When I was a child I used to cry a lot.
I was told often I was too sensitive, and others didn’t understand me. I was told to toughen up, stop crying so much and all those other things sensitive types get told. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not a big deal.”
There’s an old conversation in my family that still occurs from time to time. My dad and I will get into an argument and it goes like this:
Me: “Stop yelling at me!”
Dad: “I’m not yelling at you!”
Me <crying>: “Yes, you are!”
Dad <laughing>: “I’ve barely raised my voice!”
Mom: “You guys! Stop talking to each other!”
My dad always seems surprised I get so emotional in our arguments and I always am surprised he doesn’t know he’s yelling at me.
It’s taken me years but this is what I think is happening:
As an empathic person I am able to feel other people’s emotions really well. When a person projects a lot of energy in my direction with the words they are using it seems like what they are saying is very loud and overwhelming. This translates in my brain to mean they are yelling at me.
They don’t think they are yelling (because they aren’t) and don’t realize how much energy they just projected at me (most people are unconscious of this). I don’t realize that they aren’t yelling just projecting energy at the same time because what they are saying is important to them its heard.
We end up in a conversation like above. Both of us are right, however, we are coming at it from different points of view.
When you are dealing with an empathic person or a sensitive person alot of what you say is in the field of energy around you. An empathic person is an expert at picking up additional information about things like how you feel about the topic or what is not being said. Often they are so good at it they can’t see the difference between the energy you project while you speak and the words themselves.
For many empaths it takes years to develop the skill set to differentiate between their own thoughts and emotions from others. It takes years to feel like they aren’t carrying the whole world on their back.
If you know you are dealing with an empathic person please don’t yell at them. This often overwhelms them and if you keep on strongly projecting your energy at them they will shut down from you – whatever that looks like – until they can sort out everything they are feeling, what you said, and how they personally feel.
Empaths will need space from you to sort all that stuff out even if you have an intense debate about something in general. Because empaths take in so much in each interaction they are often the quiet ones in the corner witnessing and watching. They are the ones who can see/feel the underlying energies in the world and know what’s up.
Be gentle with them.
And to the empaths: Be gentle with yourself. Allow yourself the space you need to sort through your internal world. Don’t be scared to take a breather. Or to stand up for what you need to do. Allow yourself compassion on your journey to self-discovery. Follow your body and intuition.
P.S. Yay! I’m excited to announce I have created a new patreon account and I would appreciate your support if you love my work here. 🙂
