Empath Problems

Living the life of ( what is largely described as) an empath is a very challenging experience to say the very least. After all trying to exist and live a ‘normal’ human existence is frequently fraught with anxiety, stress, drama and perceived obstacles. 
So it is not surprising that those of us who share a predisposition to being energetically sensitive have more than the average person to contend with. 

Whether or not we agree with the term ’empath’ many of us indeed share similar proclivities. There are going to be variables depending on individuals however many ( including myself) experience the following :

  – a tendency to pick up on the emotional states of others ( and sometimes confuse them as our own) 

  – a tendency to pick up on Earth / Nature energies 

  – an extreme sensitivity to whatsoever is in the energetic field of our vicinity, including spirits, ghosts and paranormal entities 

  – we may take on physiological and psychological aspects of those to whom we are close to 

  – numinous spiritual occurrences, for example Advaitic, Kundalini et al episodes 

  – moving in and out of anothers dreams. 

This list certainly is not exhaustive nor exclusive but it gives us an idea of what ‘ normal’ can be like for the empathic on a day to day basis. 

Before we discover and understand our ‘ energetic sensitivity’ we are largely at the mercy of whatever situation we find ourselves in. This can leave ourselves prone to intense uncontrolled emotions, questioning our sanity as well as feelings of isolation and loneliness ( due to not being able to confide our feelings to those around us). This is when being empathic can feel like a curse. 

However it is possible to embrace these abilities and to enjoy the rich depths of insight and sensuality open to us. 

The first step is to understand what being empathic is. 

The next is to find what works for us to enable the individual to maintain balance and reign in some of these disparate energies. Some find grounding, shielding and meditation helps. 

We do though need to bear in mind that we need to be loving and compassionate to ourselves. The fact that on our journey so far we have encountered many, many challenges, possibly more than most others. And this is often without the advantage of peer support due to the uniqueness of our predilection for sensitivity. 
Namaste ( “I bow to the divine in you” – Hinduism) 

  –

The Story Thus Far…………….

My previous post was about an epiphany I had a few weeks ago now. I have had requests to elucidate what exactly I experienced, so here goes.
I generally sense that we all grow develop in different ways in terms of spirituality, that is to say that there is no generic right path. However if we are authentic in our approach to life we have the capacity to individuate and thus are more able to fulfill our own potential.
There have been many subjects and experiences historically that have resonated with me although at the time I was not sure as to why. A kind of intuitive nudge I suspect.
These in short have been :
– sense of oneness with Nature
– Neolithic and pre Neolithic history
– ancient sites
– quantum physics
– Taoism
– Buddhism
– aspects of Paganism ( pantheism and pantheism)
– animism
– the works of Carl Jung
– deep ecology
– Hinduism
These are to mention just a few. I have also experienced instances of Advaita and to some extent Kundalini.
I also am very empathic by nature and can sense feelings and energies in people, animals and places.
However until now I had been unable to unite them into a coherent understanding of my own individual vision of the world.
My current suspicions are as follows :
– in primitive early man there was a strong empathic connection with our planet and its flora and fauna
– in sensitive and empathic individuals today this is also the case. Part of our mind is not ours but is found outside in the object. That is to say that intuitively we feel the unity with existence, that we are part and parcel of the the world around us. Thus due to this kind of unconscious link we are able to feel the energies of others and places around us. We recognize that we potentially share the same soul
– this would explain why many spiritually empathic types feel that do not belong to this world as it is currently. Due to Western Societys propensity to subjugate Nature in many of her forms, to live among the general populations casual acceptance of this is uncomfortable to say the least
– some Animistic belief systems ( e. g. American Indian cultures) recognise the Divinity in Nature and treat the world around them accordingly. This tradition and its maintenance would continue to maintain that natural empathic link.

For many people in Western Cultures these feelings are now lost or irretrievable due to the generic dualistic and Cartesian mindset. Hence many people are concerned about the environmental impact it is having upon our planet.
I hope that I have explained myself coherently as it’s rather a tricky topic to write about, mainly because the essence of it all is not about thinking but feeling.
I’m now going to have a read of the Chandogya Upanishad.

Tat Tvam Asi

A World in a Grain of Sand……..?

Grateful for the opportunity to rest, I sit down leadenly in my armchair and close my eyelids. 

Outside I hear the wind press itself against the windows, giving the occasional gentle whistle where egress is found. 

The distant sound of children’s laughter, as natural as the babbling of a brook.

A soft, lilting chirrup of birdsong joins Nature’s symphony providing the perfect soundtrack to my repose. 
The generic aches and pains from my previous exertion gently remind me of my physical incarnation. I can almost feel every muscle, tendon and sinew of my body, still tender from my activity..

My heartbeat steadied to a dull regular pulse within my chest, my breathing reduced to a gentle ebb and flow. 

Slowly and tentatively I drift into an involuntary but not unwelcome meditative state.
A discreet impartial awareness arises within me, allowing a sensual acuity of my inner processes.

Words are barely able to interpret the experience. 
I can sense ( feel? hear?) the incipient vibration of air molecules upon the emanation of a distant crow’s caw. 

I can sense the almost untrackable speed with which the sound reaches my the membranes of my eardrums. 

That bundle of energetic information now rapidly traversing through a network of neurones and synapses, electrically bridging the gap between receptors to continue it’s journey. Becoming lost and indiscernable amongst the multitude of other quantum neurological activity. 
I am paradoxically both acutely and dimly aware of other physiological processes inside of me.

Of how I am a world within worlds. 

My arboreal lungs exchanging gases to maintain homeostasis. 

My arteries and veins carrying my lifeblood to the entirety of my corporeality as rivers and streams carry sustenance to the land.
My true self is indiscipherable from all that exists.

I am of the world yet also between the worlds. 

I am the earth, the air, fire, water and yet quintessentially spirit.
Returning from my reverie to my mortal existence. Back to the comparatively coarse and blunted sensorium with which my human form is endowed.

I live my life in the knowledge that all is not what it seems. 

That whatsoever my earthbound experience is at any given moment, it is simply a temporarily fleeting corporal construct.

Our Life……………. A Factitious Autobiography?

Sitting quietly on the porch gazing upwards, I watch the gossamer like clouds flit across the sky. Constantly changing forms, merging and breaking apart from each other in a dance of perpetual motion.

I am silently and unobtrusively aware of my mindstate. Thoughts and images drift by, each vying for my attention. Each trying in its own way to remove my sense of passive subtle awareness and entangle me in some form of concrete action. 

Fortunately I am well aware of the minds ability to fill my day with distractions, I therefore simply allow myself to witness my minds internal activity. 
However, I have often noted that my senses and psyche act as a constant lens in which to incorporate and interpret my  subjective human experience.

This frequently seems to have led to my ego having created a seemingly objective storyline to my life. A storyline with which I am tempted to identify with completely. It sits far more comfortably with my mortal self than to surrender to my underlying sense and knowledge of non duality. 
As I reflect on the past month , I am presented with the following egoic, corporeal chronicle .
A battle worn knight finally taking a moment to rest from repeated and relentless skirmishes necessary to maintain a degree of equilibrium in life.

The two battlefields of home and work aligned side by side as if to prevent any respite as I go from one to the other.

Mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted I fall into an involuntary but welcome relaxed and meditative state. 
I have fought :

– Corporate deities who have sought to undermine any financial security I can muster. 

– Those who have also sought to encourage organisational priorities over human welfare. 

– Against politicians who seek to further impoverish the poor, disabled and elderly. 

– To tackle and disarm individuals who had insisted that a persons unique and personal experience as invalid. 

– To temporarily thwarted the ravages of psychosis in those who would succumb.
Then there are those more subtle, insidious adversaries who are much closer to home. The barely tangible voices whispering covertly to my soul.

Encouraging me to lie and deceive others to my own advantage. 

Suggesting that I use whatever skills I have in order to promote myself above my peer group. 

Ushering me to ‘ give up ‘ battling and resign myself to fate.

Inviting wrath, greed, lust and gluttony into my life in order for me to expend my energies in self pleasuring but inevitably self defeating activities. 
I understand unequivocally that as long as I am alive and in human form the battles will continue. 

But one day I will again reflect on my recent past to find a completely different tale has been told.

My life’s history laid down in my memory, like chapters in a book.
The key to my ongoing survival is being of the knowledge that I am truly not that which my mind suggests I am.

Of not falling into the delusion of self-hood.

Two Worlds………..?

I awoke this morning to yet again become aware that I am still the person who I was yesterday with roughly the same life. The same body, the same ruminating neuroses, the same seemingly obstructive physical self that I find my energies confined to.
It may only be me but I find this physical existence really laborious and limiting. That’s not to say I do not have wonder, love and excitement in my life, it’s just to say these feelings are channeled largely through my five senses which generally only relay to me the ‘ parts of the whole’.

I have spent time meditating and following my spiritual path as I see it and have been rewarded with numinous experiences which are near impossible to explain using everyday language.
I find that I straddle two worlds, one spiritually energetic and one enclosed and physical. I seem to oscillate between the two mostly,  grounding helps to stop me becoming completely disorientated and confused by my cognitive duality.
Waxing lyrical, it could possibly because I am as an energy not fully integrated into my body. Whether by accident or design I am aligned differently to many others who seem to go blindly through their lives with no thought for anything other than meeting their human needs.

Seemingly I have strong empathic tendencies and I suspect one gives rise to the other. It would also explain why I have never felt that I fit in with society and the ‘ human’ world. Perhaps there is part of my energetic self that recalls my oneness with nature and the Universe, the feelings of peace, love and completeness often feel a hairs breadth away. Just out of sight, beyond the veil created by my physical self.

Being an Empath, a Blessing and a Curse…..

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.

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.

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.