This is your greatest Superpower

Do any of these sound familiar?

“Why do you always take everything so seriously?”

“You are too sensitive!”

“You don’t even know that person, why do you care what happens to them?”

I was 7. My mom and I were walking home and we saw ambulances and a crowd of people. When we approached, there was a young man, whose body looked severely burned. The man was lying on the ground. He was not moving.

One of the women in the crowd was telling the people around her that the man’s apartment was on fire and he jumped out of an 8th story window rather than to get burned alive.

I wanted to walk up to the man lying motionlessly on the ground. I wanted to hold his hand. To comfort him, even though I knew that he would not feel it. He no longer felt anything at all.

My heart hurt.

My mom pulled me away from the crowd and we quietly walked home. When we got home, I started crying. I sobbed for weeks. I dreamt about him, the stranger with no name. I wanted to be able to comfort him somehow. I wished I could have been there in his last moments to help him with his transition.

I told my friend what happened.

Why do you care? You didn’t even know him?

I didn’t know how to explain to her why I cared. The man was a human being. He must have been frightened. In pain and alone at the last moment of his life. It mattered. He mattered.

On September 1 2004, Chechen terrorists took over a school in a Russian town, Beslan. The siege lasted 3 days, with nearly 400 people killed, most of them, children. I was glued to the television. This event affected me just as much as 9/11 when I lived in N.Y. I was sick to my stomach about what was happening and also wanting, on some level to help, to connect, looking for an opportunity.

After the siege was over, I started a fundraiser to help the family members of those affected by the seige with funeral expenses. So many people donated, that I raised $1,000 in just one day. And yet, at the same time, many people would ask that same question,

Why do you care, you didn’t even know them?

As a psychologist, I deal in empathy and I run on compassion. People’s pain and suffering becomes a bridge for connection and healing. In reading about the suffering of the refugees, in reading about the person in Brooklyn who wanted to jump off a building today, in reading about people dying from poverty, my heart breaks. Every time. But it is in this heartbreak that I can better understand and love humanity. It is in this heartbreak that I can remember that my greatest strength, my greatest superpower is compassion.

So I call on you, my fellow Empaths, my fellow compassionate children of Earth. Stand for love. Stand for unity. Know that even as others might tell you not to care, even as you are reading about the pain and violence in this world, even as you read some people’s hateful comments, remember that you are not alone. Remember that you are strong. Remember that your compassion makes you strong. It makes you wonderful. It is your superpower.

And so long as we can connect with love, we can heal the world, one heart at a time.

Dr. Janina Scarlet is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a scientist, and a full-time geek. A Ukrainian-born refugee, she survived Chernobyl radiation and persecution. She immigrated to the United States at the age of 12 with her family and later, inspired by the X-Men, developed Superhero Therapy to help patients with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Her book, “Superhero Therapy” came out on December 1, 2016 in the U.K. and will release on August 1, 2017 in the U.S.

If you would like to learn more about Superhero Therapy, contact Dr. Janina Scarlet Twitter @shadowquill, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Shadow.Scarletl, or website at www.superhero-therapy.com