The Importance of Empathy: Why We Shouldn’t Shame Those Who Suffer
Recently, I saw post about suffering and the author argued how people suffer “because they choose suffering” and stay stuck “because they decided to stay stuck.”
It’s not the first time I’ve seen the argument. Today I want to share some thoughts on it.
Right out of the gate, I want to state that I find the approach lacking in empathy, particularly when coming from individuals who have positioned themselves as helpers.
The Importance of Empathy:
I live with chronic pain and carry the impacts of trauma on my body. Playing hopscotch with “Christian” advice is something I’m familiar with.
At this point in my life, I’m just hoping for a day when we can all agree that coming down hard on the suffering is not how you support them to safety and healing. I’m hoping we can see how when an individual is living with unprocessed trauma or an ongoing hardship, “You chose this” is not exactly the kindest direction to take.
Declaring suffering or being stuck as always choice-based is actually pouring the acid of shame and guilt on those who can’t leave suffering, no matter how much they want to. (Think individuals living with chronic conditions, children in unsafe households, impoverished individuals, women in the process of figuring out what to do about harmful marriages, people in war zones.)
Sometimes, bad things happen that are beyond our control.
Feeling “stuck” can also be due to unrelenting stress or trauma, part of the “Freeze” response that occurs in the context of perceived threat. So it is unfair to be out there declaring people are stuck because they chose it.
The four main trauma responses (“Flee,” “Fight,” “Freeze,” and “Fawn”) are entirely without conscious thought or decision. Not something someone “chooses.” Think about how some animals play “dead” in response to perceived threats or plants that wither up and “die” when you touch them.
For human beings, when “Fleeing” or “Fighting” (even “Fawning”) are likely to be ineffective, a Freeze response may take place.*
Shaming Those Who Suffer: Of Unintentional Harm
It could be that those who say “suffering is a choice” or “you’re stuck because you chose it” are attempting to articulate specific seasons.
Obviously, I’d prefer better word choices, but yes, we do have the power of choice (more on that shortly.) But if we decide to enter “the human condition” conversation, we better wear our nuanced hat.
I have yet to observe the nuance or context in their words – the who, what, or when. I’ve simply seen general verbiage about how suffering is a choice and why we must “choose” better than stuck.
Again, I’m a marriage coach (on hiatus), and fully understand how each individual can harness and express their will, thought and choice.
But it’s also important to acknowledge that some circumstances disrupt or strip people of active power and affect how they show up for themselves and others. We can’t simply bulldoze people to use something they have yet to be resourced to.
It’s like kicking and hitting the tires of a stationary vehicle, demanding it move. It won’t. To drive that car, you must add some gas and turn on the ignition.
Obviously, humans are more complex than cars, but I hope you get the point. We don’t yell and kick and make demands. We become an ally and explore the needs. We meet the needs first before we attempt to provide a roadmap.
Shaming Those Who Suffer: Making an Enemy out of Our Bodies
In evangelical and conservative circles, the body is a burden—a brute to be kicked and coerced and bullied.
We’re taught to see our bodies as wicked, immoral, sinful – the enemy keeping us from everything we want to be. And so it makes sense that when that body hurts, we’ll force it into our tiny box of what we think “joy” or “healing” or “peace” or “faith” looks like.
We will ignore this body’s needs, how it’s created, and how it moves in each environment. We will ignore her. Because we don’t like her. We don’t like our self.
But then we see Jesus. Incarnate God, taking the form of us, dignifying and affirming our worth. All parts of us are welcome to His table. We don’t have to ignore our suffering, our pain, and how our body interacts with our world and circumstances in order to belong.
The same body that senses and expresses delight and elation at a friend’s graduation after four years of hard work is the same body that expresses sorrow and anguish when a loved one betrays us.
It’s the same body, deserving of curiosity, compassion, and acceptance, no matter its state.
We make room for the different seasons and experiences, not because we’re determined to stay in one location forever, but because we’re deserving of the whole human experience. We won’t thrive without a connection with all parts of ourselves.
Our hope can only be as deep as our lament. ~ Cole Arthur Riley
Shaming Those Who Suffer: The Courage to Reflect and Lament
When bad things happen to us, we are invited to name those things and to grieve them.
That’s how the soul and body work, how God created us to move in the world. Our bodies signal what we need or are lacking, not as judgment or shame, but as an invitation to consider our needs in that moment.
We don’t have to gloss over our needs, emotions, or sensations or hurriedly collect our broken pieces to drag ourselves to “joy.” We can sit with us. We can name the pain. We can voice our suffering. We invite or acknowledge the Divine right here, where we are.
“To lament means to express sorrow or regret. Lamenting something horrific that has taken place allows a deep connection to form between the person lamenting and the harm that was done, and that emotional connection is the first step in creating a pathway for healing and hope. We have to sit in the sorrow, avoid trying to fix it right away, avoid our attempts to make it all okay. Only then is the pain useful. Only then can it lead us into healing and wisdom.” – LaTasha Morrison, Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation.
The gap between what happens to us and how we are taught to perceive it is why I wrote my new book, Courage: Reflections and Liberation for the Hurting Soul.
Courage: Reflections and Liberation for the Hurting Soul is a collection of 28 powerful poems and reflections. It’s a small book (the smallest I have ever written!) about grieving and lamenting and healing… with pails of affirmation. (Book now available on Amazon and this website.)
So often, the “Christian faith” prefers only certain parts of us. We’re asked to give “good reports.” People want to hear “testimonies.” Women are told to “stop painting your husband in a bad light” when they speak the truth of their marriage.
We’re told that our diminishment is “divinely ordered,” and we should be thankful and rejoice for the crumbs. (Otherwise, we’re ungrateful, complaining, rebelous jezebels.)
It should not be so. We deserve more.
Courage: Reflections and Liberation for the Hurting Soul is about truth, liberation, and hope. It’s envisioning and language for the woman embracing the fullness of herself as an Image bearer who bears God-given rights to protect her dignity and humanity.
Courage is for women who desire freedom from harming theology, “church” culture, and bad marriage teachings.
Courage: Reflections and Liberation for the Hurting Soul goes on sale on Monday, 11 December 2023, at 6 AM central time.
Book now available. Order on Amazon or this website.
Liberation is not a finality or an endpoint; it is an unending awakening. It is something we can both meet and walk away from within the same hour. Our responsibility to ourselves is to become so familiarized with it, so attuned to its sound, that when it calls out to us, we will know which way the table is. To answer the question of how one becomes attuned to liberation, I think we must ask ourselves: What sounds are drowning it out? Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us