Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Eliana Nita podcast, the podcast created to inform, challenge and empower you. Now let's get down to business.
Speaker: Hi, guys. Welcome to the Alien Anita podcast. I'm your host, Alien. And I am so excited to have you join me for this show. I wanted to take a moment out of my show and remember someone that is significant to me, somebody that's significantly important that I just really loved.
Speaker: And his name is Kobe Bean Bryant. As you may know, I'm pretty sure you all should know Kobe Bryant died in January alongside his daughter and seven others. And Kobe's loss was a significant loss that was felt by many people, family, friends, fans. I mean, you name it, many people felt the loss of Kobe Bryant.
Speaker: And I just wanted to take a quick minute to just remember him as the great player that he was, as the great professional that he was, the father, the friend, the husband, the son, the brother, the mentor, all of those great things that he was when he was here on the earth.
Speaker: Kobe did so much in the 40 plus 40 years of his life and it was something to remember. I remember being a young girl growing up watching Kobe Bryant play and just loving him, loving watching, loving to watch him.
Speaker: play the sport of basketball, seeing his energy, seeing his passion, knowing that behind the scenes Kobe was putting in so much work to be the greatest basketball player and he really did what he came to do and I just love watching that and watching his energy and his drive. I remember my brother took me to my first Lakers versus Bulls game and you know I'm from Chicago so
Speaker: you know, Michael Jordan is the best thing since sliced bread, but after sliced bread was Kobe Bryant. And I remember being in the United Center thinking, oh my gosh, I am breathing the same air as Kobe Bryant. I couldn't believe it. It blew my mind and I was just so excited and so ecstatic to see Kobe perform and bring his A1 game. And even though the Bulls team at the time was very, they was rough, you know,
Speaker: It wasn't the greatest team. Kobe still brought his A game and I loved every minute of the game. And so it just, his loss really hit me in a different way. It was so unexpected. It was hard to believe that Kobe Bryant was gone, but
Speaker: after the news settled in, then the grief happened. And then after grief, I felt complete empathy for his family, his wife that he left behind, his three daughters, his mother, his sisters, his father, you know, those things like started to settle in my mind, like, man, this is, he is such a significant person to so many people.
Speaker: But as I was at the time when I was on social media, I started to see how people was writing statuses and tweeting tweets about how weird it is for people to even be mourning his death that didn't know him.
Speaker: And I wanted to take some time to not only just remember Kobe Bryant as the great player and a great husband and mentor and all those things that he was, but I want to talk about how empathy is a real emotion, a real emotion. I did not know Kobe Bryant personally. I never met him. I just watched him play.
Speaker: But his loss was something, like I said, I felt I felt a significant loss when he died because Kobe Bryant had just that kind of effect on people. And I wanted to say, like, honestly, I wanted to take the time to normalize empathy.
Speaker: I feel like we have gotten so far from the human experience. And actually, I was reading an article that said one of the negative effects of social media has been that people have become less empathetic towards one another. Because we see so much so fast, we're losing our ability to understand, process, and relate to human emotions. We've also lost the ability to be empathetic towards ourselves.
Speaker: And so with that information and what I saw people post about how people experienced emotional grief because of Kobe, it made me think, man, people are so disconnected from one another and just the raw, real human emotion.
Speaker: And so I did a little bit of research and this podcast is not going to be a long podcast because I don't want to lecture you about empathy, but I just want to. I feel like doing like for me, this is how I want to pay honor and tribute to Kobe and honor and tribute to his family by talking about how important it is to be empathetic.
Speaker: So I looked at what the definition of empathy is and it is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. When Kobe passed, many of us felt the pain and grief that his friends and family did. Although our pain is nowhere near what they felt, what we felt is real and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: Expression and empathy allows you to build connections with people. When you can understand a person's feeling, you become socially aware. In the case of Kobe Bryant, many of us became aware of the pain and the grief of those families involved in a fatal helicopter crash. Through empathy, we were able to connect with people we would have never connected with and understand people we would never understood.
Speaker: Expressing empathy helps to increase emotional intelligence. If you listen to my podcast about anger, you know what emotional intelligence is and how I defined it. And in case you didn't, it is defined as the capability to be aware of control and express one emotions and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.
Speaker: Emotional intelligence helps you control your emotions therefore allowing you to be able to relate to the person or the situation and express empathy. Expressing empathy takes your mind off yourself and allows you to focus on the world around you. Focus not just on the pain but the joy and peace as well.
Speaker: Empathy helps you get back up after you've taken a loss. Empathy helps you to see your mistakes as well as your strengths. Empathy is the confidence you have knowing you can do anything and empathy is the humility that reminds you that you're not invincible.
Speaker: Empathy is the kind of approach to life and people. So I hope that in this really brief podcast and in this, I guess in my tribute to Kobe, that we become reconnected to the human emotion of empathy.
Speaker: and allow ourselves to feel and connect with one another on a deeper level. You may not have known Kobe and you may not have known anybody on that helicopter, as I said earlier, but it's okay to feel emotion, feel raw emotion, to feel sad, to feel sympathy for the families, to want to care and want to know how these people are doing and
Speaker: just to be able to support them in any kind of way. It is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I would encourage you to do so. I'm going to leave you with this scripture. It's one of my favorite scriptures that I like to think about as it pertains to empathy. It is, be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other.
Speaker: Don't be too proud to enjoy the company of the ordinary people and don't think you know it all. Romans 12, 15 through 16, New Living Translation. I hope you guys enjoyed this podcast. I'm going to link in the show where if you want to, this is totally up to you, if you want to make donations to
Speaker: the Mamba and Mamba Sita Foundation. Also, I'm going to link to recommended resources. There are two articles about empathy in the show descriptions as well. And as always, guys, if you enjoyed this podcast, please share with your family, friends, and followers. Rate the podcast. If you want to follow me on any social media, I am Eliana Nita on all of the things
Speaker: And as always, be blessed and stay relevant.
