April 01, 2015
Are You A Sponge Or Are You A Maserati?
So you are a Sensitive, you pick up on everything in your environment, from people’s emotions and the collective consciousness, to solar flares.... But does this mean you are inherently a sponge? Many people who are sensitive to the energetic world fear that they will absorb other people’s emotions and attract negative energies and entities when they are out in public places. This does not, however, have to be true. Wouldn’t it be nice if this sensitivity came with a manual?!
Empaths are designed to feel other peoples emotions but not to carry them. If we are carrying others’ emotions past any point of just noticing them, this is a result of our belief systems and imprints, not our perceptive skills. Absorbing emotions is actually something we chose to do, consciously or unconsciously, as a way to clean up our own emotional environments. By sparing someone else the pain of carrying their own feelings we can make them more available to us. If our mother is sad, for example, we may learn at an early age that if we absorb her feelings she will be happier and more present if we absorb her pain. Alternatively, if we are in a room with a very stressed individual or group of individuals, we may absorb the stress just to make the room more inhabitable for ourselves.
In her book The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron notes that 20 percent of the human population is born with a level of sensitivity that is markedly different than the average person’s. They are the gifted intuitives and empaths among us. One in five of us has these gifts! In the days of old we were the treasured healers, oracles, mediums, channels and shamans of our community. Unfortunately, in a period of dark human history that we are just now awaking from, we were shamed into hiding and denying our true nature for fear of losing our lives. Suffering through rigid educational systems and roles that overload our delicate nervous systems, our current survival options eventually break us down. We are then dismissed as weak and... well... Sensitive, continuing the cycle of shame!