The Wonderful Parts About Being An Empath (5-13-19)

When I lose sight of who I am, I lose touch with my empathic abilities. My ego takes the wheel and I become shallow, selfish, angry, and I feel an inner blankness. When I am in touch with myself, I can be easily triggered, but the good elements of being empathic outweigh the bad.

The good is when I can truly connect with someone and what they are feeling - Sensing this inherent sense that I am understanding fully and wholly their intentions and feeling and almost experiencing what they have or are currently feeling. I have felt this way when I have attended group therapies. If I can quiet my ego mind enough to stop worrying about me, me, me and really listen and feel what others share in such groups, I have been driven to tears when they talk of their pain. I want so badly to help them in some way - but I know just as well I need to heal myself first before I can think to be of much help to others (in the capacity I might like to). But still, all the while, in those situation I can really feel like I am in their shoes and in this way I am able to offer up advice or insight (as far as I know such insights relate to my own experience). When I have been able to mellow the energies or bring a smile or some laughter to them, or I feel that even in just connecting so deeply I sense the whole vibe of the room has become that of a big "sigh of relief" rather than a nervous tension or gloom, I feel this amazing rush of life and love that I want to latch onto. This sensation of a deeper beauty that material gains can not bring, and that of which I can not seem to orchestrate intentionally on my own in an organic way. A connection to source that is shared - in that moment - in a communal way.

Another beautiful aspect of my empathic nature is being so attuned to the nuances of my emotions that I can truly, truly appreciate and be so deeply moved by music, or films, or television, or art, or really just any amusement. I will listen to music and it will flow all through me and move me physically to dance and I mean, I can really feel the music in me and it overpowers any sort of preconceived social construct or any sort of programmed idea of what is and isn't socially appropriate. No. Fuck it. If I hear something and I am already in that peaceful neutral state or even a state of bliss already then there is no holding me back - I am going to dance up and down the street, lip syncing the lyrics. I am going to feel that fullness of life and joy and let it envelope me. Further on this topic ... when I first digging deeply into the music of my now favorite band 'Split Enz' and I heard Neil Finn's voice, I actually began weeping. It wasn't that the music was sad. It wasn't really an emotion I could label. The melody, the sound of the instruments, and the sound of his voice all came together in such an audibly breathtaking way that I physically was moved to tears. And I live for moments like that where I can feel so much. It really is indescribable. I will never let anyone or anything take that away from me - and since I have been working through so much lately and have been running into so many emotional blocks and facing numbness in certain areas - these moments have become little glimpses of who I really am when the storms clear. The immensely beautiful, intense, immersive experience and feeling ability - one of my gifts!

When I feel too much anxiety - when anxiety and want and frustration envelope me and my ego takes over and I buy into the narrative of "issue" and "not good enough" ... I become something that isn't me. I see through my eyes, and I feel with my senses. But it's mundane sense - shallow, with emotions base and usually teetering towards indifference or agitation and ungratefulness. I'm almost seeing things through a TV monitor image and knowing that the dominant persona controlling my body and my experiences isn't an entity I resonate with because it's so far from what I know to be true of me and the very nature of the universe. I become so distant and lost and I wander in search of shallow representation of that deep, deep love and bliss and joy that - by that point - are stuffed so deep within me at the bottom of my proverbial mental "laundry hamper". I want to work with this ego self, so that we can become that amazing, zany, intelligent, sensitive, beautiful, funny and confident person I know is here but is often jumbled up and tangled up in misplaced intention or off-kilter focus. But it's there, and the tapping into and balancing of the extremes is an important skill I need to hone in on. For now, I use the longing for the ideal me and those glimpses of that sheer bliss, joy and wonder as fuel to really just allow and feel through some of the more unsavory experiences that would have crippled me in the past, when I had a narrower perspective of the expansiveness of the whole.