Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Sonia Choquette on Observing, Not Absorbing Energy.

If you are an empath, there are times when you might feel caught up in an emotional maelstrom. People's energy seems to come rushing towards you, and you lose your footing and are swept off by the current. 

For me, I have started noticing how and when this happens because this doesn't happen all the time. There are times when I am centred in myself and when I don't absorb the rush of energy as much. There are also those times when I am overstimulated and one additional thing pushes me over the edge. 

I have also been finding new ideas and perspectives that point out all the little things I had been doing for years and that were making me more susceptible to other people's energies. One of them was a habit I had developed where I almost never crossed my arms in front of me. 

I remember reading as a teenager that crossing your arms was body language that indicated that you were on the defensive. I didn't want to be defensive at all. I wanted to be open, and I got into the habit of always keeping an open posture. 

Recently, I read something in Sonia Choquette's book Trust Your Vibes that really stood out to me because what she said is almost the opposite of what I had practiced many years back. 

Sonia talks about how, when we are sensitive and tuned in, we can absorb energy that we don't really want. We have to learn to observe, and not absorb as much. This is what she says about protecting ourselves in an emotionally charged situation when we can feel the onslaught of someone else's energy coming at us: 

"One of the best ways to remain grounded in your own energy whenever exposed to an intense emotional outburst is to cover your solar plexus (the area around your belly button)  with your arms folded, which is something we tend to do anyway. Notice how natural it is to cross your arms over your stomach whenever you feel defensive. I was reminded of this instinctive protective maneuver in an airport recently while I waited for my flight. I saw a child of about two being reprimanded by his overwrought mother, and as she scolded him, he looked directly at her with his arms folded defiantly across his chest, unfazed by her outburst. He was so effective in blocking her tirade that I had to laugh.

As that child demonstrated, folding your arms across your chest or belly button blocks negative energy from entering your body and protects you from its debilitating effects. Breathing as you do this also keeps foreign energy from invading your aura, and the more slowly you breathe, the more grounded and protected you are."    

Sometimes, simple things like these, which are also significant things because they help us own our space, can help us feel protected and centred. Always being open to anything, like I used to be when I was younger, doesn't help because we want to be open to the right thing and closed off to what is intrusive or overwhelming. In fact, being indiscriminately open does us harm, especially for people like us who absorb energy so readily. 

Does this make you think about where and how you are open? 

If this resonated with you and you know someone who would relate, do share this with them. Thank you!  

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

This is radical acceptance.

I came across this quote by the British novelist A.S.Byatt recently. It is so honest and true, and it says what is so often unspoken. I haven't read anything by Byatt, but this quote makes me feel like I want to know her better: 

"I think of writing simply in terms of pleasure. It's the most important thing in my life, making things. Much as I love my husband and my children, I can love them only because I am the person who makes these things. I, who I am, is the person who has the project of making a thing. And because that person does that, all the time, that person is able to love all these people." 

For me, this quote gets to the heart of things, the heart of all conversations about the conflict women feel when they spend time nurturing their creativity when they are also wives and mothers. I am a wife, and I am not a mother, and I feel that this is the truth. 

Who is the person doing the loving if they are not also nurturing and affirming their own being? 

Monday, August 24, 2015

How physical touch connects us to subtle knowings.

Lately, I have been coming across ideas that are telling me a little more about myself, and wiping down the mirror so I can see more of my true self. Something I read recently might resonate with you as well. It's about what some people call clairsentience, or the ability to know something through our sense of touch. 

In her book Aura Reading, Rose Rosetree talks about clairsentience using this example:  

"With clairsentience, information comes along with touch. Rosa, for instance, is a massage therapist. When starting a session, Rosa holds the client by the ankles. Information comes to her about what needs work. It's as though the whole body reveals its secrets to her hands." 

Rosetree goes on to say that while some people who are clairsentient are very tuned in to their physicality but might not realize how much subtle information comes in through physical touching, there are other clairsentients who are subtle touchers and unconcerned with their own physicality. To them, "subtle perception is so much more interesting than staying in touch with reality." 

And then, Rosetree goes on to say something that really struck me and might put clairsentience in perspective for you too: 

"Here's another paradox. Clairsentient people work especially well with their hands, for example, in writing, cooking, or gardening. But ask them if they would like to work with their hands and they may well say "No." How come? 

It's one of those mind-stopping Zen trains of thought, like explaining the sound of one hand clapping. Why don't some clairsentients notice their hands? The process of creating through the hands is so charming it totally absorbs their attention. Therefore, what part of the mind is left to notice the hands?" 

I have always thought of myself as someone who does not like to work with their hands. I hate doing repetitive things, and I love the world of ideas and possibilities as compared to what I sometimes think of as purely sensory and physical things. And yet, physical touch is important to me. I, too, can often sense where pain in someone's body is going to be when I touch them. 

Recently, I have started writing more by hand instead of working on the laptop. The visceral connection to the paper feels stronger, and things seem to come out in a different way. Like Rose Rosetree says, at these moments, I am in the flow and the thought that I am making something with my hands does not even cross my mind. And yet, my hands feel alive and I sense things in a way that seems organic. It's as if my hands are pulling out something that some part of me has always known.  

Just like writing, when I cook, I am so absorbed in the process that my attention never goes to my hands. Till I read what Rosetree says, I hadn't considered how much I sense things through touch. What a thing to learn after so many years of knowing (not knowing?) myself. 

Maybe, what Rosetree says connected with you as well, regardless of whether you believe in auras or not. Our bodies are the means through which we make our way through the world, so it feels logical that they are equipped with ways of knowing that go beyond thinking and the intellect. 

Here's something that Rosetree says that might resonate with you as well: 

"As a clairsentient, whether you come across as grounded or more of an absent-minded professor, you know the value of hugging and touching. That's how you feel you have made genuine contact with people. And if your clairsentience goes along with a gift for physical healing, your hands may radiate a special spiritual beauty."  

Does what Rosetree say about clairsentience resonate with you? Does it make you think differently about the different ways in which you know and sense things? Is there some way in which you can apply this in your life? 

For me, it feels like this is another way in which intuition and knowing works in and through me. While sometimes, intuition is the little voice that I hear in my center, at other times, what I know comes to me as a result of physical contact and touch. 

My body can sense and know things in a way that I am not often aware of, and starting to become aware of this feels enlarging. 

Monday, August 17, 2015

A New Empath Resource

In the past several months, I have been learning more about what it means to be an empath. It's the part of my sensitivity that is most troublesome for me. Unlike crowded places and loud noises, things that I can often avoid, I am still learning about this aspect of my sensitivity - how to not get thrown off constantly by other people's energy. 

There was a time when I used to be constantly absorbing emotional energy -- feeling curiosity, anger, or anxiety jumping out at me and wrestling me down to the ground. It was exhausting and enervating. 

Now that I am in a space where I am more consciously aware of being an empath, I have started to discover people and ideas that might help you, if you are an empath too. 

One of them is Anna Sayce, whose blog I recently stumbled upon. She reads Akashic records and does intuitive work, and even if you don't believe in "alternative stuff," what she says in this post about the connection between our struggles and our soul gifts will likely resonate with you. 

It gave me food for thought and shifted things a little for me. 

Anna says that "our biggest soul gift and biggest struggle in life will usually spring from the same source." She talks about how she often sees this with her clients, this idea that our struggles and our gifts are two sides of the same coin. 

For people who have the empath gift, this is how it often plays out: 

"On the upside, these people were born with the ability to experience what life is like for another person. They make great mediators because they can see two sides of a story and can switch their point of view easily. They are the ones who are good at caring for and looking out for others. But they can sometimes have so much compassion and understanding that they might not always look out for their own interests sufficiently. Or they might be easy to exploit. They may fail to take care of themselves while taking care of everyone around them. Most often, they may feel like their sensitivity is a burden."

You might feel this acutely. The same thing that makes up your essence also creates problems and difficulties. It is as if we can't have the gift without also being handed its shadow side. The challenge is to fight the monsters before you can really enjoy and utilize the gift. 

If you have been struggling with your empathic abilities, this connection might give you some relief. The reason that being empathic feels like a double-edged sword is because it is double-sided and tricky. Like me, you might deeply value being empathic when you can mediate in a stressful situation and contribute something of value. And yet, the blurring of boundaries, the taking on of other people's stuff might leave you feeling as if you are caught between a rock and a hard place. 

I want to explore this dynamic and what being empathic means in more posts. In the meanwhile, do check out Anna's blog. She has some great stuff there, and it could help answer some of the questions you might be struggling with.   

Monday, August 10, 2015

The Music of being an Empath

When I hear music, I dive down into its depths. It curls around my being like wisps of sweet-smelling smoke. Sometimes, I lie down under it, and it falls over me like a waterfall. I feel its enchantment, and I become a part of it. Like colors being dissolved in water, who I am becomes brighter when it dissolves in something bigger. It is carried onwards on waves of notes and extends out into the universe. 

That's one of the wonderful things about being an empath, of being able to feel so much. My valleys have been deep and dark, and now the mountains I am climbing are majestic. There is no dearth of drama, no shortage of adventures of the soul. Maybe this is what I signed up for. 

Sometimes, when I look at other people, people whose lives go forth in a more stable, straight line, I envy them that stability, that straightness. It would be so much easier to live like that. And yet, that hasn't been my life, and it probably won't be. It's a different movement, a different wave that I am calling forth from inside me. It's something I don't have a model for, and like you, I am picking up pieces as I go along. 

What does it mean to be an empath? Sometimes, people's energy jumps out at me with such force that I want to hold up my hand and shield myself from it. When I travel in the train, I can sometimes feel curiosity jumping out at me. Many times, I can say exactly what someone is going to say to me, even before they have said it. There have been many heavy years where the cloak of all the sadness I could feel made me want to barricade myself in my room. And that's exactly what I did. 

And yet, it is this same sensitivity that attunes to all that is beautiful, and chimes in with it. In a room full of people waiting to attend a lecture by an energy worker, I absorb all the wonderful energy just as quickly. I am swaying in it like a bell. At times like these, I think to myself: These are the kind of places I need to be.

I pick up everything, although I am often confused as well. How do I separate my "real knowings" from projections about the other person that we all make? And yet, as I trust some of my knowings, some of the things that I am sensing, my faith in my ability to know deepens. 

One thing I have been learning is that what I give my attention to does become bigger. It grows in size and density and so, now, I have turned my attention away from the overwhelm that I often find lurking just outside my field, and instead am looking at all the gifts that I haven't yet mined. 

Now is the time to go down the shaft of the cave, and look at all the sparkling, beautiful things that have been growing inside the cave. They have been becoming larger as the pressure outside grew, and it's time for them to come to light. 

Maybe, you are here too, in this space between light and dark, finding your way to your own treasure. Maybe, we can listen to each other and learn something before we go even deeper.