Empathy, Anxiety, and Interconnectedness

Discussing how Empathy is not a call to action, but Instead, is a sense, like hearing, which we can learn to use to our benefit and as a means of enhancing our life and relationships. 

Transcript

Empathy, Anxiety, and Interconnectedness

Merriam-Webster defines 'empathy' as, "...understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another." In therapeutic communities and the world more generally, this is seen as a generic trait healthy interconnected humans have, to varying degrees, and is required for healthy relationships of all kinds. The lack of it is seen as one factor in mental illness and leading to actions which can range from mildly socially awkward to physically damaging. All of which is true.

However, there's a significant portion of humanity which has heightened amounts of empathy which, rather than spurring additional healthy insights, positive interactions or improved relationships, instead causes emotional distress, anxiety and the development of coping skills which are necessary for these people to get through their day. This heightened empathy comes from two different sources, naturally occurring and developed through negative circumstances.

Those whose empathy developed naturally are termed Empaths.

Empaths are naturally attuned to others via the process of becoming embodied, which is a bit like baking a cake. You are mixing wet and dry ingredients in a certain ratio in order to achieve the desired results for the particular life and the goals you wish to achieve in it. If you add in more wet than dry, the cake is rich, but dense and heavy. If you have more dry, then the cake can be light and spongy or crumbly and tasteless. 

Mixing the soul and the body together into a unit creates all the psychic gifts, sometimes referred to as The Clairs, but more body means less opportunity for them to activate. This is the most common choice as souls who are embodying on this planet are working to deeply learn and understand themselves without the psychic input of others. Being encased in a body here, where we can fully experience ourselves emotionally as well as spiritually without harming anyone else, where we can choose with whom and how much we communicate or connect and where we are encouraged to connect allows for an accelerated learning and becoming experience.

Mixing more soul than body allows the person to retain their psychic abilities including empathy, which is how souls identify and interconnect with each other. These abilities can then be utilized in a variety of ways during the embodiment at various times and in a multitude of situations. Maturing souls choose this option when they want to practice their boundaries and connection/communication skills. They can be working on lessons around "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" or concerning triggers and holding space with the additional input of being able to feel/see/be the issues the other person is processing.

Souls who have already matured into service work also use this mix in order to have the full suite of skills or even advanced psychic packages at their disposal depending on the purpose for the embodiment. The ratio of soul to body is finely tuned as the soul seeks to achieve specific goals and so everything about the life is geared to focus them in this direction including their psychic gifts. This doesn't mean they are guaranteed success, but it gives them a better than average chance.

For those whose empathy was developed through negative circumstances, there are different terms used including hypervigilance and anxiety.

Rather than having chosen a life where they wanted and encouraged interconnection at this physical/emotional/mental level, people become attuned to others in this way in order to survive.  This often occurs in difficult or abusive childhoods, but can also come later in life via domestic violence, war, poverty, houselessness and more. Once fully operative it can keep the person safe, but it also makes relaxing back into a 'normal' life difficult at best and regularly leaves the person overly sensitive to all human interactions. 

Empathy, whether naturally occurring or developed, is another sense and like all of our senses, it is a physical thing.   It is our body, our mirror neurons, limbic system, and energy field interacting with the world, and specifically people, around us in order for us to survive and thrive. However, our body can also be a minefield of triggers or misjudge what is helpful in any given situation.  No matter at what age, when or how much, if we perceive something to be negative, harmful or abusive in our lives, our body kicks in to try and save us.  

If you've ever been in a fender bender, you'll have experienced this.  The impact causes you to be startled or frightened or stunned.  Then time seems to fade away.  Everything seems in slow motion and yet very intimate and in focus, almost like tunnel vision.  Our body acts to take care of things like trading insurance information, checking to see what damage was done, taking pictures, calling the police and so on.  The mind seems fuzzy, disengaged and even just hovering watching it all.  It's only after all the doing is done that time seems to turn back on. Then we get cold or shaky and our mind races to put all the pieces back together and make meaning out of everything.

Overly strong, persistent or broadly focused empathy can turn to anxiety and hypervigilance, using our brain to process all of the actions, motivations, emotions and possibilities of everything around us in order to navigate them safely. These abilities can keep our minds constantly revving either with a retreat into safe spaces away from others or continuous problem solving, as if everything were a problem.  They attempt to minimize our interconnection and limit our connections to those which are safe or manageable.

For those with empathy of either kind, learning to do energy work as part of their spiritual path or as a profession or both can seem like the obvious choice, but too often it leads to emotional flooding, overwhelm, emotional and physical exhaustion, depression, and the need to withdraw from people in all areas of life.  None of which is helpful nor a calling and often can prevent the person from working towards the goals their soul set out to achieve.

This doesn't mean empaths need to spend a life suffering through, struggling or managing these senses, but instead they can learn what I think of as volume control.  Instead of having the radio on full blast 24/7 they can learn to turn things down or off when they want and turn them up when they need.  This is something we do as children when we are learning how our ears work.  We don't have covers for them like our eyes so we can't turn off our hearing, but we learn how to navigate our environment so we can focus on the sounds we want and minimize the one's we don't even in a noisy environment.

Note:  On a scale of 1-10, anxiety lives in the range of 1-5.  Panic and panic attacks live in the areas of 6-10. Someone experiencing no or some anxiety is generally capable of working with a variety of techniques to help develop volume control in harmony with their body and surroundings.  If a person is experiencing panic, these techniques will have little to no effect and are not a means for de-escalating the panic.  For those who are experiencing regular or ongoing panic attacks I recommend getting support for whatever external situation(s) are causing the panic and also working with a trauma trained therapist.

To create fluent volume control with a person's empathy or empathic senses, I recommend starting with these practices:

Star Snuggy Energy Hug

(Normally our ambient energy field, the one we use to extend our senses and interconnect with the world around us is either a 3" suit which hugs our physical body or an expanded egg/sphere extending 18-24" all around us.)

•              Extend your arms gently to their full range on either side of your body, like wings. 

•              Spread your fingers wide on each hand, then, closing your hands, grasp handfuls of your energy field, like grabbing handfuls of a blanket.

•              Feel your feet doing this as well. You may even want to spread and then scrunch your toes to enhance the effect.

•              Then pull the 'blanket' around you by bringing your hands to your heart chakra or sternum. You should be able to feel your energy field putting gentle pressure all around you like a weighted blanket. You may be able to feel this in all aspects of your field, not just in front with your hands.

•              With your energy field snugged around you, the information/feelings you receive from the external world should be gentled, muted, and calmed. This often has the effect of calming the nervous system and can start the person's body producing oxytocin due to the hugging or 'snuggy' effect.

•              You can hold this as long as you feel comfortable and comforted. If things start to feel too warm, stuffy, or you just aren't interested any longer, then let go of the energy and let your hands release. Everything will shift back to its normal state on its own.

Reverse Mindfulness Meditation

To reduce the amount of energy, information and/or emotions which you receive, you can pull your receptors back.

•              To do this, start by turning your awareness to how much of the external world you're perceiving at the moment: entire neighborhood, city block, office building, neighbors on my block, people in my office or the rooms/buildings near me, anyone near me physically...

•              Once you're aware of where your awareness edges are, start pulling them back to you incrementally. Think of this like changing the focus on a camera. Pull the focus closer so what you're attending to are less things. 

•              Move from a neighborhood to your block, from the block to a building, building to room, room to area around the self, then focus on being centered and grounded in your own body.

•              Do this gently and without force. Breath and allow yourself to be aware of resistance, new information appearing, or desires for physical action. This is the wisdom of your body and soul pointing you towards the next steps to take or your current limits. 

•              Honor what your body and soul are able to do in the moment. Patience and persistence build strength and skill.

Empathy is not a call to action nor a signal we are meant to be in service and it's not something we're meant to suffer with or feel afflicted by. Instead, it is a sense, like hearing, which we can learn to use to our benefit and as a means of enhancing our life and relationships. By learning how to focus it when we wish, but protect ourselves from unnecessary or intrusive energy and information, we can extend our positive experiences of life and the spiritual path we choose to walk.