An interesting thing has happened from the time I started using the word empath in my writing. It's a word that I had resisted identifying with, and yet, it describes some core aspects of my sensitivity. Or rather, the core aspect, the ability to experience other people's feelings as if they were my own.
Almost instantly, as I claimed the word empath, it felt like numb spaces in my life awoke. Watching T.V., I felt pain shoot up as someone fell off a building. It was as if the debris that had fallen on my sensitivity or maybe the clutter I had buried it under was again free to roam around.
While reading other people's posts on empath forums some months back, I had congratulated myself that I didn't feel like that any longer. I didn't feel so drowned in other people's feelings. I didn't feel the physical sensations of someone else's pain. But as I am wiping the dirt off my own perception, I am feeling like I was congratulating myself for the wrong thing, for numbing out and becoming denser.
I do want to have strong boundaries. I also want to have more sensitivity, instead of pushing it aside.
I have an image of plaster cracking come up.
I have also been remembering things from long ago. When I was a child, in the lane leading up to my grandparents' house in a village in India, there used to lie a drunk man on the kind of wooden cart that is used to cart groceries around in that part of the world. He was never scary. I was never afraid of him.
It seemed like he was so washed over with all the things around him that the only way he could live was by numbing himself out. I don't know whether he was an empath or not. But I had a feeling that he was a good man, someone who felt the world around him.
And that feeling of the world toppling on top of you - of drowning in its pain and sorrows -- that might be the terrible space in which you can fall if you feel so much. So, sometimes, we construct our dams and numb ourselves so at least we wouldn't dissolve in this too much feeling.
We cope in so many ways. I have coped in so many ways. Being less me, being more like others, being overwhelmed and not doing even the little that I could do.
But on this tricky path of empathy - of feeling too much or adopting numbness - there must be a bend in the road that we are all walking towards. Will I fall? Will you fall? Will we find new ways? Will we get lost for a long time? Will we find the harmony and balance we are looking for?
In Penney Peirce's' book The Intuitive Way, there is a section called "The Language of the Body." The body is constantly talking to us, but we've been so schooled in the language of the mind that we don't know how to listen to it. We ride rough-shod over what our body is trying to tell us, and instead vote in favor of our mind. Or at least, I do.
But the body's wisdom has always been there for me, even though I have often chosen to ignore it. It's been there for you too, even though you might not have recognized it as wisdom.
Penney talks about the unfailing messages that our body gives us: "The body's language is a binary one -- yes and no. You will recognize these messages through feelings of expansion and contraction in your body. When a choice or action is appropriate, safe, and on-target for you, you will experience expanding energy: you may sense energy rising and become active or bouncy. Perhaps you'll warm to an idea, get lightheaded, or feel flushed with enthusiasm. Have you ever had the hots for someone, or had butterflies of anticipation, or been up for a new adventure? Have you ever said, "I'm leaning toward this option? The body's yes often feels like health and vitality, even good luck: "I'm rarin' to go; let me at it!"
Most often, Penney says, we recognize our personal truth by a feeling of deep comfort.
But what happens when something is not right for you? The body's No is as distinct and recognizable as its Yes. "In fact, most people are more aware of their anxiety signal than their truth signal. When an option or action is unsafe, inappropriate, or off-target for you, you will experience contracting energy: you may feel energy drop, recoil, darken, or tighten. Maybe you'll act coolly, even coldly, to someone or feel a sinking in the pit of your stomach."
Learning to tune in to whether the body constricts or expands is a direct way to know whether something is right for us. The mind takes us around in circles but the body focuses in on our only choice. Is it a Yes or a No?
Penney talks about the different ways in which our Truth and Anxiety signals can show up. When something is right for you, you may feel a warm, spreading sensation across your chest. You may feel tears of happiness. You might sense that things are falling in place - a series of "clicks and clunks" as if something is coming together. Another common truth signal is the sudden movement of energy up the spine or along the arms and shoulders, giving the sensation of chills or goose-flesh.
What are the common Anxiety signals? It might be that your energy level drops. You may feel pain in a certain part of your body. Common anxiety signals are a stomachache or nausea, a "pain in the neck," chest pain, or headaches. You might feel the hair rising along your upper spine and neck.
Listening to your body's signals is a way to discover what is on-purpose, right and true for you.
For me, I think listening to Truth signals is as important as listening to Anxiety signals. While anxiety signals are valuable, sometimes they can be tricky because our fear might be creating them. We have to dig a little deeper to see what they are all about.
But Truth signals are unadulterated in the sense that they point directly to what feels right, expansive and authentic. Whether it is something big or small, it would be worthwhile following our Truth signals. Like a lotus opening, we are becoming larger and unfolding what has till now remained dormant within us.
What are your Truth and Anxiety signals? Have you noticed them recently?
When we think about big questions like Who am I? or What is my purpose, something from our innermost recesses is calling out. We can start figuring out the answers to these questions by exploring our archetypes, those patterns of thoughts and images that are universally present in our individual psyches. I resonate with The Artiste/Creative archetype apart from some others. What's interesting is that there was a time when the word artiste felt like something I did not want to identify with.
There were too many myths about bohemian artistes or starving artistes that made me feel uncomfortable with the idea of calling myself an artiste. But as I have grown older, I have seen that I was rejecting myself because I did not have a real idea of what my own artistic self would look like. There were no real models, and I did not have enough faith in my then brittle self to go and find my real self.
I have been dipping through the book Archetypes by Caroline Myss in which she talks about the different archetypes that are rising in us. She talks about their gifts, their challenges, the myths that hold us back from realizing our true selves, the traps we can fall into, and the true nature of our individual power. We could be The Intellectual, The Rebel, The Spiritual Seeker, The Caregiver or The Athlete, but if we don't confront our own specific questions, we won't make our way forward.
For the Artiste, the unique challenge is to overcome the fear of not being original. This is something I find myself struggling with again and again, how to let myself practice enough so that I can become truly original, how to not feel dejected because I can only see the things that need to be corrected and not the level of skill I already have.
Being aware of our main challenge, the question that comes up for us again and again can help us understand who we are, what we value and what we are really aspiring to. It can help us see that the patterns in our being resonates with a universal, yet specific pattern. Not all of us are The Athlete. Not all of us are The Caregiver. We all have unique questions and challenges that people like us - other athletes, other caregivers, other seekers - have grappled with. Just understanding where we belong can help us understand and frame our own experiences.
If you a Creative/Artiste like me, this story that Myss tells will resonate with you, like it resonated with me:
"A woman once told me, "I need to go away and find my Self." I knew when she said it that she didn't mean "find myself ," but "my Self," with a capital S. She had awakened to her inner nature, to that part of her that was more than her personality, more than her daily routines. She had discovered the inner voice that is separate from the ordinary self that organized her life by rules and expectations."
I asked her, "What do you think you'll find on this quest for your inner Self?"
"I have always wanted to be an artist," she said. "I know I am an artist. I have never given my Self a chance to do my art because I told "myself" that no one took me seriously, so how could I take me seriously? But I feel as if I am living a false life, a lie. I can't stand it anymore. I don't care if I starve. I would rather live a hungry authentic life than an abundant lie."
In meeting her Self, this woman had encountered her Artist archetype. She could no longer continue to live a life blaming others for her choice not to fulfill her archetypal destiny."
I can understand this woman's hunger for her true life. I can also understand why it might have taken her so long to find her Self. There are so many injunctions against being an artist that it is understandable that many of us don't want to claim who we are.
But just as this woman recognized who she was at last, we come to a place where we recognize that the soul-starvation we were feeling was because we had denied ourselves something essential to our very natures.
What is it that you need? Which universal pattern reverberates inside you? Are you The Advocate looking for a cause that engages your strength? You might find getting trapped in causes that lock into your anger or personal agenda. Are you The Caregiver whose challenge is to become discerning when giving instead of burning out by giving indiscriminately?
Which image leads you home to yourself?
Like countless other people, I tuned in last week to see the premiere of Sensitive - The Untold Story on Livestream. The trailer for the documentary had felt loud, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But overall, I liked the content. In fact, I got very emotional at certain points.
While there are many vibrant online communities for HSPs, being able to see and hear other HSPs talk is not something I get to do often. That felt very affirming, and I am so happy that the next generation of sensitive people will have this resource to turn to.
I especially liked that they covered a wide range of HSP stories. They talked about HSP relationships, including interviews with some wonderful non-HSP parents working to understand their HSP children. They talked about extroverted HSPs. They featured an HSP basketball player, an HSP entrepreneur, an HSP working with sensitive dogs (every species has both sensitive and non-sensitive members in roughly the same percentages).
They covered different HSP voices in different places in the world. And of course, they talked about Dr Elaine Aron's seminal work. Her work was the main thread binding it all together. Her perspective and the stories shared by different HSPs helped present a balanced view of the HSP trait.
On one hand, the documentary talked about the wonderful responsiveness that HSPs have. On the other, they also talked about differential susceptibility - the idea that different people vary in their responsiveness to qualities of the environment. So, while HSPs benefit even more than non-HSPs from a wonderful environment, the opposite is also true. Bad experiences seep deeper into sensitive people. If you are an HSP who has had a traumatic experience, you will have to fight harder to get out of it. It will leave an indelible impression on you. And yet, the good news about being highly responsive is that once you get help to deal with what has been holding you back, that good energy and effort will also go deep inside.
Both good and bad affects HSPs, and to me that is the balanced perspective on being a sensitive person. Depending on the situation and so many different things, being an HSP can be many different things. I think this is also a reminder for us to pull the right things towards us, the things that nourish us deeply, the things that we often don't give ourselves because other non-HSPs don't seem to need it or give it importance.
Another thing that stood out for me was the discussion that parts of the brain associated with fear are not triggered when sensitive people enter a new environment. We are approaching the new situation with caution, not fear. At some point, for many of us, the caution gets overlaid with the label of fear that other people give it. Sometimes, a real fear gets added in to the mix.
But it is important to remember that pausing before acting is a way of approaching the world. It is not fear. It is consideration. But many of us may have gotten such mixed messages about our style that we might have started discounting it ourselves. For me, there have been a lot of times when I have tried to make myself act before I have considered things. That seemed to be the respected, proactive way. But that meant that I did not consider and then fell flat because that was just not my style, just not my way of being.
Are there ways in which you try to act like non-HSPs? How would owning your trait help you? How could it help you nourish yourself?
This caution also reminded me of some sensitive children I know who are cautious when they interact with strangers and people they don't know. Once they have determined that the place or the person is safe, they are not shy about interacting. But that reminds me of how easily the label of "shy" can be applied to a child who is simply considering, observing and looking before opening up or joining in.
For parents, I think it is so important to see that their HSP children often don't start off "shy." They might become shy if their way of being is not understood or appreciated.
There were other things that came to my mind when I watched Sensitive. Maybe, I will write about it in some other posts.
There were some stylistic things that I didn't like about the documentary. For example, the way the logo appeared or the camera-work that felt frantic at certain times. I hope the dissonance with the aesthetic elements does not discourage HSPs from seeing or appreciating the documentary.
It has a lot of good stuff. It wipes the mirror and helps us connect with other people, somewhere out there, that see and experience the world as we do. It takes us home to a space we often don't find in the environment around us, a space that "gets" us, a space where we don't have to explain who we are or feel misunderstood.
It gives us a sense of connection and community, and for that and many other reasons, I think this pioneering documentary is a wonderful leap forward for all of us.
Did you see the documentary? What did you think of Sensitive - The Untold Story?
