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feeling Into Others

feeling Into Others

Last updated on: June 22, 2016 at 2:30 pm by John O'Keefe

feeling Into Others 2016-06-22T14:30:24-05:00 John O'Keefe

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When we live in the Divine, we should reach out to ‘feeling into’ the lives of others. We should be seeking to ‘feeling into’ the joys, pains, excitements, wonders, sorrows, concerns, pleasures, and more of every person we know, and even those we have never met. We should all be “feeling into” the lives of others – our lives should connect. The word empathy comes from the German Einfühlung [meaning, ‘feeling into’]. It centers on our ability to actually feel, as close as we can, the feelings of others; our feelings should ‘fall into the feelings’ of others.

‘Feeling into’ is placing our lives, our perspective, into the lives of others. It’s not just putting yourself in their shoes, it’s knowing that our shoes walk the same path and that we understand what others are going through. To be ‘feeling into’ others, we need to be willing to get into their lives, and understand their journey. Yes, this does require a great deal from each and every one of us.

It requires time: We need to be willing to put time and effort into developing honest and true relationships that don’t center on our needs, but on the needs of others.

It requires being open: To truly be able to ‘feeling into’ the feelings of others, you need to be honest and open with our feelings; our past experiences; our pains; our joys, our wonders; our life.

It requires getting dirty: When we’re truly open to ‘feeling into’ others, truly giving time to them – it will get messy.

But, even though it will take us time, and it means we will be open to sharing our lives, and it will get messy, the joy of love, grace, and humanity will make it worth it.

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