Just for clarification, I only really write from my own experience as this is as close to any kind of reality I can describe. Everyone has a unique way of viewing the world, therefore my hope is that some of my experiences and thoughts resonate with others and possibly help them at some stage with negotiating their way along life’s often precarious and confusing path.
I have been reflecting on my life prior to having discovered that I had empathic tendencies and have realised just how much chaos and confusion was as a result of my lack of understanding. I see many posts describing individuals situations to which I can all to easily relate.
I dated a lady who was extremely emotionally unstable, she was quick to become overwhelmed with devastating negative feelings which all to easily transferred to me. I felt her despair, her nihilism, her ambivalence to life and death. In that ambivalence she had made herself free to act and not be concerned about the consequences. She was often in emotional and behavioral freefall, chaotically going from one disastrous and self damaging situation to another. Those feelings at that time I had felt to be mine also. I therefore acted in a similar manner, it was as if I was committing acts of deliberate self harm to myself and my life. Thankfully much time has passed but when I look back I feel that being empathic allowed me to experience these emotions in a way that has helped me understand others in a way that is unique. I truly do know what emotions and feelings certain people are experiencing and this has helped myself to assist others through difficult times in their life.
Previous to becoming aware of my empathic side I also have felt great sorrow, great fury, great peace and great love to name a few emotions. At that time, as I had attributed those emotions to myself I fully experienced them, I lived them and was consumed by them. So although historically my life has been a complete emotionally supercharged mess, I have seemingly come out the other side with a wealth of compassion and understanding that otherwise I would not have had.
For me the key to being more conscious of my empathic involvement with others has been meditation. Meditation has allowed me to simply observe my thoughts and emotions dispassionately making the much easier to monitor and control. Also through meditation, spiritual insights have occurred which have shown me that I am not an independently existing entity but that I am part of the vastness of the universe, a wave in the ocean of life and matter. Through these insights the ego diminishes and can be lost. This knowledge has turned being an empath from being a curse to a blessing. I have realised that my life isn’t necessarily about me, it’s about what I can to others in the hope of promoting love, compassion and understanding. However if we interpret our empathic / sensitive experiences on from an egoic and an “I” centered belief system, that is when it can be a curse.
Category: meditation
On Empathic Alchemy……?
On Empathic Alchemy……?
( or how being empathic can lead to an awareness of spiritual unity)
There are many positives to being empathic e. g. a more sensual awareness of Nature, an ability to read people more effectively etc. However if we are to benefit from these abilities and use them for the common good many of us need to harness and in some way take control of the dark side. This dark side is often the first sign an individual has empathic traits as it can manifest itself in substantial distress to the person involved.
On less grounded days I will find myself again drawn into the psychological and emotional maelstrom of raw, uncontrolled, uncontainable empathy.
It seems especially testing lately, the increase in hate crime in the UK, the race issues in America, the huge loss of life of those victims of terrorist attacks leads me to feel great sorrow.
I have tried to ‘ objectively’ to observe what happens within me when I get these feelings in a hope of not getting completely overwhelmed by the concurrent emotions.
I will get an emotional reaction if I hear such news on the radio but much more so if I see televised footage of the actual incident. The physical feelings of anxiety and complete distress undergone by those victims seem transferred to me, I feel the need to vomit, my throat constricts, my stomach knots, it feels as if the emotional centres of my heart and chest are tore open. I seemingly start to hemorrhage emotional energy and become quickly drained of feelings resulting in a kind of agitated lethargy. At other times I will have a virtually unstoppable urge to put right that what is painful and upsetting to others. I am ready to go to war against what or whosoever is the perpetrator of others pain, to the point of sacrificing my life in order to save others having to be subject to distress.
Fortunately the vast majority of the time I can ground myself or drag myself back to a more realistic appraisal of the situation.
I appreciate that the pain I feel possibly would not be so great as those individuals however it seems that with empathy comes an incisive and acute awareness that we are all linked at some level. That when one person or animal hurts, that we can feel their pain, that we feel mobilised to act on their behalf.
For all those struggling empaths and healers out there, hold on in there. It is, as is everything in life, a process. We often rise again like a phoenix from the ashes of our former selves. However we may become burnt in the process.
What we’re for………..?
We all have our own subjective view of reality, for some it’s seemingly quite simple. These people are often ones who appear to adhere to a more dogmatic approach, that is their beliefs are consistent with an organised religion or philosophy. This of course does not mean it is not true for that individual any less so than my ‘truth’ is for me.
The problem with being empathic can be that our nature is naturally spiritual, that we are born or develop into it often unbidden. That is to say our spirituality is predisposed to some extent and if we are true to ourselves and our path we come to individuate in a unique manner. We often, certainly historically have had to come to terms with this without the luxury of peer support which is prevalent in the more mainstream religions. Luckily being an empath is now recognised by others, though by no means mainstream there is a degree of peer identification.
Whereas perhaps in the past many empaths may have fallen victim to mental health difficulties and / or addiction problems in order to numb themselves to the personal challenges that go with this predilection, we are now in a more positive position to use our abilities for the common good.
My interpretation of my place in the universe is as follows ( obviously subject to change as I move along my path) –
I am energetically aware, of both seen and unseen energies. My mission seems to be that of enabling the energetic transformation of others to a more peaceful and grounded state. I can do this through the medium of verbal and non verbal communication. However any change that I create in others is due to the combined effect of my presence and an almost unconscious transfer of energy towards the other person, it can contain both verbal and non verbal content but the essence is in the subtle combination of communicating my attention to that person.
I feel that I am part of the infinite oneness of the universe and I have my part to play in life’s processes, this is my programming, my destiny. And currently with this I am blessedly happy.
An Eternity of Enslavement
An Eternity of Enslavement……?
Frequently I ask myself why does the human race with all our supposed intelligence continue to promote and contribute to a society based on materialism and the egoic attainment of the individual?
I mean it’s not like we haven’t been around for millennia, it’s not like that as a race we haven’t made so, so many mistakes we should have learnt from. Also there have been many great minds and spiritual leaders who have spoke wisely regarding the human condition and how we create our own suffering.
Even modern science tells us that we are nothing but a miniscule bundle of energy in a vast, infinite sea of energy. Yet we still largely continue to fight amongst ourselves, seemingly forever choosing to believe that we are all separate, that ourselves and our immediate family comes first in all matters. We value our opinions and beliefs so strongly they are fought over, wars waged, racism and all other ‘isms’ remain to cause ongoing conflict between ourselves.
To add to the irony, supposedly religious groups divide and condemn others in order to validate themselves. Scientific research which objectively may point to the possibility of non self, the possibility of a better world where the ‘ego’ could be laid aside is frequently misrepresentated and twisted to conform to individual groups ideology and thus promote ‘their’ beliefs.
The big question is ‘why does this continue?’
Is it because most people do not or refuse to see a life outside of their own ego?
Is it because we are genetically engineered in this way?
Is the temptation of short term gain on an individual basis so more meaningful and worthwhile than a peaceful and less dangerous future?
Millions of people align themselves to religious and spiritual ideals but these ideals are often again twisted and redefined in a way that suits those individuals in them that seek power and influence.
I know also there are many of us who want an end to this hypocrisy, an end to the dividing up and condemning of groups and individuals. Those of us who want to learn, do things differently for the benefit of others, animals and our planet.
And we know we are right and most of us will continue to carry this belief within us until our dying day and will be unwavering in our conviction and our actions in this world.
Strangely there does not seem to be a ‘name’ which I can find to represent these ideas adequately. But then we all know that ‘identifying’ with groups / cultures and ideologies is often where things can go horribly wrong.
A Small Sacrifice…………
Through meditation, reflection and examination I often get a glimpse of a reality which is seemingly not based on my own personal egoic view of the world. A vision of a congruent and vital Oneness of all life, all nature and the universe being inextricably bound together in a seamless, unified wave of energy. There is no room or reason for subjectivity as it only serves to confuse and trivialise the true nature of all that is.
When we are able to step out of our psyche’s preoccupation with attempting to fulfill our myriad of human ‘needs’, we can often see that we are merely a minute part of the whole. A small energetic event amidst an infinite array of energetic events that constitute our world and the cosmos.
We need to choose to intuitively follow our calling to individuate on a personal level in order that we can fulfill nature’s demand that we fully contribute to the largely unseen process of becoming.
We may have to sacrifice and destroy our ego and our idea of our own individual value for the greater good, for the furtherance of the true nature of reality in order for it to maximise its inherent potential.
Or we could cling to our small, ego led selves, the fulfillment of whose needs pay mere lip service to the call for a unified, energetic response to the cosmos’s demand for personal immersion into the whole process of reality’s will to power of becoming.
Born into a Dream
We know you know…….
That feeling of being in isolation ( in terms of how we view life through the ego and the subsequent mass delusion of society itself ) is an unnatural state.
Although we do not ‘remember’ as such, at some level most of us are aware that living life as a human who’s actions in life are the result of a belief of being separate is a falsehood.
Perhaps before we are ‘born’ and when we ‘die’ part of us again becomes seamlessly one with the universe, our essence again dissolved into all that is, into being complete, into peace.
As humans we seek a barely identifiable unity, a feeling of wholeness, of being complete. Some seek it through relationships, some through goal achievement, some through spiritual means and some still through intoxication of the senses leading to a dissolvement of the perceived boundaries of self.
This has gone on through all of man’s existence and can be seen by his past and current belief systems i.e. building of stone circles ( signifying perhaps a ‘unity’ ), animism and actions to enable insight through meditation and prayer for instance.
Frustratingly many of us are aware that society largely is constructed in a way that works against this understanding.
How different life and relationships would be if from childhood we were all brought up with a sense of oneness with the world and each other.
Words to the Wise?
From a lifetime of reading the one person historically I most resonate with in terms of similar beliefs / understandings is Carl Jung. There are far too many to list so I will just concentrate on one for now.
Throughout my life I have had many spiritual type experiences, usually at times I have felt more grounded e.g. following meditation. From what could be termed supernatural events to an Advaita like experience.
Some of these occurrences have been so powerful I have become concerned that I would become lost to myself and that I would be somehow caught between the worlds. Fortunately this has not happened and I have had the fortune to glimpse other perspectives and return to my human self. Carl Jung describes it very eloquently:
It is under all conditions a most advisable thing to keep to the conscious and rational side, i.e., to maintain that side.
One never should lose sight of it. It is the safeguard without which you would lose yourself on unknown seas.
You would invite illness, indeed, if you should give up your conscious and rational orientation.
On the other hand, it is equally true that life is not only rational.
To a certain extent you have to keep your senses open to the non-rational aspects of
existence. . . .
The unconscious itself is neither tricky nor evil – it is Nature, both beautiful and terrible. . . .
The best way of dealing with the unconscious is the creative way. . . ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 108-109.
Jung has said that the unconscious long identified as the oceanic in man, is Nature.
The seeker of himself often feels cast adrift, setting a course between light and dark but ultimately moved along by unseen currents deep within. ~Claire Dunne, Wounded Healer of the Soul, Page 87.
individuator 