ,in how we are to be an instrument of love and to care compassionately for one birthed out of a heart of love.

On a Personal Note

As a stage III oral cancer survivor (now 4 years cancer free), followed by pre-melanoma spots of skin cancer, and now an autoimmune disease warrior, I can confidently say that I was impacted by each of these: avoidance, sympathy, empathy, as well as compassion through my own journey with suffering.

I was grieved and hurt by a select few who ignored me and my suffering without any word – especially by those whom I had known closely for many years, and whom I had previous supported many times in the past.

With many others, I felt much kindness from those who sent me a word or note of encouragement through their acts of sympathy. I’ve kept their words and cherished them.

A smaller group of friends were brave enough to sit with me, walk, and talk with me while offering empathy with healthy boundaries. There were others who tried the empathy route but left me feeling bruised by a barrage of probing questions that made me feel like an object or was being judged. I was able to use clear boundaries with these folks, by not offering them a second opportunity to meet with me alone.

The smallest group of those who responded were the ones who responded with loving compassion. It made their contact with me healing. They were part of my healing journey. Their small, medium, and large thoughtful acts of caring impacted me in immeasurable ways that made me feel loved, supported, and cared for then, and still do now.

This last group of people have become my inner circle where I feel safe, heard, held, supported, and loved. Each uniquely displayed compassion in different ways, but what was common across each one was that they were consistently supportive and present when they could be.

It was their love and support that held me up in the darkest days of my journey with cancer.

They stewarded their relationship with me well.

Moses and His Friends

I love the story of Moses in Exodus 17:12 with the image of him standing there with his arms held high. Where when he grew tired his friends brought a stone for him to sit on and then held up his hands so that when he became weary and likely to give up and lower his hands, they held his hand up so that they could win the battle they were fighting…

I wonder how Moses felt. When his weariness took over and his arms came down and the battle took a turn for the worse, yet when his friends helped him hold up his arms the battle changed for the better. It’s a beautiful image of coming alongside someone in need.

In my case, because my whole cancer journey (surgery, treatment, and recovery) was is in the midst of covid isolation restrictions I felt the loneliness and vulnerability more acutely but I also felt great support from some good friends that stood in the gap and helped hold me up in prayer, encourage me through emails, calls, messages, cards, devotions, and even thoughtful gifts. They were present in heart and spirit even though not all of them were physically present. The fact that they showed up made all the difference.

The words that I received were filled with love, thoughtfulness, compassion, and prayers by my friends and family who held both my and my husband’s hands up through the most challenging of days. We couldn’t have done it without them.

I think a journey with suffering is like that.

We need our friends in the battle with us – no matter the final outcome. Because it is our body, soul, and spirit that needs to be kept strong in traumatic journeys, and great losses when they involve health issues like cancer. And, yes, of course we can receive supernatural healing, but there are times where God chooses to heal through his faithful people – body, soul, and spirit.

What I found most surprising was how my friends expressed how they grew and were influenced because of being part of my journey.

That’s what happens.

We get all caught up in trying to be a good friend offering sympathy, empathy, and compassion and forget that maybe this journey alongside the person in need is just what God wants for us for part of our transformation and growth too, and that we can be an answer to our own prayer just by being their friend.

I learned this first-hand myself.

As I was recovering, I had a friend who was dying of cancer. I had known her for many years and our daughters were childhood friends. When I heard her cancer had returned, I asked my daughter to check with her friend if her mom would be okay if I called her because I knew what it was like to be in isolation. I got a quick “YES” back. So, we began texting about all sorts of things comparing treatment side effects, recipes, family updates, and chuckled over the memories of some of our recreational outings. Well, eventually her treatments stopped working and within a few months she went to be with the Lord.

This is the reflection I included in my book about this experience.

“Only after she was gone did I come to learn that I was one of the few women with whom she had connected through the last few months of her life. This is an honour I will always cherish. And it’s a valuable lesson for me to never, ever assume I have nothing to offer. It’s not true that I can’t offer help just because I don’t know what to say. I can encourage another person even through a simple call, prayer, text, or meal.”

Buszowski, Fern E.M., “Embrace Life, Embrace Hope”, Word Alive Press, 2023, pg. 128)

I had been little bit more than shocked because I thought she would have had friends all around her like Moses did to help hold her up. I realized that if I had not listened to God’s prompting for me to reach out and call her and to put my discomfort aside because I didn’t know what to say or do then I wouldn’t have been able to make a small difference in my friend’s journey especially during her last weeks on earth.

It’s a lesson I hope never to forget because I think we’re all called to be a beacon of hope to those God’s has brought into our lives – and those people include our friends.

We Were Made for Community

There is a purpose for our friendships, and they need to be stewarded well.

“Serving others in need normalizes our own needs when they arise. Suffering is a universal experience; no one escapes it. It cultivates compassion and love for one another. It’s a unifying experience that helps us to realize no one is immune from crisis.

Helping others is never a replacement for dealing with our own suffering, but it can become an outworking of compassion for our fellow man.

Most beneficially of all, it affirms that we need each other. We are made for community—a healthy environment of love that gives us an opportunity to sojourn with, encourage, and become a witness to others who are suffering. This is a healing, lifegiving, intimate gift of love, one to another.”

Buszowski, Fern E.M., “Embrace Life, Embrace Hope”, Word Alive Press, 2023, pg. 129)

Now, let me leave you with two questions:

• What is it you want to be known for?

• How are you stewarding your relationships/friendships?

Until next month friend,

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