Empathy: The Glue of Life
The Memory of Connection
In our deepest selves, many of us carry the memory of a different way of living—one based in care, connection, and unity. It is a quiet knowing, a pulse beneath the surface of our modern lives. It often manifests in a familiar longing, though it often escapes identification and understanding. It emerges in quiet moments, whispered in the space between thoughts: "I just don’t feel at home here" or "I don’t feel like I fit in here" or "I just don’t understand why things are the way they are, I don’t get it." Beneath these words is an ancient memory, a recognition of a different way of being—one where connection was effortless, where care and unity were as natural as breath.
If we did not know it, we would not notice its absence. We would not crave these realities based in unity, connection and care, if we did not feel their loss.
We suffer as we recognize the sharp contrasts between the world we were born into and the one we long for. The world we were born into is largely structured on fear, separation, scarcity, and power-over dynamics. We are taught to suppress and disconnect from our own knowing, imagination, and intelligence, our own questioning minds. We are taught to armor ourselves against the world and each other, and to see others as threats rather than kin. In this environment, isolation is not merely an emotional state—it is woven into our physiology, shaping the way we move through life, affecting the rhythms of our nervous system, our ability to heal, our capacity for joy.
Is this savagery innate to the human design? I think not. A brief study into different cultures and empathic civilizations (thanks Jeremy Rifkin for your great book on this, Empathic Civilizations), or a cultural anthropology class will show that reality is human-generated, cultures are created and it is determined by those who are in power and shape it over time. Think of the wonderful anthem that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote in his masterpiece Hamiliton, “Who lives, who dies, who tells the story”.
The invention of words like empathy and its rise in popularity is a reflection of our collective attempt to reclaim these lost realities of unity and care. Over the past multiple decades, there has been a growing movement to understand ourselves and our place in the world, seen in the increasing focus on therapy, new-age thinking, self-help, mindfulness practices, and digital tools that support self-awareness. The language we use to articulate our experience has also evolved, and the word "empathy" has emerged as a key piece of this puzzle—an expression of our longing to remember our own wholeness and connections and to reconnect.
So why this discussion of empathy? Because Vitality Medicine is based on a simple yet profound premise: humans are not designed for separation. We are designed for empathy and connection. Empathy is not a learned skill, nor is it an exceptional trait possessed by a few. It is the connective force of existence itself, an unspoken language written into the very structure of life. To understand this is to step out of the illusion of isolation and separation and scarcity and into the truth of our beingness—wholeness, sufficiency, and the vitality of our systems.
The Evolution of Empathy
The English word empathy is a relatively new addition to our language, appearing only about a century ago as a translation of the German Einfühlung, which means "feeling into." In its earliest usage, empathy was not about feeling another person’s emotions, etc but about enlivening objects, a kind of imaginative merging with the world. Indeed, Harvard’s historian of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience Susan Lanzone wrote a 379-page book in 2018 called Empathy, A History (Yale University Press). The Atlantic magazine had a concise and helpful article in 2015 called A Short History of Empathy.
The English word ‘empathy’ came into being only about a century ago as a translation for the German psychological term Einfühlung, literally meaning ‘feeling-in’. Other suggested words were animation, play, aesthetic sympathy, and semblance. But in 1908, two psychologists from Cornell and the University of Cambridge suggested “empathy” for Einfühlung, drawing on the Greek ‘em’ for ‘in’ and ‘pathos’ for ‘feeling’, and it stuck. At the time the term was coined, empathy was not primarily a means to feel another person’s emotion, but the very opposite: To have empathy, in the early 1900s, was to enliven an object or to project one’s own imagined feelings onto the world. Some of the earliest psychology experiments on empathy focused on kinaesthetic empathy, a bodily feeling or movement that produced a sense of merging with an object. One subject imagining a bunch of grapes felt ‘a cool, juicy feeling all over.’ The art critics of the 1920s claimed that with empathy, audience members could feel as if they were carrying out the abstract movements of new modern dance.
Over time, empathy’s definition expanded, eventually coming to describe the experience of understanding and sharing another’s emotions. Today, the Oxford Dictionary defines empathy as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Researcher Brené Brown differentiates empathy from sympathy simply:
Sympathy: "I feel bad for you."
Empathy: "I feel with you."
This distinction is essential because empathy as a concept dissolves the illusion of separation—it is an act of merging, a recognition of our deep interconnectedness. One acknowledges pain from a distance, while the other steps inside it.
Vitality Medicine suggests that empathy is not just an emotional response but a fundamental part of the human design, deeply embedded in our neurobiology. Our brains are literally wired for empathy in the form of ‘mirror neurons’. First discovered in the 1990s by neuroscientists studying macaque monkeys, these nerve cells fire both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else doing the same action. In humans, these neurons are located in the prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobule, and insula—areas responsible for motor control, sensory integration, and emotional processing. This mirroring mechanism has us actually light up the areas in our brain that feels the same emotions as others, forming the foundation of empathy. When we witness someone in pain, our brain activates the same neural pathways as if we were experiencing the pain ourselves. It is literally wired into us to feel into the other.
Beyond this mirroring capacity, the nervous system is wired for connection through processes known as ‘co-regulation’ and ‘entrainment’. Co-regulation occurs when we attune to each other, to find balance through connection. Entrainment occurs naturally and results in the heart rate, breathing, and brain waves synchronization with those around us. This is why we feel calmer in the presence of someone we trust and why newborns instinctively regulate their heartbeat against their mother’s chest. More on this later, but it is exciting!
But could empathy expand beyond feeling into another living being? Could it expand into us feeling connected to other animals, the natural world, even the cosmos?
In 2018, an incredible young father and friend died in a tragic whitewater river kayaking accident. At his memorial, I sat on a pier over the waters of Lake Tahoe, and in my head I pleaded, prayed, and asked for understanding of how this life works with all its tragedy and heartache and accidents and messiness. What was holding it all and us all together? And then, in an absolute and clear answer, I heard our deceased friend's voice in my head,
"There is glue."
The words landed in me like a gift from beyond that immediately filled a void and awakened in my gut a deep knowing. There is something binding us together, something holding us even when we feel untethered. It moves between us and through us, keeping us woven into the fabric of existence. That glue, I realized, is empathy.
Going back to the original definition of empathy, a kinesthetic experience of merging and animation now makes more sense. This original meaning helps explain why we feel so deeply connected to nature, art, and even inanimate things. Consider moments when you:
Stand on the beach at the ocean, feeling yourself dissolve into its vastness and connection.
Watch a sunset, experiencing a profound sense of peace and belonging.
Feel moved by music or art, as if it’s speaking directly to your soul.
See a stranger's pain and it moves you to tears
The absolute joy and awe of snuggling your new baby
In these moments, the boundaries between "self" and "other" blur. This is empathy in its truest sense—not just an emotional reaction, but a fundamental design principle of life itself. It is why humans long for deep relationships and why we experience grief so intensely when connection is lost.
Empathy and Interbeing: A Mechanism for Connection
In the model of Vitality Medicine, we do not limit empathy merely as a tool for understanding emotions and feeling into another, we expand it to the very operating system for our human connection and wholeness.
To better elucidate this, we will now incorporate an important framework from the revered Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Affectionately called ‘Thay’ by his worldwide enthusiasts, he taught the concept ‘Interbeing’. Interbeing describes this empathy and the deep interconnectedness of all of life. Thay explained that nothing exists separately. A sheet of paper, for example, is connected to the cloud, the rain, the tree, and the person who cut it down. To exist is to be in relation. In the same way, empathy is not simply the act of feeling for another; it is the recognition that there was never truly an “other” to begin with. The boundaries we perceive between ourselves and the world are constructs, lines drawn in the sand that disappear as soon as the tide comes in.
Thay wrote: “I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.”
Empathy as the Glue of Creation
Mystic and consciousness coach Tantra Maat takes Empathy to the next level and includes the metaphysical. In her book, You as the Mind of Creation, she delves into ‘Empathy’ from what she calls a ‘creation-based perspective’. In her understanding, Empathy is the term to describe how one is related to Creation. Empathy manifests in how ‘You are a reflection of Creation where you can experience yourself part of Creation. You are always glued into Creation and Creation is glued to you.’ This can make sense if we go back to the initial definitions of empathy, an enlivening, a merging….
Empathy is the glue that holds the wonder of all Creation together as a responsive, engaged, interactive, interrelated expression of unbelievable amounts of existence. You, as part of the human species, are part of that responsive, engaged, interactive, interrelated expression of unbelievable amounts of existence." Tantra Maat, You as the Mind of Creation (pg 248).
Empathy and Human and Planetary Health
I hope you can see why now why I am writing about empathy as a chiropractor in hopes of creating a new model of medicine in which people can truly regain their vitality? An understanding and embodiment of empathy is essential to truly be healthy and connected. We live in a time when the understanding of empathy is needed more than ever—not just in our relationships, but in our way of living in the world. The suffering we feel, the grief, the longing for something more—these are not signs of weakness, but evidence of our deep connection to life itself. Empathy is not simply about understanding others; it is about remembering that we were never separate to begin with. It is the very fabric of our existence, the glue that holds the wonder of creation together. And in that remembering, we begin to heal into our innate and deserved wholeness.
For too long, people have been told that their health struggles are their fault. If their body is failing, they are just not trying hard enough. There is a ‘body as deficient model’ in our Western world. We are taught that we are not enough. Not smart enough, not thin enough, not tough enough, not pretty enough, not enough not enough not enough. Since, we live in a reality that has severed connection, where empathy isn’t given a place, how can we feel whole and sufficient?
For me, it is enraging and disempowering that this “not enough” is something taught. A child enters the world with eyes wide open, curious, loving, imaginative. Nothing is off-limits in their mind—they can fly to the moon, be a dragon, ride a unicorn, talk to faeries, or become an astronaut, ninja, or welder. The sky is the limit—until they are told, taught, or shown differently.
How do we reclaim what has been forgotten? How do we re-member and re-embody this larger sense of connection and belonging? When we embrace empathy, we do more than cultivate a skill; we reclaim our place within the web of life. We restore our connection to ourselves, to each other, to our world, and to the vast, intricate intelligence that surrounds us. And as we do, we do not just heal individually—we participate in the healing of our world.
It is actually rather radical. Rather revolutionary. Or might it be evolutionary? Do you want to join in the forces of conscious connection? Of empathy as a superpower?
I will leave you with an exciting note. Philosopher and founder of Waldorf education Rudolf Steiner suggested in the early 1900s that the consciousness around empathy is expanding. He predicted that one day in the future, no one will be able to go hungry because everyone else will feel that hunger. While we’re not to this level of cognition of our conscious connection yet, we are experiencing heightened sensitivity and often suffering because of it.
We will explore this suffering and what to do about it in the chapter on Empathic Response.
ACTION STEPS:
Empathy and the Evolution of Consciousness
Empathy is also a marker of consciousness evolution. As we move beyond a self-centered perspective and into a relational consciousness, empathy becomes an expression of our expanded awareness. It enables us to:
Move from "I" to "We": Empathy dissolves the illusion of separateness, helping us to embrace a collective identity.
Cultivate Compassionate Action: Empathy compels us to care for others, driving acts of service and kindness that uplift individuals and communities.
Foster Unity: Through empathy, we align ourselves with the truth of our oneness, creating a more harmonious and compassionate world.