You Make a Room Better for Everyone… Except Yourself?

You feel it when there is tension in the room.

You may not fully realize it, but you are intensely attuned to discord. As you approach your destination, your home, your office, your desk, a conference room (especially a conference room), you feel around with your senses to determine the emotional temperature in the room.

In fact, you are constantly sensing into rooms, situations, relationships, to determine who is happy—and who isn’t.

You are a peacemaker.

That’s great! Except… what about you??

You might be an empath

Savannah came to me because she said she felt her job was killing her. I explained that she was an empath. She was literally feeling everyone’s feelings. She was carrying the emotional burden of an organization in disarray. As it turned out, she was sensitive to the uncertainty the company’s workforce was experiencing because of infighting among those in leadership.

How did I know about this? Because I am also an empath. And I wish someone had explained that to me a loooonnnngggg time ago.

How I discovered my own empathic nature

The first time I really got that I was an empath was this:

I was beginning to heal from my divorce. I was experiencing less anxiety and more confidence. I decided to take myself out for a beer.

I sat at the bar, ordered my beer, and was sipping it happily when a woman came to sit at the same bar. The bar was horseshoe shaped so I could observer her. She ordered a beer and her movements were quick, almost furtive. She sent darting glances around the crowd—all men except for the two of us.

Then I felt it. My belly somehow both dropped and tightened. Anxiety came up through my belly. My breath seemed to catch in my chest.

I was astonished. Why on earth would I be having an anxiety attack?? Why here?? Why now??

I looked around the bar and saw the woman, still sending darting glances around the bar. Then she abruptly stood up, leaving the beer in front of her untouched. She threw down some cash and seemed to almost scurry away.

Then it hit me: it was her anxiety.

And in that moment, what I thought was my anxiety attack ended.

Completely.

Because it wasn’t mine.

It wasn’t my anxiety

What I made up was that she had come to this bar to find someone interested in her. She had gotten no interest, so her anxiety skyrocketed. (Some people use sexual interest—their own or someone’s interest in them—to trump anxiety.)

And I had picked up her anxiety.

From that moment on, I had a tool. And I will share that tool with you as I shared it with Savannah:

If your emotional state changes, and you are not aware of a reason for the change, it could be that you have just taken on someone else’s emotions.

And you don’t have to do that.

Become the observer

You can begin to observe your own emotional state and choose your own state over the states of those around you. Another way to say this is that as you become familiar with tracking your own emotional state and become more able to track when it changes, you can observe the change and begin to be curious about whether the emotion you are experiencing is actually yours—or if it could belong to someone else.

The moment we become the observer and even consider the possibility that an emotional experience actually belongs to someone else, the emotions can, so to speak, become the responsibility of those who generated that emotion. And not our experience and not our responsibility.

Back to Savannah

Savannah learned that she could track her own emotional state shifting downward as she drove to work. The main blow occurred when she walked into the sea of cubicles—a bullpen—where she worked.

From our first meeting, Savannah was able to walk into the bullpen, take a deep breath, and feel the space she created for herself by becoming the observer.

And from that place of observation, she could choose whether she even wanted to be the emotional energy converter she had inadvertently been attempting to be. Once she was conscious of the choice, she realized the futility of the choice she had been making. And, instead of saying, “My heart goes out to my co-workers,” she could design ways she could care for herself. Once her own cup began to feel full, she could decide who she could help and how.

Are you an empath?

If you’ve read this far then I am going to say that you are likely an empath. Your first choice is whether to own emotional burdens that are not yours. From there, you can focus on self-care and the places where you can make a difference—and the places where you cannot.

Being an unfiltered, overly generous empath has consequences. Some of those consequences are very detrimental. Weight gain, sleep issues, low energy, health issues—these are often the price we pay for feeling the feelings of others.

What would happen if you looked this issue square in the face? What if you realized that, while heartfelt, your energy, your efforts, your time, your vitality, are all out of alignment with what you came to this planet to do—and, more importantly, perhaps, what you actually are able to do?

Let’s talk. Let’s work together to get you out of unconscious empathy and create consciousness and choice and, ideally, the ways you can take care of yourself and make a real difference for others.

And use your empathic nature to inform you of the emotional tenor of a room, a situation, a family or an organization rather than creating emotional burdens you can no longer support.

Ready? I have a complimentary session for you. Contact me: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/frangallaher/