Offering empathy is empowering as it is a drawing upon feeling, which in a progressive path sense is an orientation of allowing truth, the fullness of feeling, wholeness, and thus a fostering of feeling-connection and feeling-compassion. The outward allowing of expression is an inward trajectory of alignment.
Seeking empathy is disempowering as it is a seeking of fullness, wholeness & completeness of feeling from others via validation, which is a denial of the already ever-present fullness of oneself.
It is seeking of the fullness of feeling in the activity of thought, akin to believing unconditional love is my purpose. (Aversion)
The seeking of empathy manifests as a two fold identity based conceptualization;
That of a separate self which gives or receives empathy.
And that of love, the true infinite self, as; empathy.
This is the ‘product’ of believing false comparative thoughts & often sounds like:
‘Some people have empathy and some people don’t’.
‘I’m an empath or more empathetic than most people’.
‘I’m not an empath or more empathetic than most people’.
‘It’s just how I am / it’s just how some people are’.
‘Some people are too empathetic’.
’Some people are not empathetic enough’.
Or the materialist’s approach, ‘empathy is genetic’.
Humbling as the recognition of beliefs may be, these example’s are of a reinforcing of separate-self beliefs about identity, as opposed to a dispelling of separate-self beliefs about identity. The fundamental underlying belief in separation is that I am the knower that knows these thoughts are true.
Alignment with/as well-being can not be found outside of oneself. Conceptual rumination on empathy can be reoriented inwardly, discovering the depths & truth of self-worth.
In terms of direct experience or ‘walking yourself back to yourself’, the validity of what beliefs are based on can be questioned. As in, the a priori or presumed foundation of such beliefs can be questioned in terms of if the beliefs are based on direct experience or presumption (the activity of thinking & believing).