Love, Friendship, and the Sh*t we take because of it.

I have long known I am an empathetic person. I have always felt other peoples emotions deeply. Sometimes I wish I could turn it off, but recently I realized how much of a gift it is. I can hurt with them, I can share in the highs, I can be there fully for those who need me. I think it is a gift really.

I might not always understand what the person has gone through, but I listen and feel the hurt down to my soul. It shakes me to my core and allows me to empathize with the person. This empathy is dangerous to me and my own happiness. While I feel other peoples emotions so deeply,I notice I feel mine even more. With every good or bad thing that happens I realize how much it resonates with my soul. It takes a tole on my body sometimes and that is not good.


The definition of an empathic is this:

of, relating to, or characterized by empathy, the psychological identification with the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of others:

a sensitive, empathetic school counselor.

 

 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathetic

 

I feel on such a deep level that it upsets my balance if I let it. I have to have empathy and not sympathy. I cry with my friends, share in their joys, feel their feelings in my soul. I struggle with the balance of allowing my self to feel so wholly and retain my balance.

 

I have thought for years that the struggles I have had with my emotions are something I had wrong with me, but something online recently made me see that there is nothing wrong, that I just seem to be able to be in the emotion with my friend. I am raw with emotion all the time and therefore vulnerable to so much,mostly good. It is a gift that I have been given and I need to let it flow and stop trying to stop it from happening. Then I need to realize (and here is where I struggle) that it is not my emotion I am feeling. I do not need to deal with it, they will. I just need to allow my emotions to go with them and empathize and be a good friend.  

I have so many friends lately going through so many horrible life experiences that I want to help them, but as I know I cannot take on the experience for them, fix their lives, or have control over any part of the universe; then I have realized I can listen, I can feel their pain, and they will know I am full invested into what they feel, and I will be there in the depths of all their emotions. I will be an empathetic friend. Someone who allows herself to hurt when they hurt and when I leave I will do my best to establish my own homeostasis. I will get back to my happy middle.

Now that I understand more of who I am, what I am, and what I should be doing I think life will flow more easily for me. I think knowing this will help guide me into helping people better and healing myself from those feelings. I hope to feel empathy now with not allowing myself to hurt personally. It will be work, as life always is, but I will do what I can now to regain control over my own emotions and controlling them better. I am an empathetic person and I for one am grateful for that. 

 

I love my friends and I would do anything for them. I would even feel down into my being to be there for them and love them wholly, for that I am grateful to be able to do as my gift to them.

your story teller/poet

xo

Debbie