Reawakening Empathy

This week’s Teachings Tuesday is offered by our Director of Organizational Relationships and Special Projects, Katy Carson, a proud Métis woman whose leadership continues to shape the heart of our work at Culturally Committed.

Katy invites us to reflect deeply on the forces that keep us isolated—from each other, from justice, and from empathy. Her words are both a call-in and a call-back: a reminder that relationship is not only possible—it’s necessary.

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We’re living in a world that has been carefully designed to numb us.

Our systems (especially capitalism) benefit when we are isolated. When we are alone, busy, and overwhelmed, we make better consumers. Instead of sharing resources, we each buy one of everything. Instead of relying on each other, we are taught to rely on the market. Isolation keeps us spending—and keeps us apart.

We become less likely to look up from our own lives and notice what’s happening to someone else, somewhere else. We’re encouraged to mind our own business, to stay in our lane, to keep scrolling.

And slowly, without even realizing it, we can become divorced from empathy. We see the suffering of others—whether that’s in our own communities or across the globe, like in Gaza where Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people—and instead of feeling compelled to act, we feel powerless. Or worse, we feel nothing.

I also see this show up close to home in the work of Indigenous anti-racism, cultural safety, and cultural humility. Many people try to approach this work by learning from a distance—through courses or textbooks—without stepping into real relationship. And then, even after all that “learning,” they feel anxious about going into spaces with Indigenous people, worried about saying the wrong thing.

Reconnection is awkward. It can feel uncomfortable and uncertain. But if we want the village, we have to be willing to be a villager—to show up, to listen, to make mistakes, and to keep coming back anyway.

This is no accident. Isolation serves the systems we live in. Because if we stay isolated, we are less likely to dismantle racism, challenge colonialism, and change the status quo. These systems do not want us to heal. They do not want us to be in relationship. They do not want us to see each other as fully human.

But empathy isn’t gone. It’s dormant. And it can be reawakened.

Every time we build real connections with others, something shifts. Every time we take the time to know someone’s story, to see them as fully human, we remember that our lives are intertwined.

Connection is an act of resistance. It’s how we find our way back to empathy and how we begin to change the world.

~ Katy Carson

Katy’s reflection is a powerful reminder that disconnection is by design—but so is our ability to resist it.

May we continue to show up for one another with presence, courage, and compassion. May we practise seeing each other as fully human. And may we remember that every act of connection is a thread woven back into the fabric of community.

Together, we will find our way.

🧡 Kim