The pain of empathy

Tonight I had a reminder of why I stopped looking at facebook.   As I mentioned in my previous post my only weakness - I say 'weakness', it's only been twice in the last fortnight! - is to look at Lazlo's breeder's page to see her dogs.   So I had a look tonight and one of her posts included comments about one of her dogs having lost her on the beach for 30 minutes, which any dog owner will tell you feels like 30 hours.   Now my empathy response has kicked in and I recognise the feeling as one I have not been having for the last two weeks. 

For me, empathy with negative experiences usually manifests itself as anxiety, faster heart rate, even a feeling of panic as my brain imagines or remembers being in a similar situation. 

My empathy can relate to anything - I get it when one of my friends has to have their dog put down; if a friend loses a parent; if I imagine how Mr H must have been feeling at our RTA, or if I see an ambulance - that relates both to our RTA and to watching my father taken away in one (he survived); I get it when someone has a disappointing experience, one that I could easily have had.  It has differing levels of symptoms depending on the context but it nearly always feels unpleasant.  (You probably noticed that I mentioned the loss of  a dog before the loss of a parent, because it happens more often; and I've experienced the former three times, and the latter only once).

I now realise how many things on social media are liable to trigger this empathetic anxiety, and it has made me even more determined to do my mental state a favour and stay off it.

Lazlo and his brothers and sisters.

Switch off and tune in

Two weeks ago I was so wound up by a post that a friend shared on facebook (one of those incessant do-gooder preachy articles) that I deleted the facebook app off my smartphone.   It felt good, but I knew that a) I've done that before and put it back on the next day and b) I still had the facebook account and could access it from my iPad or laptop and c) I didn't want to delete my account because I run a page for our motorsport and also one for my work. 

However, the effect that simply removing the app from my smartphone had has been eye-opening.  Over the last two weeks the only time I've been on to my personal facebook profile has been to 'unfriend' a lot of acquaintances (so many that the word 'friend' started looking as though it was mis-spelled), change some privacy settings and delete a lot of my 'about' information.  I did consciously look at our Pointer's breeder's page once simply because I love her dogs, but there was no scrolling, no newsfeed, I just had a quick look and then closed it.  I found that I can still use the Pages app to maintain our motorsport page without temptation to stray to other bits of facebook while updating it. 

So what are those eye-opening effects have I noticed from my abstention from browsing other people's lives and opinions?

• I feel generally more relaxed
• That underlying tension that simmered along in my life has gone
• I have more time for reading that pile of books that I have collected 
• I feel more present in the moment rather than wondering if there's anything worth checking out online
• I am more focussed with tasks generally, either at home or at work
• I am more tuned-in and engaged when having conversations
• I 'have time' for 10 minutes meditation (with Headspace) before work; and if I feel that I don't, then I make time
• And hey, I have time to write a blog post! Maybe I'll do more, who knows. Or maybe not.

Surprisingly (or maybe not, given these benefits I've noticed) I feel no compunction to login to see what I'm missing. 

Now I'm going to put my laptop down and get started on the next book.  Here is a photo of my dog Lazlo, just because he is awesome and I love him.