“It is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply”
As we all know, Empaths are people who are naturally affected by other people’s vibes because of their mirror neuron system which lets them feel what others are feeling. They are highly intelligent people (mentally and emotionally) and have abilities most people don’t have. A lot of people might view them as fragile and weak but, this is a pure misconception. They have a heightened sense of emotions and thus they can easily neglect their body and mind for the sake of other people.
But, did you know that there were people called “Dark Empaths”? No, right? I didn’t too, not until recently.
It may seem to us that Dark traits are not empathetic or, empathy couldn’t be dark and vicious. But this isn’t this simple.
Empathy serves people higher in dark traits. Empathy while serving psychopathy, is a tool for the Machiavellian mind, which takes advantages of other’s hard times. People who are able to manipulate, who are able to exploit, who are able to deploy others are critical for community’s survival, are higher in aggression, and are able to focus in and do the job.
We need to understand the role of empathy in the darkness of people because it relates to important factors including aggression, personal and professional functioning, and well – being.
In a research on 991 participants to find how empathetic information marries with psychopathic mental processes, researchers Mihailides, Galligan and Bates (2017) from Nottingham University found that :
Dark Empaths are highly extroverted and highly neurotic and psychopathic. And they have higher subscales of malicious humor and guilt induction than normal humans either pure dark or pure empathetic. Dark Empaths have a power to find sense of others’ motives and needs to make advances while retaining the ability to engage adaptive psychopathy when necessary, paralleling the relationship between Empaths and Typical humans.
In terms of well-being, Dark Empaths are better off than pure dark species on many measures including anxiety, social pleasure, and close relationships. Dark empaths have poorer close relationships, but they enjoyed greater social pleasure. These findings highlight the protective effects of empathy over darkness.
The concept of Dark Empaths have gained popularity through literature and media. It’s personalized in a rock-star, a super-hero or a vampire; and it is straight up badass. They are flawed, yet gifted with power, responsibility and compassion gained partly from overcoming personal trauma. Every person is mesmerized by the combination of darkness alongside a sparkle of charisma.
And I believe this quote would certainly fit the situation here –
“No one reaches out to you for compassion or empathy so you can teach them how to behave better. They reach out to us because they believe in our capacity to know our darkness well enough to sit in the dark with them”.
– BRENE BROWN
No Comments
Leave a comment Cancel