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.