I’ve always been one to ponder. My mother used to admonish me quite frequently stating that I needed to stop “dwelling” on one thing or another. From a young age I thought something was wrong with me because my mind would never shut up. My feelings ran so remarkable deep inside of me, even as a little girl. When I was four years old I suffered a trauma that would set me on a path of searching for coping mechanisms, a search that led me in an extremely introspective direction. I blocked the memory, which didn’t come to the surface for decades. In the meantime, though, I had been left with a ridiculously loud mind. My thoughts are always swirling around, banging from one side to the other. And these thoughts are tightly connected to my heart…my emotions. In my 49 years of life I have been told repeatedly that those emotions were a problem; they were something I needed to either gain control of, or eliminate altogether. Believe me, I tried to rid myself of feelings, to no avail. It’s simply woven in my DNA. Control them? This I can do, however, when you feel as deeply as I do, what I consider “control” is often still looked at as chaotic.
Have you ever been told you were an Empath? Are you familiar with what that is?
An empath is someone who feels more empathy than the average person. These people are usually more accurate in recognizing emotions by looking at another person’s face. They are also more likely to recognize emotions earlier than other people and rate those emotions as being more intense. (Excerpt taken from:https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-is-an-empath )
I am most definitely an empath. Another term for this personality trait is “Highly Sensitive Person” or HSP. This is me. I can sense a person’s energy. I can feel the mood in a room as soon as I enter it. If someone near me is hurting, angry, sad, excited, etc. I feel it. I’m like a human sponge. It has also been found that empaths or HSP’s are more likely to develop chronic illness. (I’m not going to go into that here, but if you’re interested… https://drjudithorloff.com/ask-dr-orloff/empaths-prone-to-illness/ )
Now, I’m not saying that I have super powers. I can’t read minds. And I’m not like Jasper from Twilight (Oh, Lordy, did I just expose myself there! Yes, I was one of those “Twilight moms”. Please don’t judge me.) It’s just this really weird thing I have where I can sense what others are feeling. And then I feel it too. Living as an empath, being so sensitive, I’ve carried around a heavy heart for a very long time. It’s not always bad. When I’m around happy, excited people, I get to feel those emotions too. There’s always a silver lining, right? But when you have your own garbage you’re processing, soaking up everyone else’s stuff leaves you walking around with a double load. And not ever learning proper coping skills, it began to weigh on me, eventually leading to anxiety trouble, panic attacks, depression, and finally complete emotional exhaustion.
So, why am I feeling led to post about this?
Recently I was told my feelings made me untrustworthy. That because I was “always feeling something”, there was no credibility to anything I said. That has been rattling around in my head for days now (Of course it has…that’s how my brain works). It’s important to me that I always grow as a human. I want to make sure I am always striving to become a better version of me so I listen to things I’m told about myself. I consider them. Then I begin to pay close attention to how I function in that particular area of behavior. Not because I allow others to change who I am, but because if I have a quality or habit that needs to be tweaked, I want to tweak it. It’s called “Self-assessment”.
Here’s where I’ve landed on the whole “I can’t trust you because you feel too much” thing…
It’s total bu*^sh#t!
Yes, I feel deeply. Yes, I think constantly. Yes, I have made mistakes. Yes, at times I have allowed my emotions to get the better of me. But, also… Yes, I have matured and realized that there is a time and place to let emotions out. Yes, I have learned that being in touch with my feelings provides me with incredible insight into other people’s behavior and reactions. Yes, I understand that because I feel what others are going through, I can be a better friend, better mother, better health coach, and better overall human. It is a gift. It provides me with an additional category of wisdom, if you will. I believe that we are feeling beings who think, not thinking beings who feel. Look at a newborn baby. They are surviving strictly off of instinct. They aren’t compiling rational thoughts. They aren’t making pro & con lists in order to make a decision. They FEEL hungry, they cry for food. They FEEL uncomfortable in their diaper, they cry for a change. Something startles them, they FEEL and then they react. As we grow, we learn to think things through. Feeling beings who think…
I have been through a lot in my life. I was born to unhappy parents, I suffered abuse, my parents divorced, I watched my grandpa take his last breath when I was 16, my step-dad (who I love dearly and consider to be my true father, and who was suffering from PTSD due to his time in Vietnam) was a functioning alcoholic, then when I was 22, I sat next to his bed and watched him die, too. My husband went to work for a man who required his 100% dedication at the expense of our marriage and our children. I lost my best, more-like-my-sister, friend with absolutely no explanation whatsoever – she just disappeared from my life. My friend and I raced a starved, sick, dying infant to a hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, learning the next day that she just wasn’t strong enough to pull through. I developed an autoimmune disease which led to me giving up everything I loved to do, lost my church, my friends all moved away, need I go on… I don’t list all of these happenings in order to feel sorry for myself, lead you to feel sorry for me, or to adopt the label of “victim”. My point here is, a lot of crap has happened in my life. Just like all of us, right? I have felt every one of these events to my very core, and they have molded me into who I am. They haven’t RUINNED me, they have MOLDED me! There’s a huge difference.
Here is the beauty of being an empath…of being one of those HSP’s –
Yes, all of those things I listed above are part of my life story. But also? I got a fabulous step dad who always treated me like I was his biological daughter. I have a mother who has literally been the ONE human being who never left me from day one. I got two awesome sisters, then a bonus sister and brother later on. I became an auntie for the first time on my birthday. I was honored to be in the room with all of my sisters and my sister in law when they had their first babies. I had excellent grandparents who loved me dearly. I have a husband who cares for me, three kids who I couldn’t love more if I tried, and a fabulous daughter in law who I adore. I’ve traveled to Kenya three times and encountered people who I will never forget, learned more about what’s truly important in life, and am honored to still maintain friendships that I made in that beautiful country. My friends may have moved away, but now I have new places to see when I go visit them. I have 14 nieces and nephews who have brought me so much joy, I have wonderful in-laws, a fantastic family, amazing friends – some clear back from my childhood. And I live in the cutest little house in the mountains where I can watch squirrels run and play right outside my window (Seriously, there’s one running around out there right now as I type this!)
You see, all of those moments were also felt with every fiber. They also had a hand in molding me. The fact that I feel deeply does not make me untrustworthy. Actually, the opposite is true. I FEEL, but I THINK, as well. I can see all sides of a situation and that gives me greater insight. I’m not going solely off of logic. I’m not going solely off of emotion. I see it all.
Are you an empath? Are you a highly sensitive person? Can you read the mood in a room or sense when something is wrong with a friend? Have you been told you’re too emotional? If yes, how do you feel about that? What do you THINK about that? (See what I did there?) If you have ever felt “less than” or ever felt shame because somebody told you they couldn’t trust you due to your emotions, I want to challenge you to let that go. Search yourself…make sure you are balancing that emotion with accurate thoughts…and if you are? Own that truth and move forward. Only you know your own mind and heart.
And if you are someone who thinks emotions are a negative trait or cause someone to be untrustworthy, I would like to challenge you to change your perspective. Flip the table and think about the opposite observation; that those who show no emotion are heartless, cold, and uncaring. Is that true about you? Or is it that you simply do not expose that side of you? Maybe that is the case for those who do not expose their thinking side.
Something to THINK about…and see how you FEEL.
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Kim Smith is a Certified Integrative Health Coach who lives in the San Gabriel Mountains with her husband of nearly 30 years. She offers health, nutrition, and weight loss coaching, as well as stress management training, and support for autoimmune disease and chronic illness patients. She is in the process of releasing her signature online course, “RESET Your Life”, due to launch in November of 2021.
For more information on the programs she offers, visit her website at http://www.resetihs.com
You can also contact her at (951) 634-1100 or email at kim@resetihs.com
The Third Quarter 