“Everything changes when you start to emit your own frequency rather than absorbing the frequencies around you, when you start imprinting your intent on the universe rather than receiving an imprint from existence.”

-Barbara Marciniak

Due to circumstances which were a result of my poor judgement, the last four days of my life were spent almost completely alone. During one of my more “responsible” homeowner moments I made a decision to stay home and do yard work rather than dropping my kayak into the lake and spending the evening swimming and relaxing with a cold beer.  Of course, I was quick to find out that responsible decisions such as this one are almost always regrettable.  While trimming the hedges along the front of my house, I accidentally disturbed a wasp nest and was stung multiple times in the face, eye, and hand. This resulted in me looking borderline terrifying and being unable to show my face in public without humiliation. See below. 

Anyway, I learned a few things during my time alone. First, that I am highly sensitive to being stung and should probably carry an epipen because I swell up like a monster.  Second, I was reminded how much other people’s energy impacts me on a daily basis.  Having the chance to be recluse for a few days gave me an opportunity to reflect inward on behaviors that I am allowing into my personal life that maybe I shouldn’t be or at the very least need to be more aware of.

ENERGY SPONGE

Sometimes, we take on other people’s emotional overflow like a sponge absorbing a toxic spill. Absorbing other people’s emotions can make it hard to tell which feelings are truly our own. Also, if you take on other people’s stuff, you may have no room left to process yours.

I’ve begun to realize that there must be something special about me.  I think people for some reason tend to confide more in me than they maybe have in others. I have wondered before if there an invisible sign around my neck that says “tell me your problems” or some such thing.  It’s nice to feel like you’re helping someone by listening. But it’s a mixed blessing. I’m not exactly sure why it happens. I think I’m quite empathetic and people seem to pick-up on that, or at least that’s what I put it down to. The problem is, usually I get the sense that they just want to unburden themselves. Sort of a way of leveling with my problems or issues, in order to get things off of their own chest.

Because I am a sensitive person, I am someone who easily picks up other people’s energy. I can walk into a room and “feel” the emotional environment. For those of you who don’t know, an empathic person is someone that is sensitive to energy. Empathy is a terrific skill to have, but too much of it can leave you overwhelmed by others’ negative emotions. Taking on other people’s emotions could be the biggest challenge highly sensitive people like me face. Having the ability to pick up on energy is great when it’s my friends or families happiness boosting mine, but exhausting when my boss’s anxiety, co-worker’s grief, or family member’s stress, start to infect me.

Here’s an example: I receive phone calls/messages at least 2-3 times per week which are composed primarily of negativity. It’s almost always someone who is feeling the need to “vent” their issues out into the open. I do care deeply for for all of my friends and family, but still, this is a problem for me. The longer I stay on the phone or in the conversation, the more agitated I become. Whomever is on the other end is as usual, unknowingly dumping their negative emotions onto me. I rarely get the sense I can share the difficulties and challenges I experience in my own life because when I attempted to open up about these things, these individuals often interrupted me with a story of their own suffering, invalidating the pain I feel. These encounters often leave me with a heavy feeling.  Almost as if my body has taken on 20-30 extra pounds of someone else’s emotional baggage. Because of this, I have started to learn ways to put up boundaries against these exchanges.  

PROTECTING YOURSELF

I can feel when someone is violating my boundary because my body tenses up. I realize that my breathing is very shallow. I feel trapped, small, helpless.

Focusing inward and getting grounded. This is the most important thing I can do in the morning—or anytime. It’s no secret highly sensitive people have trouble staying grounded because we feel everything so intensely and live in our heads. The first thing I do is to remind myself to breathe. The act of focusing on my breath centers me and expands the energy around me. In this space, I can think and act more clearly. Then I try to imagine a container for other people’s emotions to go into. That way, they get to give off their emotions but I don’t take the emotions on. I simply imagine rerouting their negative emotions into the container, this container allows positive energy to enter, but repels the energy I don’t want.  I also try to recognize someone’s different emotions as “a shift” in energy rather than labeling it something that is: bad, sad, heavy or dramatic. When I feel myself becoming too overwhelmed, I try to immediately remove myself from the situation. Sometimes all it takes is a couple minutes to walk away and regain my balance. Other times, I have had to make the decision not to spend time with people who consistently drain my energy.

FOCUS ON THE GOOD

Do not forgot this very important detail. Because not only negative energy can be absorbed, positive energy is transferable as well. Today I experienced first hand how good energy breeds more good energy. Something as simple as forgiveness to a friend after a fight, a kind word to a stranger, or sharing details of your own ways of remaining thankful during rough times can impact people way more than you could ever imagine.  This energy not only helps others to feel good, but is repelled back at you with astounding force.

To make room for the positive energy available, you’ll first need to release negative energy you’re holding onto from the past, be it distant or recent. If you work on creating more positive energy, you’ll see improvements in your life and you’ll touch more lives than you thought possible. Positive energy is contagious. When you constantly take in the positive energy from your surroundings, it will be visible in the outer world. You experience and create all kinds of different energies that affect how you feel and what you accomplish throughout your day. The things you say, the things you think, the things you do—even the things you don’t do—all produce energy that impacts you and the people around you.

Always trying to “focus on the good” sounds cliche and can seem like an overwhelming task, but it doesn’t need to be if you focus solely on this moment and ask yourself: What about what I see in front of me makes me feel good? And if I don’t see anything that provides that feeling, how else can I access it? If you learn to fully appreciate this moment, you will see you have profound power to create positive feelings within. This good energy impacts everything and everyone around you. In this way, we can play a much larger part in the bigger picture than we realize.