Written By Deborah L. Monroe
My tenure in the medical profession recently hit the 32-year mark. Throughout that time, I have seen just about every disease process imaginable. Since the first ten years of my career were in oncology, I witnessed firsthand the trials and tribulations patients went through to save their lives. The faces and names are forever etched in my memory – something that simply never goes away. The remainder of my career in research has been focused on the best treatment options, and better yet a cure. Despite the poor prognosis or fatal outcomes, there was always one thing that made the process in those moments bearable. It was the love and compassion surrounding those individuals. The doctors, nurses, staff, friends, and family members would work tirelessly and endlessly to bring comfort and solutions to those patients. There was always a thread of hope in their recovery and at least love and compassion to guide them through their transition to the other side after months (sometimes years) of failed attempts at helping them find a way back to wellness.
With the horrific disease process I witnessed and the fatal diagnosis of cancer, one thing remained – a demonstration of love for humanity. Love and compassion above all else. Money, time, and other obligations were never a concern. Almost everyone would re-center their lives and focus on the issue at hand, saving that precious life in front of them or at the least making their final moments comfortable.
Since that time, and many years later, I have observed something not only in the medical profession but in our day-to-day lives and the world. With my own recent health scare, and for the first time ever being a real patient, I had an eye-opening experience. What was once considered sacred is now not really considered at all. I searched my heart to find a way to understand the strong emotions I was feeling, I found an avenue to better articulate what I experienced in recent years and with my recent experience. It is the state of mind and the state of affairs for many in our world. And I’ll clarify; not everyone is included, but like anything else, there’s a system in place creating a disconnection for many.
“The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness; it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy; it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.” -Ellie Wiesel
The disease that had no name was indifference. It’s indifference to just about everything on our planet. As I experienced my own situation, I was left speechless with the robotic nature in which I watched everyone operate. It wasn’t necessarily the personal experience but rather an energy and an emptiness in how people responded to everything and everyone. Whether it was a medical professional, family, friend, colleague, or love interest, there was simply an indifference to another person’s suffering. It’s as if there’s an inability to empathize or have compassion for what another human being is going through.
Merriam-Webster Definition of Empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner;
Wikipedia: Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person's frame of reference.
As I watched, it was easy to see those who were awake enough to have compassion, care, and concern. They were few and far between, but they stepped up with love and compassion. I have also found that one of the dangers of law-of-attraction-thinking is that somehow a person’s experience is not worthy of attention or concern because they created it. It’s that belief system that I find so dangerous in our New Age thinking.
We are also bombarded daily by electronics and technology, which I believe is creating a numbing effect on society; it’s decreasing our ability to have an authentic connection. An authentic connection CREATES empathy.
Drawing from my years of experience as a registered nurse, a researcher, a mother, and humanitarian, I believe the following steps are how we can begin to reconnect with ourselves and other human beings in their time of need.
Please consider the following:
It’s not all about you. So many of us spend our lives in our heads and focused on our next success in business or our personal lives that we forget about others. When was the last time you volunteered your time to assist a sick family member, child, friend, or stranger in need (and here’s the catch) WITHOUT asking for anything in return and selflessly offering to help genuinely?
Harvard studies have shown that giving to another person without asking for anything in return has incredibly positive effects on the health of the person giving.
Thus the old saying, “It is better to give than to receive.” Commit to doing something kind for someone with no expectation. Imagine if all of us agreed to that and what a difference we could make in giving back hope to the hopeless, which at times includes ourselves.
Disconnect. There is a time and a place for technology, but it can never substitute the chemistry and energy of interacting with another human being. Stop justifying your busyness and need for your cell phone in your face 24 hours a day.
It’s making uncompassionate zombies out of all of us (myself included). And here’s another thought: The only people truly prospering from that behavior are the companies selling to you 24/7. Regain your composure, and YOU determine when and how often you will use technology. By decreasing the time online, it will increase your awareness of your surroundings. I promise you will begin to wake up.
Walk a mile in their shoes. I remember years ago a friend having an altercation with a family member who refused to help a woman in dire straits and deep need of help financially due to illness. In the course of the conversation, there was a judgement made about the woman’s life experience. I remember at that moment feeling defensive on behalf of the woman. I thought, how can someone judge when they’ve never been a single mother of two children?
There was no display of empathy for the uphill battle she was facing alone. Of course, the answer was no, but because of his unwillingness to help and inability to empathize, he could not understand the long-term damage and hurt he caused her. Learn to be consciously aware of the situations of others without judgement.
Discover the root of what caused you to shut down. Many of us are walking around and simply feel nothing. What a sad way to live. We must go back to the day, time, and incident to determine where we shut down in our lives. Not only are we not empathizing with others, but we’re living a shallow existence of a life. By stepping outside of our woundedness and inability to feel, we can then begin to empathize with others. I began studying the art of tantra several years ago in my quest for healing and learning to reconnect with my body and my heart. It led me to the awareness of how shutdown we are as a society. As the first step in our healing, we must return to our heart center. By healing our wounds, we can begin to empathize and feel for others.
It could be you. As mentioned earlier, when I became the patient it caused a shift in my own thinking. Although many of us may consider ourselves empaths, we begin to remember how fragile life can be when we become truly aware of what it means to connect with humanity and feel for another’s journey.
When our own mortality is in question, the focus quickly shifts. It’s easy to sail through life with our successes and our failures tending to our own fragile egos and not really caring about other human beings.
We remain in the fight, flight, or freeze phases just trying to survive. It’s a repetitive state of living keeping us small and isolated. By stepping out of that pattern, we open ourselves up to our own healing through giving. Now here’s the irony in all this if we don’t change; there will be a day when it’s you. As much as we’d love to believe we will all live forever, we won’t.
When you are in need, what kind of world do you hope to be living in? Care and compassion are learned behaviors. We must return to our heart-centered living and love one another home. Only then will we see humanity in our humans and find a cure for the disease of indifference.
Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings. –Helen Keller
Deborah L. Monroe is a researcher, writer, motivational speaker, and spiritual mentor. She has an extensive background in health, wellness, and research which led her to her own discovery of self-healing and awareness. With over 30 years of experience in the healthcare field caring for terminally ill cancer patients and working in cancer and cardiology research and the corporate world, Deborah set out to find answers to our purpose and the very question of existence itself. Her quest for answers led her to a deeper understanding of the world and humanity as a whole. Capturing the essence of learning to love one’s self, Deborah Monroe’s personal experiences have led her to teach others the meaning of self-discovery, the truth of self-love, and honest healing from past experiences. Reflecting on the guidance and truths she has received on her personal journey, Deborah’s honest portrayal of her own life experiences lovingly invite you to look into her heart and soul, empowering you to heal your own. Deborah is a Co-Author in the Best-Selling Book “20 Beautiful Women, Vol. 4.” More of her journey can be found in her upcoming books “The Goddess Transformation” and “Return to Innocence.”
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