The Problem Isn’t Compassion. It’s How We Define It
Why caring can feel overwhelming and what actually helps.
Many of us are exhausted not because we don’t care, but because we care so much. In moments of suffering, our empathy can flood the nervous system. Over time, that empathic distress builds.
Research shows that high empathic load is linked with increased stress hormones, emotional exhaustion, and burnout, especially in caregiving roles. Yet the same research points to something hopeful.
When people shift from empathy alone to compassion, different systems in the brain and body activate. Systems associated with care, motivation, and resilience rather than pain.
In this piece, we look at what that shift actually feels like. Using the example of a doctor in an emergency room, we explore how compassion empowers action instead of paralysis. The doctor can step forward without shutting down, and the patient can feel that steadiness right away. This isn’t about caring less. It’s about caring in a way that helps everyone involved.
Imagine a moment that happens again and again every day in emergency rooms.
A doctor steps into a curtained room. Someone is there, suffering. In pain. Maybe frightened. Maybe alone. The doctor immediately feels it viscerally.
The tightness in the chest. The pull to rush. The ache of wanting this person not to suffer.
That’s empathy. A human response. Necessary and real.
But if the doctor stayed inside that pain with every individual patient, hour after hour, their job would be unbearable.
Not because they don’t care enough, but because caring that way would break them.
What allows them to keep going isn’t a lack of heart. It’s a shift.
They move from feeling the pain to responding to it.
They shift to let compassion take the lead.
The patient, or the person beside them, doesn’t need it explained. They feel it in a softening of the shoulders, a breath that comes a little easier. When the doctor meets the moment with compassion, the room finds a quiet alignment.
There is still concern, still care, but now there’s steadiness too. A sense of safety. Someone is here not just to feel this with them, but to hold it and help in whatever way is possible.
Empathy is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling.
But empathy alone can dive into empathic distress.
Compassion notices suffering and brings a steady wish to help, to ease, to care.
It orients the heart toward relief instead of overwhelm.
This applies to all of us.
At some point, empathy alone stops helping. Compassion is what makes care sustainable.
Reflection
Think of a recent moment when you felt overwhelmed by someone else’s pain.
Where did you feel it in your body?
What happened when you stayed there?
Did you shift from empathy to compassion, and how was that?
When empathic distress shows up, try this:
Name the state: Simply say, ‘This is empathic distress.’
Activate compassion with the desire to help, not to fix.
Offer the intention that this person be supported.
Don’t forget to include yourself in the circle of care, too. What do you need to stay steady?