Traits That Empaths Share - 2- We're Just Antennas

 

Hello My Deep Digging Friends!

In my previous post, I wrote about the first trait that empaths share: Empaths are Highly Sensitive.   As I mentioned in my previous post, when there is too much of certain types of stimuli, my brain gets overloaded and cannot reflect or process.  This often happens in relationships as the type of stimuli that I feel the most intensely is that which emits from other people.

This relates to the second trait that empaths share:

2. Empaths absorb other people’s emotions

Empaths are highly attuned to other people’s moods and feel everything that is happening around them.  This on top of receiving a multitude of environmental signals can be quite overwhelming.  And we are not only feeling other people's moods, we are actually taking them on as our own.  Whether it's anger, anxiety, excitement, sadness, frustration, we are absorbing it.  At times it can be energizing but at others, exhausting.  All of this is often happening without us even noticing.  Because we often feel everything to an extreme, it sometimes becomes difficult to differentiate our own feelings and moods from those of other's and at times it can be hard to understand why we are feeling what we are feeling. 

For me personally, this is the most difficult within romantic relationships.

So often...

I'm just an antenna.

I absorb everything that my partner emits.  Her facial expressions, the way she sits or stands, whether or not she is meeting my eyes, her tone of voice, the words she chooses, and countless other visible and invisible pieces of sensory data are being absorbed by my brain all within a few moments.

And one of the extremely difficult parts of the romantic relationship I've been in for the past 2 years has been that my partner is also empathic and highly sensitive to many of the same types of stimuli.

Much of the time...

We're both just antennas.

Prior to the past few weeks, I don't think that either of us had begun to fully explore what that means and how it affects our interactions with others or within our relationship.  I think we both thought we understood and had a grasp on managing it for the most part, but I now believe that we have only journeyed into the borders of this vast and remarkable land of empathy and there is much more to discover in the deep recesses of this sensory forest.  

On the upside [And there is an AMAZING upside!], there are immensely rewarding interactions when we are both attuned to one another in positive ways.  There is nothing quite like the feeling of connection that proceeds out of these times and it can be exceptionally beautiful and transcending in so many ways.  But the intensity that we both feel when the other is struggling throws us into a very dangerous cycle of heightened emotional absorption that can lead to distance and self-isolation on both ends.  Places that neither of us want to be.  There's an importance of knowing our limits.  Stepping away before one or both of us get overwhelmed and bewildered is so important and so difficult at times.  Equally important is being able to communicate that need in a clear, loving and supportive way.

I know that my partner has an open heart and mind and is always reflecting on how sensitivities affect her, and our relationship and I appreciate this very much.  As for my part, I have been seeking out information to help me understand more fully, the extent to which sensitivities affect me individually as well as within our relationship and what steps I can take to manage, embrace and at times even benefit from all of the charge that's in the air around us.

I'm currently reading a book which has begun to help me understand and learn to celebrate this gift that I have been given.  The Empaths Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People.   In addition, the book is helping me learn ways to keep myself calm and grounded while providing coping mechanisms to manage my high sensitivities instead of drowning in them.  As I've said many times, a gift always has a curse shadow side.  Although we often come by gifts naturally, if we don't evolve and mature in the gift, there is always a danger that we will begin to spend too much time in the negative shadow of that gift. 

I'm excited to keep exploring the deep parts of myself and SO thankful for the vast resources that are available at the click of a laptop key to help myself and others on the journey of life.  I encourage all you highly sensitive types out there to really take some time to reflect on how this part of your personality affects your relationship with yourself and others and what areas you may need to evolve in to bring about a healthier and more peaceful environment.

Let's keep digging together fellow earth babies!

                                             The Church - Antenna

"Why do you always wrongly assume

That you're so well aware of what's happ'ning there,

Right here in this room?

You're just an antenna, you're just a wire.

There's a thousand tongues wagging in your ears tonight,

And you turn around and you call me a liar."

Traits That Empaths Share - 1- High Sensitivity is a Gift!

Good morning my deep digging earth babies!

So, here I am this morning, sitting in a hacienda suite, sipping Peet's French Roast Coffee, and reflecting on life and relationships.  

I am actually always reflective about, well, pretty much everything.  The problem is that I'm highly sensitive and when there is too much of certain types of stimuli, my brain gets overloaded and cannot reflect or process.  A bit of cognitive paralysis sets in.  This often happens in relationships as the type of stimuli that I feel the most intensely is that which emits from other people.

I have been seeking out information to help me understand more fully, the extent to which sensitivities affect me individually as well as in the relationships I have and what steps I can take to make needed changes and improve.  

One of the articles I came across has a list of 10 traits that empathic people share, many of which have resonated deeply with me.  I would like to discuss each of these over the course of my next several blog entries as I try to understand and share what I am learning about myself.

So, let's begin with the first trait:

1. Empaths are highly sensitive.

I suppose this kind of goes without saying but it's important to note because often, empaths are labeled as highly sensitive from a negative perspective.  We are subjected to phrases like, "You're SO sensitive!”, “You get your feelings hurt too easily", "You need to develop a thicker skin", "Why do you take things so personally?" etc.    I remember various encounters with others from my childhood up through adulthood in which I was told I was too sensitive.  Sometimes it was through using those specific words: "You're SO sensitive."  Sometimes it was more indirect, but the same message was sent:  It's abnormal and less than ideal to be sensitive and if you want to fit into life and succeed, you will learn to eradicate that part of yourself.  And because this part of an empath simply cannot (and SHOULD not!) be eradicated, it causes us highly sensitive people to feel like we don't belong in this world.  I think that most empaths have felt alien at some point in their lives and perhaps we should as empaths are thought to make up only about 2 percent of the world population.  But we should not feel like aliens from a negative perspective.  We should feel like alien heroes! Yes, being highly sensitive for an empath is something to be celebrated.  And I want every single highly sensitive person to know that.  Sure, there are downsides to being sensitive and I'll explore those, but there are downsides to NOT being sensitive as well.  HUGE ones.  There are also enormously wonderful benefits to being highly sensitive.  Not just for the individual, but for everyone that person encounters, even if it's only a brief encounter.

Empaths are good listeners, naturally giving and perhaps my favorite: spiritually open.  This leads us to encounters with others that most people do not have the ability to experience.  We are a safe place for those we encounter and it's not just because of our direct words or actions.  Empaths emit energy stimuli as much as we absorb it.  This means that we give off energy that lets others know that they can open up to us, trust us and that they have found an understanding, nurturing, and encouraging place to share a part of themselves that they cannot share elsewhere.

So, yes, empaths are highly sensitive.  And as I mentioned, I will explore some of the downsides of that in upcoming blog posts.  However, what I want every highly sensitive person to take away from this post is expressed well in the following anonymous quote which I know that every empath needs to hear:

"If you feel as if you don't fit into this world, it's because you're here to create a better one."

Until next time, Peace and Love to you all!

It Could Be Worse. I Could Be a Ghost Boy

If you read my last blog, you got to listen to me vent a little bit about the phrase, "First world problems" and my disappointment when it is used to minimize and secretly ridicule the problems of others.  I feel that we would do better to dig a little deeper, beneath what we consider to be another person's "whining", in order to find out the root of what is really going on.  After all, when a person has a whole lot of little problems, they can coalesce into a much larger one.

But that was my last post. And then I was talking about assessing the problems of other people.  Today, I'm talking about assessing my own problems.  And this is an entirely different matter.  There's great value in stepping outside of oneself and realizing that it could be worse.  And, in fact, there are others going through worse.  MUCH WORSE.

There's the person who is fighting cancer... and losing. There's the parents that lost a child in a car accident.  There's the family that lost their entire house and everything in it to a fire. Etc. etc.  I usually don't have to look very hard or long to find somebody who is experiencing a negative situation that dwarfs my own.  Although, it doesn't remove my own pain, depression, etc., it does ease it somewhat. 

Lately, the person I've been thinking about is Martin Pistorius.  You may or may not have heard of him.  Martin is a man from South Africa who spent 12 years trapped inside his own body.  During approximately 10 years of that time, his mind was totally aware of his surroundings, yet he had no way to communicate with those around him.  He couldn't move his body any more than a barely discernible twitch.  The doctors told his family that he had the intelligence of a 3-month old baby and that they should make him comfortable until he died. He desperately wanted to let them know that he was present and aware but was totally powerless to do so.  The stress of the daily routine of caring for Martin became overwhelming for his parents as year after year went by.  Daily, he had to be taken to a care center, picked up, cleaned, fed, put to bed, turned every two hours overnight, etc.  At one point, his mother became so overwhelmed dealing with his condition that she looked into his eyes and said, "I hope you die".   Martin was totally aware when she said that to him.  He felt her pain and frustration, but could not say or do anything to comfort her.  I cannot comprehend the level of isolation and abandonment that he must have felt.  The helplessness.  The hopelessness.    

Through a set of somewhat miraculous events, Martin was eventually able to communicate through a special keyboard and computer and tell about his experience.   There's so much more to the story, so I would highly recommend listening to an episode of the NPR show Invisibilia in which his story is briefly covered.  Here is the link:   http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-in-man

Martin also wrote a book about his experience entitled Ghost Boy which I just started reading.  I'm just so intrigued with what this young man went through and the inspiration that I can draw from it to help endure my own times of isolation and depression.
Empathizing with the suffering of others helps to put my own situation in perspective by diverting my mind from doing what minds often do.  That is, taking situations and turning them into more than what they are.  When I focus on the negative, my mind magnifies and multiplies things until I have created an overwhelming, insurmountable mountainous cliff that I feel cannot possibly be scaled.  When I divert my attention to the hardships of others, what once seemed behemothic, often becomes much less so.


One of the other mechanisms I use is to step outside myself and pretend that someone who is going through the same things that I am has come to me for advice.  What would I tell that person?  What coping strategies would I recommend to them?  What hard truths would I share?  What mercies would I extend? Etc.  Doing this often helps me be more objective so that I can divest myself of all the extra falsehoods that I have added to the situation.  This takes a lot of practice and I'm not sure that anyone ever totally masters it.  It's so hard to ignore those extras and so easy to give them way more weight than they deserve.  

That's why it's sometimes good to get input from a friend.  A friend tends to see the situation more realistically because that person doesn't know all of the extras your mind has added and can therefore,  be more objective.  If you have a friend who is able to listen to you, empathize with you and still give you honest, objective feedback, then consider yourself lucky and treasure that friend.  Many people don't have that when it comes right down to it.

But this isn't a post about friendship so I won't go down that road.  At least not today.

Until next time, peace to you ALL Fellow Earth Babies!