What Lucario (Pokémon) Can Teach Us About Empathy, Emotional Intelligence, and Protecting Our Energy

This is for My Beautiful Son, Kalel…and for All the Empaths Trying to Make the World a Better Place

I am writing this piece for my son, for him to read one day when he is old enough to fully understand what I am trying to say.

My eight-year-old constantly blows my mind. Last night, I was reflecting with my husband that I don’t think I have ever met an eight-year-old who can talk about such complex emotional things. He looked at me and said, “Well, that’s what you get from the son of a Psychologist.”

I felt an incredible amount of pride in that moment. Because maybe, somehow, I have taken some of the best parts of my profession (the curiosity about people, the language for emotions, the ability to look beneath behavior, the belief that people are complicated and worthy of understanding) and internalized them enough that I have passed some of that on to my beautiful child. And now I get to watch him understand things at eight that many of us spend much of adulthood trying to understand.

So this article is really for my beautiful son, Kalel. And for all the empaths who are trying to make the world a better place.
Here we go…

Recently, Kalel introduced me to the Pokémon Lucario. If you are a Pokémon person, you probably already understand why Lucario caught my attention. If you’re not, you really only need to know one thing: Lucario has an extraordinary ability to sense aura. Lucario can perceive what others are feeling and sense what is happening beneath the surface. Sounds familiar?

Of course, the Psychologist in me was immediately fascinated. But what interested me even more was that Lucario’s strength isn’t just in being able to sense other people’s emotions. Lucario is also known for tremendous focus and discipline. One of Lucario’s actual abilities is called Inner Focus. There is something beautiful to me about that combination: the ability to deeply perceive what is happening around you while still maintaining clarity within yourself. Because feeling other people deeply can be a gift. But it can also become a burden if you begin to believe that because you can understand someone, you are responsible for changing them.

Kalel and I started talking about this.

He identifies deeply with Lucario. He believes he can sense people too. He notices emotional shifts. He notices when someone is hurting. He thinks deeply about why people behave the way they do. And somewhere in our conversation we landed on something I hope he remembers for the rest of his life: there are people in this world who do not want to change yet, and that is ok.

I hope that one day, he truly understands everything I am writing below. For now, this is for all of us empaths.

There are people who are not ready to look at themselves yet. There are people who may be hurting deeply and still not be ready to receive help. And being able to understand them does not make it our responsibility to change them. This is something I wish every empath learned early. When you can see beneath someone’s behavior, it is very easy to stay too long. You see the sadness underneath the anger. You understand the fear underneath the control. You recognize the insecurity underneath the cruelty. You can almost see the person they might become if they could just work through what is hurting them.

And so you keep trying. You explain differently. You become more patient. You offer more compassion. You make room. You give another chance. You think that if you can just help them understand themselves the way you understand them, something will finally shift.

But understanding someone’s pain does not give us the power to heal it. They have to want to. And I think this is where the idea of Lucario’s Inner Focus becomes so meaningful to me.

Mental clarity allows an empath to ask a different question. Instead of constantly asking,

How can I help this person?

we begin asking,

Is this person open to being helped?

Those are very different questions.

There are people who are curious about themselves. There are people who want to grow. There are people who can hear something difficult and sit with it. There are people who are willing to examine the ways they have hurt others. There are people who may not know how to change yet, but they are willing to try. Those are the places where our empathy can become incredibly powerful.

And then there are people who aren’t ready. Our job is not to drag them toward insight. Our job is not to convince them to heal. Our job is not to exhaust ourselves proving that another way of living is possible. Sometimes our job is simply to recognize what is happening, maintain our own clarity, protect ourselves, and keep moving. That doesn’t make us less empathic. I actually think it makes our empathy wiser.

I want Kalel to grow up believing that his sensitivity is one of his greatest strengths. I never want him to believe he needs to become less sensitive in order to survive this world. I want him to notice people. I want him to care. I want him to be curious about what exists underneath someone’s behavior. I want him to remain the child who thinks deeply about why people feel what they feel.

But I also want him to understand that empathy needs boundaries:

-You can understand someone and still walk away right now. (You can absolutely come back to it later).

-You can know why someone behaves the way they do and still decide that their behavior is not acceptable in your life.

-You can see someone’s goodness and still recognize that they are not ready to live from that goodness.

-You can love someone and know that you cannot do their emotional work for them.

-And perhaps most importantly, you can want to make the world better without believing that you are responsible for fixing everyone in it.

That may actually be how we protect the part of ourselves that wants to help.

Because when empathic people spend all of their energy trying to change people who do not want to change, there is very little left for the people who are reaching toward us. There is very little left for our families, our communities, our work, our creativity, and ourselves. We don’t have to change the entire world. We can simply become thoughtful about where we place our love, our insight, our energy, and our presence.

So Kalel, if you read this someday when you are older, I hope you still see a little bit of Lucario in yourself. I hope you still notice what other people miss. I hope you still feel deeply. I hope you still believe people can change. I hope you still want to make this world a little kinder than you found it.

But I also hope you have learned to protect your Inner Focus.

Know the difference between someone who is struggling and someone who is unwilling. Know the difference between compassion and responsibility. Know when your presence is helping someone grow and when you are simply exhausting yourself trying to convince someone to grow. You do not have to become less empathic.

You just have to become discerning about where you place your empathy.

The world does not need you to save everyone. It needs you to remain clear enough, grounded enough, and whole enough to recognize where your beautiful heart can actually make a difference.

For my beautiful son, Kalel, and for all the empaths trying to make the world a better place: keep feeling. Keep noticing. Keep caring. Just remember to protect your aura, too.

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To learn more about therapy services for children or adults, or for parenting/family support, contact:
Family and Child Roots & Wings at 847-786-8222 or emaildrnirmeen@familyandchildrootsandwings.com