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!

INFJ Writer's Block: Embracing the Feeling

                           Illustration by Kris Di Giacomo from Enormous Smallness

Hello my Deep Digging friends.



I'm here to apologize. Who am I apologizing to? Well, maybe you all. Maybe myself. Maybe both. I feel like I've let all of us down. So, here goes...

I'm realizing on a very deep level that I've really gotten away from the writer that I am at heart. I'm at my most comfortable and passionate when I am writing from a free flow of my innermost thoughts and feelings. That's where I hit my creative vein and really feel the art. And I haven't been doing this. Instead, I've been reluctant to open up and let it all out like I used to.

A lot of the problem has been all of the ideas I've had that I'm just not quite able to flesh out. It's one thing to have this awesome conceptual light bulb moment. It's another to convert it into a cogent thought and transform it into words.  And this process is often highly frustrating to an INFJ. Grasping and experiencing an idea or concept on a deep level and then getting bogged down in the facts and details of conveying it to others can be quite debilitating for the INFJ writer. This often leads to a horrible version of writer's block in which the inspiration is there but becomes paralyzed and fruitless. Or perhpas even worse, there is output but it feels mechanical, phony, awkward and disjointed.

This, in turn, leads to another issue that INFJ's struggle with: We really dislike leaving anything unfinished and often consider the endeavor a failure until it is completed. For me, this means that it is extremely difficult to leave a blog post unfinished and dormant and move on to something new. Inevitably, this causes me to start a post and when I can't quite get across what I want to convey, weeks and sometime months go by while I keep coming back to the same post and trying to force it to work. Forcing it feels very disingenuous to me so the whole process just feels horrible. And this causes me to say things like, "I'm not a writer. Obviously, I'm not a writer because I am not writing.  I can't even finish this blog post I started." Thankfully I'm coming to once again embrace that writing is more about feeling than producing a "completed work." 

There is a myth that being a writer means that you can always put something down on paper that is clear and concise whether it be bad or good. That a writer is always producing an end product that is accessible and "valuable" to others. It seems that the same myth exists in all art: A person is an artist only if a product is produced and it is validated by others. I've long had the opinion that the most satisfying art is that which is done for one's own enjoyment regardless of how other's receive it or even if others receive it at all. However, it is easy to believe this and more difficult to live it. I'm only now realizing the part of "art for arts sake" that embraces the feeling that engaging in art brings. I've had help realizing this from a few different sources including my partner Christina and a fellow INFJ writer named Lauren Sapala who writes a lot about the difficulties that INFJ writers come up against. Lauren Sapala YouTube Channel.

The message I'm receiving and embracing is this: Feel. Create. Write.  Just let it out, forming and shaping the words as you go. It doesn't matter what the end result is whether it's a few lines of gibberish, several meandering paragraphs of deepest, darkest fears or a self-perceived masterpiece. The experience of writing, creating and sharing myself and the way I feel is where my passion lies. And passion is a gift.  One far greater than "talent" as deemed by the masses.     

And so, my promise to you all and myself moving forward is this: I'll continue to write and I won't hold back.  I'll allow myself to open up and feel the process and let it all out. It may not always be pretty, palatable or even readable. But it will be heartfelt and it will be genuine.  It will be me.

Peace to you my friends!

"Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself...

If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed."  E.E. Cummings

Victims on the Move!

Good day to you my Deep Digging Friends! 

In a previous post, I wrote about how we are often drawn to toxic relationships without even realizing it. In that post, I spoke of a toxic romantic relationship that I was in for nearly all of 2018. You can read that post here: https://jjsbdiggingdeeper.blogspot.com/2020/03/drawn-to-toxic-relationships.html

In true INFJ fashion, I fear that the post may be misunderstood by some and therefore, feel the need to follow up.

Rereading and reflecting on the post, I’m concerned that the post may give the impression that I see myself as a victim. I suppose in some ways I do. As in many cases, it depends on what meaning you pour into the word: “victim.”

I have to say, I feel like the word “victim” has been sullied a bit by our society. We seem to have arrived at a place where to explore and express how various events and/or circumstances in life have affected each of us is too often mischaracterized as languishing in fatalism. And it’s not my friends. Instead, it’s a healthy part of the process of extracting the value out of a less than ideal (and sometimes horrible) situation and moving forward to a healthier plane. To characterize this process as self-centered is not appropriate. Instead, this process is self-reflective, essential and cathartic.

The problem arises when people, many of whom have difficulty carrying out this process within themselves, confuse the process as victimhood. Hear this please: There is a huge difference between embracing and processing through the situations that have victimized and dwelling in a life of victimhood. In processing, there is movement, acknowledgement, ownership and confrontation. Heavy on the movement, movement, movement! In victimhood, or victimism, there is stagnancy, complacency, deflection and blame. Heavy on the stagnancy.

I humbly assert that we are all victims. We have all had circumstances, people and events victimize us in both seemingly trivial and glaringly significant ways. Granted, for some the victimization is acutely and unpleasantly tangible. Nevertheless, no matter how benign the effect, we can all name numerous situations in which we’ve experienced the status of victim.

So, to resume my original reason for this post, I want to be clear that I have not taken up residence in victimhood. I’m merely on a journey to understand my interactions, past and present with the world around me. The whys and wherefores. One of my main goals in this journey is to identify both beneficial and harmful elements, process through them, take personal responsibility for my part and thus grow.

Having said that, I hold a significant responsibility for my part in the toxic relationship that I wrote about. Because of my own insecurities, I acted in ways that increased the toxic environment of the relationship and harmed my partner. The insecurities are a reason but not an excuse for my behavior. I could have (and should have) acted in a healthy way. But only in understanding, embracing and owning the root source reasons can I begin to create new neural pathways and change the toxic behavior. I must embrace and understand the abandonment issues I have. I must embrace and understand my INFJ hypersensitivity. I must embrace and understand my compulsive and deep-seated “need” to ensure that everyone around me is happy and satisfied with me. I must embrace and understand the ways in which I self-sabotage situations and relationships that scare me and gravitate towards situations and relationships that are unhealthy for me. I must understand my attractions of deprivation. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-love/201103/attractions-inspiration-and-attractions-deprivation). I could go on. And will as I continue to explore myself in future blog posts.

For now, please know that I do see my imperfections. I’m constantly reflecting on both my strengths and weaknesses. There are so many areas I need to grow in and change. And granted, I don’t always see them clearly. But I want to. And I want to see them through the lens of optimism. That part is so important for me and for everyone. It’s what keeps each of us from putting down roots in victimhood and enables us to move on to a place of peace and well-being.

Once again, I’m grateful to each of you for journeying with me. I am truly blessed to have a place where I can be vulnerable and share my heart. Thank you all so much for reading and providing a place for my words to land.

Until next time, Peace, Love and Grace to each of you Deep Digging Earth Babies.

And remember, you are not alone. No one is!

Good morning all you self-reflecting Deep Diggers!


Just wanted to drop a quick post to let everyone know that I am working on my next proper blog entry.


In the meantime, I also wanted to let everyone know that I have been deeply exploring the ins and outs of my INFJ personality type like never before. I've known that I am an INFJ for at least a decade now. However, I've just recently begun to realize just how profoundly this has affected my views and interactions with other people and the world around me.


Because of this, I have added a subtitle to the name of my FB page (https://www.facebook.com/jjsbdiggingdeeper/) and my Blogger site: "An INFJ Journey." I wanted to include the INFJ piece in as it is essential to all of my experiences: Past, Present and Future. Yet, I wanted to maintain the "Digging Deeper" name as it captures my true heart and goal as it relates to my Ni (Introverted Intuition). i.e. Encouraging people to dig deep within the substance of their beings, reflect and get in touch with their true selves.


Thank again to all of you who have stuck around for this long.


Peace and Grace to you!


JimmyJames S B