Being Empathic

It's funny how old stuff surfaces again and we have to deal with it in a newer, or bigger, or different way.

Many of you know I'm empathic/empathetic. To many that means I'm too sensitive. To me, it's a gift. I can pick up nuance that others may not notice. It helps me move with the flow of life.

The downside is that when someone in the room is angry, my energy-field/nervous-system picks it up and may resonate with it. If I'm not aware that this energy is someone else's I may start to feel irritated myself. Then two of us are mad.

It's come up lately - time for a closer look. So I dug into my notes and found I had a pretty decent outline of what I wanted to explore. Here it is:

Being Empathic

The traits of being empathic/empathetic:

Sensitivity to external stimuli.

This means you can feel what others feel as though it's happening to you.

You pick up people's moods, and even the mood of the room or building or space.

Even TV shows can feel personal.

You can have strong gut feelings, intuitive, telepathic or psychic powers.

These are often carried on emotional energy.

This is not the same as Sensory Processing Disorder,

and not the same as Hypersensitivity, 

which can look a lot the same if you don't have strong emotional coping strategies.

You may perceive many subtle things that others miss or ignore.

This is one reason why some environments can feel overwhelming.

You were likely born with a genetic tendency to this,

and developed more in childhood due to family dynamics.

How it feels from inside:

Without good coping strategies:

Overwhelming: with too many feelings demanding your attention it feels like 17 people are standing right next to you and yelling and you have to hear what the guy across the room is saying. 

Stressful.

It can even feel painful, like nerves are jangling.

How it appears to others:

It depends on your coping strategies

Introverted.

Creative.

Love of nature: forests, animals, birds, the sea, the rock under us, even the wind.

Interest in spirituality.

Need for a lot of down-time.

This can lead to:

Anxiety and all the other problems that can go along with anxiety, like overeating or self medicating.

A lower tolerance for dishonesty, unfairness, violence or bullying.

Avoidance of public spaces, violent entertainment.

Diseases related to long-term stress (autoimmune, cardio-pulmonary, allergies, asthma etc.).

Exhaustion.

Hindrances to managing it well:

Poor boundaries.

Pride, a need to be in control of life, or perfectionism, or a lot of mental activity.

Poor self-esteem - need for outer approval, an inner feeling that you're not good enough.

Taking ownership/responsibility of what you feel/perceive rather than treating it as information.

Taking an interest in what you notice to the point where it remains with you.

Coping strategies:

Emergency fixes:

Exercises like "snip" and cleansing exercises  https://www.janetdane.com/4howto.htm

Walk out, run away.

When sitting in public, keep your back to the wall to limit the direction of sensory input. 

Wear sunglasses and/or headphones.

Stop often to get back into your body. Dig your bare feet into the sand or grass.

Do things you find absorbing: running, music, yoga, drawing, solving puzzles - things that require attention and focus.

Give yourself enough time to decompress after an outing.

Long term solutions:

Meditate regularly. 

Define boundaries and take action when they are breached.

Learn to love and accept your humanity, weaknesses and strengths.

Take joy in the 100 small pleasures of the day, every day.

Develop a spiritual life of some kind that makes you feel loved and connected.

Practice seeing your perceptions as information only, 

without feeling a need to respond, fix or do anything about it. It's just data.

Practice relaxing about feeling stressed or uncomfortable. 

Being under stress is enough, don't add to it by worrying about it. It'll pass all by itself.

Be around people who are kind.

Get enough sleep.

How it feels from inside:

With good coping strategies,

it can feel like a joyful, inclusive sense of belonging to something greater.

How it appears to others:

When you have good coping strategies,

you look happy, curious about life, generous of yourself and at ease.

Once you have good coping strategies and practices, you can enjoy the advantages:

You are able to see possibilities and/or patterns that others miss.

You can read a room and see what/who helps the energy flow and what/who hinders it.

You enjoy beauty, subtlety, delicate scents, tastes.

You feel connected to the world.

Expanding Our Horizons

Our lives get smaller when we get older in ways we can not prevent. Yet we don't have to make it a way of life. There are dozens of other ways we can expand our horizons.

Here are a few ideas:

Try a different food. Maybe something like a fruit you've heard of but never tried. Or maybe lima beans. I hated them as a kid, but maybe I'd like them now. Well, maybe.

Learn a phrase from another language. Like how to say "Hello," in Finnish, or "Have a good day," in Japanese. Try them out on friends and family.

Take a different route to work. Okay, my work is in another room of the house, there's only so many different ways to get there. But I could take a different route when I drive to Alliston for groceries.

Listen to a different radio station or put on a different type of music for a bit. Wonder why people like it and if you ever could, too.

For more fun with food, try having breakfast foods at suppertime and suppertime foods for breakfast. I don't usually associate salad with breakfast, but it could be interesting. Weird, but interesting.

Get a map of another city or look at one online. See what the names of the streets are near the centre of the city. One great way to see what a neighbourhood is like is to shop there. So look up the nearby shops and see how people in that neighborhood live.

Try a new sport or hobby. Chess or ski-jumping, knitting or star-gazing, it doesn't matter what it is as long as it's new.

Say "Hello" to your next door neighbor. He's lived there for 2 years now. It's time.

Go to a different church. Whether you are a regular or not, it can be enlightening to see how other denominations and even other faiths handle their services.

We don't have to like what we find when we explore, but we need to be curious to keep life opening up for us. It's never too late to expand our horizons. Even, maybe, for lima beans.

Better Than Counting Sheep

While laying in bed thinking, I semi-consciously rolled over to escape a story that was turning to politics. Thirty seconds later my semi-conscious self rolled again, this time to escape a worry about a loved one.

It's like I'm lying there, minding my own business, and these streams of mental energy float through, like ribbons floating by on the breeze. Enticing me to engage.

It can be addictive to have a thought fragment about "That politician," coalesce into "He's not trustworthy," which in turn becomes an emotionally juicy "I don't like this; it didn't used to be this way." Now I'm invested in the narrative. 

But my semi-sleeping self knew better, which is why I rolled over.

This time, rather than letting the thinking mind kick in, I imagined the streams of mental energy like paper ribbons floating through my mind - ribbons that I could snip, snip, snip with scissors and watch the paper pieces fall like big confetti.

Getting out the mental scissors isn't just a game. It reinforces my desire to disengage from the mental energy, and breaks up the coherence of these thought streams/ribbons before they take hold. 

There are other ways to deal with busy mental energy when I'd rather sleep. Counting sheep, making meal plans, or inviting a song to become an earworm can distract a mind that's leaning into areas I don't want to go. A little gratitude exercise done in good faith can sweep away the negativity and bring in a spark of light. But these alternatives just change the mental energy, they don't do much to quiet it down.

I was in bed to rest though, so I chose the snip snip method to quiet the mental energy. It's a decision. No matter how attractive the thought fragments, they don't become a story that keeps me awake until I make them one. 

Handling Cognitive Fatigue

Not all cognitive impairment is a sign that this is the end. Stress, infections, a changing political climate, concussions, and other disease can temporarily affect our ability to think straight.

Here's a list I passed on to friends of things I have found helpful:

Become aware when your cognitive energy is low.
See it in percentages, not just good or bad. That helps see how it naturally shifts and changes.

Pace yourself.
If you're exhausted after a mandatory appointment, schedule breaks in between them. Never two a day. Try one every 2 days or 3 days. Don't push through tasks. If it's a long task, break it into smaller chunks to have time to restore in between. Something simple like making dinner requires cognitive effort in the planning, preparation and cleanup as well as the actual cooking. Say no to social events that ask too much.

Don't volunteer for more work.
You can help later on when you feel better.

Don't ask your brain to do something it's struggling with.
If you can't read a book, try reading while listening to the audiobook. Or wait until the brain is fresher.

Make lists and use them.

Regulate the nervous system.
This is done through the physical: walking at a steady pace, repetitive movements of any kind using both sides of the body - left, right.

Do something with your hands.
Try something that doesn't require much thought or mental effort: carpentry, drawing, handicrafts like weaving, cooking. This isn't about achieving a completed project, it's about using the body in a quiet, undemanding, constructive way. The process counts, not the end result.

One thing at a time.

Ingest wholesome content.
Stay away from watching the news or anything that can give rise to irritation or anger. Playing games like solitaire can focus and rest the mind, but watch that this doesn't move into numbing the mind; choose something that freshens it if possible. Try podcasts that make you laugh, dog videos, or listening to music.

Check in on your body.
There may be an unacknowledged ache in the hip that is adding to the fatigue. Treat it if possible. Just noticing it can lower the stress even if it can't be treated - the body's warnings, once acknowledged will stop. If sights and sounds are overwhelming, dim the lights, or turn down the volume.

Touch someone or a cat.
Tactile physical loving touch is healing.

Be willing to settle for tier 2 solutions.
They may not be ideal, but they are good enough.

Practice good habits.
Try a special time each day to reflect on what you appreciate - gratitude for small pleasures (like a hot drink on a cold day). Or try prayer or meditation - a daily practice that builds gradually over time.

Get good sleep, good food and fresh air regularly.
If you love the trees, acknowledge them as you walk by, find a way to drink in their energy.

Be patient with yourself.
It's not your fault. Focus less on what you can't do and more on what you can. When you can't manage something, remember that some days will be better than others and some will be worse. It's a natural cycle, not your fault.

Keep your sense of humour.
Life at times can be absurd.

Give it time.

Goofing Off

I met up with my dog-walking neighbour on the forest trail a while back. He had a guest visiting from Europe, who asked me where my dog was. 

I could have explained my dog-less walk by saying that I'm walking for exercise, or for fresh air, or to clear my mind. But I walk the trails because I feel good in the trees. Pure and simple. 

In our grind culture, walking for pleasure may look like a waste of time. Unproductive. Lacking purpose. And maybe it is. But do I need a purpose to walk the forest trails? Do I need my walk to be productive? Can't I just be goofing off?

By focusing more on the walk and less on the purpose, I can take in the scents, and the sounds, and the changes in temperature. I can linger to look at a flower. I can veer off in another direction if something catches my eye. I can pause and listen to the creak of the trees. Walking for pleasure calls to the kid in me who may have whiled away an afternoon in exploration and sensation. 

This is meaningful. 

Maybe we need to goof off more often.

Cats can be assholes

Cats can be assholes.

But they also sense when we are sore or sad or sick and they come close to bring comfort. My sister’s cat wouldn’t come near me until that one day when I was feeling awful. It hopped up beside me on the sofa.

I thought it odd at the time, but now I see it as a form of love. The cat came close out of the goodness of its heart.

The goodness of its heart.

The stuff out of which we are all made. 

We are all composed of goodness. The cat. Even an asshole cat. Even an asshole person. Or a tricky awful situation. All composed of goodness. 

Can I relax my heart and meet these things with the same goodness? Can I meet that stupid, unsolvable problem with tenderness?

Why not? Cats do.

People do stuff for good reasons

A friend with diabetes turns to sweets when she needs comfort. A schizophrenic turns to cigarettes because the nicotine eases his symptoms. I may know that these things are harmful, but there is a logic to their choices.

Some years ago, a new neighbour had a 'getting-to-know-you' thing planned. When she invited me, I told her I'd be delighted to come if I was feeling up to it. Rather than saying something like, "I hope you come," she said "You need to push yourself to do things outside your comfort zone." She caught me on a cranky day; I had no tolerance for even mild bullying. Rather than letting this slide, I asked her "What makes you think you are qualified to tell me what I am up to and what I am not?" Her mouth closed with a snap. She blinked a few times. And said no more. I realize she had pretty good intentions. In her mind it was a form of encouragement. She's a pretty nice person overall. But, no. Not today.

People do stuff for good reasons. Stuff we don't like. Stuff we don't think they should do. Stuff that we know will likely lead to a bad end. Yet it's theirs to do. When we don't recognize the intelligence that's already there, our intervention changes from helpful advice to bullying.

People do stuff for good reasons.