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Rabbi explains why empathy and social anxiety so often go hand in hand

This makes so much sense.

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Highly social situations can be overwhelming for empaths.

Some people get invited to a party and immediately look forward to the fun time. Others get invited to a party and are filled with immediate dread.

Those who dread parties may struggle with social anxiety—an intense fear of social situations. Social anxiety takes many forms, but very few people who deal with it find the idea of socializing in a large group of people fun or exciting. They may want to find it exciting, but parties that energize and fulfill the extroverts among us tend to drain the introverts, and those with social anxiety often fare even worse.

Rabbi Shais Taub gave an explanation for why some people experience social anxiety in such situations, and it's resonating with a whole lot of people who see themselves in it.

People with high empathy may find themselves more socially anxious

The reason why many people have social anxiety–this is not for everyone, but many people—is because they are so sensitive to other people's energies. For them, to be in a crowded room is like being in a room with 100 radios on, all playing different stations at the same time. In other words, there are some people who are, let's call it 'empathic,' who feel everybody's energy, and being in that presence is draining. They leave a social experience feeling exhausted."

He explains that it's not that those people don't want to have human interactions, it's that the price of those interactions in energy expenditure very high.

Many people felt seen and also wondered if there was a way to "turn it off":

"I can even feel what others are thinking."

"That's me. And people always come and tell me their problems, then I get more overwhelmed."

"This is so me! I’m a nurse also and I absolutely love what I do but by the end of my day I want to be left alone! I carry all these energies with me and feel so bad for everyone. And it gets so heavy for me to carry."

"This is me! I’m an empath and have a son on the spectrum. I have a masters degree in mental health counseling but am too afraid to become a counselor because I think it will drain me. I feel stuck. Your post makes a lot of sense to me."

"💯 exhausted after social moments. I’m a teacher & I sleep after work. I have nothing left to give."

"I feel that, then when I get home I literally fall asleep because I'm exhausted. Even people with good energy makes me tired, but not as much as people with negative energy, I feel everything. 😩"

"Yea it sucks.. most people don't understand. Sometimes it's even just texting too much. I'll put my phone away and see you next week lol"

Is there actual evidence that being an empath and experiencing social anxiety go hand in hand?

According to a 2018 study, yes—at least for people with a specific combination of empathic tendencies.

Researchers share that there are two main types of empathy:

Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand what other people are feeling. People high in cognitive empathy are able to put themselves into someone else's shoes emotionally, even if they aren't actually feeling what they're feeling.

Affective (or emotional) empathy is the ability to actually feel what other people are feeling. Empaths tend to be high in affective empathy and take on the feelings of those around them.

The study, which examined over 400 adolescents, found that those with low cognitive empathy experience higher rates of social anxiety, and people with low cognitive empathy but high affective empathy experienced more severe social anxiety. Rabbi Taub's explanation aligns with this finding that taking on people feelings (or energies as he describes it) equates to greater levels of social anxiety.

via GIPHY

Additionally, as Healthline points out, having low cognitive empathy but high affective empathy also means that you're sensing people's feelings without necessarily understanding why they are what they are. This might lead to mistaken assumptions that the other person's feelings are about you, making you feel more anxious about a social interaction.

Not all studies on empathy and social anxiety have shown the same results, so we could definitely use some more research in this area. Anecdotally, however, people who are both empathic and socially anxious are feeling the connection between the two and appreciate having what they experience laid out so clearly.

You can follow Rabbit Shais Taub on Instagram.


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Psychologist's 'Ring Theory' can help you not say the wrong thing to people in grief

Concept by Susan Silk, Graphic by Annie Reneau

It's hard to know what to say when someone you know is going through a crisis. Whether a person has lost a loved one, received a dire medical diagnosis, or is experiencing some other kind of grief, we're often at a loss for words for how to comfort them.

It gets even trickier when we share in some measure of the person's grief. When your friend finds out they have a terminal illness, that's painful for your friend and their family, but also for you. While it's important to honor that, it's also important to recognize that your grief isn't the same as the person afflicted, nor is it the same as their spouse's or children's or parents' grief. It's totally fine to feel the weight of your own sadness and loss, but there are appropriate and inappropriate places to put that weight. For example, saying to a mutual friend, "I can't handle this, it's too devastating" is very different than saying the same thing directly to your friend who just found out they are dying.

Psychologist Susan Silk has created a helpful concept that makes figuring out what to say and what not to say a bit easier. She refers to it as the Ring Theory, and she and author Barry Goldman described it in an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times.

Here's how it works:

First, draw a circle and put the name of the person in crisis in the middle of it. Then draw a ring around that and label it with the people closest to them—spouse, parents, children, etc. Then draw another ring for their intimate friends or other family members they are close to. Next, make a ring for their close co-workers, not-quite-as-close friends, distant relatives, etc., followed by a ring for other people who know them—acquaintances, community members, and such.

These concentric rings represent which direction our words of comfort and empathy should go, and which direction the venting or dumping of our own feelings of grief should go.

The person in the center can say anything they want to anyone, of course. The crisis is theirs and they get all the leeway and grace in how they express their feelings. People in the rings around them can vent their feelings toward people in the larger rings, but not the smaller ones. If we're talking to someone in a smaller ring than we are in, our words should only be comforting and empathetic, such as "I'm so sorry you're going through this," or "What a terrible tragedy, let me bring you a meal to make this time a little easier for you."

Silk explains that when we are talking to a person in a smaller circle from us—someone who is closer to the crisis—the goal is to help. It's appropriate not to offer advice, no matter how helpful we think we're being. It's not an appropriate direction for our personal storytelling or expressions of despair, however sincere. If we feel an impulse to do those things, we should point it outward, toward the people farther from the crisis.

We should never put people in smaller circles in a position of feeling like they need to comfort us. Comfort should move inward through the rings, not outward.

Let's imagine my friend Lee just lost her mother to cancer. I lost my much-loved mother-in-law to pancreatic cancer just six weeks after her diagnosis, but this is Lee's crisis, not mine. As a friend, I'm not going to tell her how much I miss my mother-in-law, describe in detail how hard it was to go through losing her, or go on and on about the meaning of life and death. I'm not going to say those things to her spouse, either. I might say, "I'm so sorry. Cancer really sucks, and this is such a hard thing to go through" and then offer to help watch the kids or bring over a casserole.

Concept by Susan Silk, Graphic by Annie Reneau

If I'm talking to a mutual friend or someone Lee knows peripherally, that's when I might share my own story or how Lee's mom's death is bringing up my own feelings of grief. The key is to make sure I'm pointing that emotional venting of my own toward someone in a larger circle, not a smaller one.

As Silk and Goldman explained, it's not so much what you say as whom you say it to.

"If you want to scream or cry or complain, if you want to tell someone how shocked you are or how icky you feel, or whine about how it reminds you of all the terrible things that have happened to you lately, that's fine," they wrote. "It's a perfectly normal response. Just do it to someone in a bigger ring."

"Comfort IN, dump OUT," they added.

Silk and Goldman point out that most of us intuitively know not to dump our feelings on the person in the center of the circle, but we may not be conscientious enough about how we talk to those who are close to the crisis as well. The Ring Theory visual can help us see where it's appropriate to vent and where it's not, and how best to help both those who are grieving and who are in the grieving person's orbit.

It can even help us recognize what we need most when we find ourselves at the center of the circle. All of us will be there at one time or another, and knowing where we are in the rings can help us know how to comfort one another through our grieving processes.

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You don't have to wait for an apology to forgive someone who hurt you

Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash

Forgiveness is hard for most of us, but it's harder for some than others. When we've been harmed in some way—physically, emotionally, or both—we tend to carry the pain around with us. Anger and resentment are natural responses to being hurt, of course, and the longer or more severe the wounding, the more likely we are to feel those feelings long-term.

What we usually want—or think we want—is for the person who did the hurting to acknowledge our pain. We want them to fully understand what we feel, to know the impact of their words or actions. And we want an apology as proof that the person not only get, but also regrets, what they've said or done to us.

Some of us will hold onto our anger and resentment indefinitely, waiting for that all-important apology to come before we even consider the idea of forgiveness. But if we value our own well-being, we may want to rethink that order.

You don't have to wait for an apology—or even an acknowledgement—in order to forgive. And in fact, we shouldn't.

To fully understand why that is, we need to understand what forgiveness actually is. And in order to understand what forgiveness is, it's helpful to clarify what it isn't. Forgiving someone is not the same as making up with them. Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness doesn't require justice to be done or apologies to be offered.

Forgiveness isn't an external action, but rather an internal state of letting go of anger and resentment. It's saying, "I'm no longer going to allow you and the hurt you've caused me keep me in a state of unhappiness." It's something you do for yourself, not for the person who hurt you.

Think about it. Who is that anger and resentment hurting the most? Who is having their life disrupted by it? Who is having to deal with it day in and day out? You, right? Not the person who hurt you. You.

And there are real physical effects of holding onto those emotions. "There is an enormous physical burden to being hurt and disappointed," says Karen Swartz, M.D., director of the Mood Disorders Adult Consultation Clinic at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Chronic anger impacts your heart rate, blood pressure, and immune system, which increases your risk of chronic disease. Forgiveness has the opposite effect.

And it doesn't mean just saying that you forgive the person. Again, forgiveness is an internal act of releasing anger, frustration, disappointment, and resentment. "It is an active process in which you make a conscious decision to let go of negative feelings whether the person deserves it or not," Swartz says.

That's why an apology isn't necessary in order to practice forgiveness. We have to let go of the idea that forgiveness means telling someone what they did is okay or that they are somehow being let off the hook. It doesn't. It means telling yourself that whatever the person did to you isn't going to keep you in a state of bitterness. It's making the choice to stop allowing your own anger to keep hurting you.

Sometimes forgiveness can lead to empathy and compassion for the person who hurt you, but it doesn't have to. Some kinds of harm are impossible to empathize with, but that doesn't mean they make forgiveness impossible. There are some incredible stories of people forgiving perpetrators of terrible atrocities, like the genocide in Rwanda, not because those things were forgotten or justified but because holding onto resentment and anger only punishes the victim of harm, not the perpetrator.

So if you've been waiting on an apology, try forgiveness first. While it's easier said than done, letting go can be incredibly freeing, and good for both your mental and physical health.

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Dads, it's time to reassess how we're raising our kids — especially our boys.

Parents and carers, listen up:

The development of emotional literacy and intelligence is not a task we can outsource to a school system, youth group, or sports club.

This training is our task, our responsibility. It’s true home-work. An inside job.

I'm the father of two boys under 10, and someone who works professionally in the space of emotional intelligence. And even I have to admit it’s a challenge to give the gift of emotional intelligence. But it’s worth it.

Here are a few things I’m learning (and yes — I am still learning!). These are my ABCs.

Three basic things to remember:

A. Always model well.

My boys watch me, model me, and follow me. Whether it’s good, bad, or ugly, kids learn their emotional cues from their parents. My boys learn especially from me, as I'm the primary male in their life.

They watch how I treat their mum and how I welcome their friends when they come to visit. They watch how I discipline their siblings and how I handle stress. They pay attention to how I talk to others, treat others, and love others. They see me cry when I need. I’m a walking emotional classroom.

Parents, there’s no getting around this: your boys are watching.

So ...

Be self-aware. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Walk in love. Apologize quickly and sincerely. Sort your own crap out. Keep doing the heart journey. Be willing to back-track and explain your actions and reactions — right or wrong.

B. Believe your boys.

“I’m bored!” “I too tired!” “I can’t do it.” “I hate her!” “That hurts!” “It tastes yuck!” “I’m scared.”

Sound familiar? (Like, every day!).

If we respond with: “That doesn’t hurt.” “You’re not tired.” “You don’t hate her.” “Don’t be scared.” or “How can you be bored?” — how on earth can the boy learn to trust and label his own emotions?

It's no wonder we have so many shut down adult men who can’t put words to what they feel. Many were shamed for sharing feelings, and when they did share, they were told they were wrong.

So ...

Parents, we have to validate what our boys are sharing. Believe them when they share their emotions and feelings. It’s vital. Dads, we have to stop holding our sons to an impossible and destructive standard of masculinity (one that even we can't measure up to!). It’s not helping.

Respond by believing your boys. Use simple reflective listening skills by validating them in phrases like: “I can see you’re tired”, “You hate her, huh? Tell me why”, “That can be scary.”, ”I'm sorry you're feeling bored.” (Btw, it doesn’t mean you have to fix the problems. Just believe them first and see what happens).

C. Call out the gold in your boys.

I've spent years studying and teaching on the power of blessing across cultures. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve cried with, prayed for, and given counsel to whose fathers totally sucked at the blessing of simple encouragement!

In fact, many fathers did the opposite of calling out the gold by calling out the problems, faults, and failings of their children. It’s incredibly traumatizing and irresponsible. It really pisses me off.

Boys whose dads are in their lives need their dads' unconditional love, approval, and acceptance. Think for a minute: how many movies contain a theme of a boy (or adult boy) looking for his father’s approval? So many! It’s hardwired into us and essential for emotional health and literacy.

So ...

Remember, blessing is not a reward for good behavior. Blessing is our right, as humans.

Like nurture, safety, and community, we NEED the good things in us called out by others. Drop the nitpicking and criticism, instead find some things that your boy likes, has a knack for, or is interested in and encourage him with words.

It could sound as simple as, “Man, you love soccer? That’s great!” or “You’re a kind young man, kinder than me. I’m proud of you, son," or “I know it’s not the mark you wanted, but I don’t care, I can see you’ve tried. I'll cheer you on no matter the outcome.”

Finally, let me add something that may help in your journey to teach emotional literacy.

This isn't about being an amazing, perfect, or super-fun, always-happy dad.

In my 14 years of parenting, I've learned that being a "good-enough" dad is the kindest and fairest standard to hold against myself and others.

If I'm a "good enough" dad, and I at least remember my ABCs, then I’m well on my way to gifting my children with the emotional literacy they need to move forward into the world of adolescence and adulthood.

This story originally appeared on davidtensen.com and is reprinted here with permission.

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