I’ve Been There, Honey

An excerpt from Big Love: The Power of Living with a Wide-Open Heart by Scott Stabile

Author and Facebook sensation Scott Stabile’s parents were murdered when he was fourteen. Nine years later, his brother died of a heroin overdose. Soon after that, Scott joined a cult that dominated his life for thirteen years. Through it all, he became evermore committed to living his life from love.

In each chapter of his new book Big Love: The Power of Living with a Wide-Open Heart, Scott shares a personal experience that pulled him from his center and the ways in which he brought himself back to peace, and to love. While some of his experiences are extraordinary, like extricating himself from a cult after 13 years, most of the stories reflect on everyday challenges we can all relate to, like the weight of shame, the search for happiness, and the struggle to be authentic.

We hope you’ll enjoy this short excerpt from the book.

Empathy helps.

Consider situations in which it helped immensely to know that others could relate to what you were going through. After a brutal breakup, we don’t want someone who’s never had their heart broken telling us to get over it. We want to sob to a friend who knows the grief of a broken heart and the time it can take to move on. If you’re a parent being driven crazy by your toddler, you may not seek out your single friends to commiserate, not when you’ve got other struggling parent friends who really get what you’re going through. It’s comforting to be heard; it’s empowering to be understood.

Human beings don’t long just for connection; we long for empathetic connection.

When we can relate to someone going through a difficult time, when we can empathize with her struggle, we serve her by letting her know. I’ve spoken with thousands of people over the years about my parents’ murder, almost always to a reaction of shock, and then sympathy. I’ve cried into the arms of close friends who would’ve sold their souls to take away my pain. Their compassion and love touched me deeply, of course, and I’m grateful to have had so many loved ones with whom I could unravel. But something entirely different happens when I encounter others who lost their parents when they were young. Others who understand what it’s like to live most of their lives without a mom and dad, or who know the pain of losing a loved one to murder. Others who have been there. In our shared experience, we can offer each other the distinct — divine — comfort of empathy. This is how we help each other feel less alone in our individual struggles.

Empathy eliminates separation. It fosters connection. That’s the thing about being human — we are all each other. Even when we can’t relate to the exact same situation as another, we can still make an effort to empathize. We have probably lived some version of being there. Heartache is heartache, after all. Anger is anger. Grief is grief. We have all walked the path between joy and sorrow, stopping at every emotion along the way. Empathy asks us to be willing to share ourselves with each other, willing to be vulnerable and speak about our pain so that others feel the freedom to speak about theirs.

Empathy is a gift, to give and to receive.

One of the things I love most about my Facebook community is our willingness to empathize with each other’s experiences. When people post about depression, addiction, chronic pain, grief, anxiety, or whatever else, others respond with comments that make it clear to those who shared that they are not alone. They have been there, too. The point is not to hijack someone else’s experience, or to drone on about our own struggles, but to respond in a way that lets others know they’re not mutants for feeling the way they feel. Likely, many of us have experienced whatever they’re experiencing, or something very similar.