Controlling empathy

reply to post by Il Papa


With me, it's not usually people on the street, or in the stores that come up to me, but it's usually someone I know vaguely, like someone at work that I don't know too well, or a friend of someone I know, or something like that.

Regarding being out in public, I've found that I get two reactions from people: 1) I often can say "excuse me" several times when someone's in my way (and I try to say it nicely) before walking off frustrated, because they did not hear me. And though I have a quiet voice, I am audible. 2) Sometimes people stare at me for no reason. I'm average-looking, overweight, and wear very casual-looking clothes. There is nothing about me physically that screams, "STARE AT ME!" It bothers me, and so I stare back, in attempt at getting them to look away. Sometimes it works, but sometimes, I will find the same eyes staring at me again, once they think I've looked away and don't see them.

I'm not talkative... well... I only am sometimes around people I know fairly well, or at least, people I see every day and feel fairly comfortable with. Even then, I'm not really talkative - I joke around now and then, but for the most part, I am pretty quiet and just do my own thing. I'm also not gregarious, because I don't go out or anything - I am more than happy to come home after work and spend the evening with my mate.

Hehe, I totally agree... some people just want someone to listen to them, rather than advice, even if they do ask for it. And they don't ever seem to take any advice that they ask for, which is frustrating! And it does seem they just want you to tell them what they want to hear.

Sadly, it's true that many people don't want to help themselves. Many are just looking for sympathy, constantly. Sure, I understand if you need a listening ear and all, but when you're constantly complaining and talking about how bad your life is, and you don't do anything but make me listen to it, I get very frustrated.

Hmm... there was probably something negative about that girl - not that she was a bad person, necessarily - just that perhaps she wasn't for you, or perhaps she had a lot of negative emotions and such. I would have done the same thing, though, and trusted my intuition.

Obsidian does seem to be good for grounding. Along with jet and smokey quartz. For some reason, it seems like the blackish stones are good for grounding. *shrugs* But hey, if it works, it works. I use stones, too. And sage. Sage is great!

I am not sure, but it does seem like the emotions that you feel from other people, that aren't necessarily directed at you, are negative. I have no idea why this is, but I've noticed it myself. Because I tend to be affected negatively. If I'm with a good crowd of people who are all good, and who I know fairly well, I don't feel anything out of the ordinary. If I'm around a lot of negative people, I get their negativity. I'm not sure exactly why that is... but if anyone ever figures it out, I'd like to know. Maybe the negative emotions are just more easily noticed?

lseekingtruthl... interesting. Very. I don't know anything about qigong, though I've heard the word before. Maybe I should look it up. I'm curious now.

Originally posted by MinHawk
reply to post by Il Papa

 

lseekingtruthl... interesting. Very. I don't know anything about qigong, though I've heard the word before. Maybe I should look it up. I'm curious now.

Hey, sadly I feel that I am one of those people that might send negative feelings towards people BUT I promise you, I do not do it on purpose.

I also have to agree, once I read what you wrote about some people just wanting to have someone to talk to or someone that understands. I believe I am going throught that right now. I have lived a very honest/righteous life (in my perspective,obviously), I was always against lying and seperating friendships. When my ex-gf's asked me to lie just to make someone feel better, I just couldnt do it. I felt emotionless when I thought of myself doing it, which ultimately made my ex's mad/sad. I was also the only one that would consider to reunite broken friendships, even though noone else gave it a thought. Which was successful on many counts.

I guess the past couple of years I have noticed how cold and deceiving people can be, harsh truths, and in the end I fell into it myself. After it finally hit me, I tried/almost forced myself to be "pure" again. To make a long story short, it back fired on me...... Now that I think of it, maybe I am doing this to people as a kind of retaliation thing. It is a bit disturbing when I think about it but the possibility is there.

Now, I want to get back to my foundation/balance to live a righteous life. Maybe I am forcing myself to do this so much that it is back firing again.. I dont know, but all I know is that I shall not give up.

(see, im doing it again........ sorry......)

reply to post by lseekingtruthl


At least you're not all like, "My dog died and my dad is sick and I scraped my knee and I think I'm coming down with the flu and I can't go into work today and I think I'll call in and moan and whine and cry all day..." Those are the types that bug me, lol.

Yeah, I've always had trouble with lying - I just can't do it. It's not believable the few times I've tried (when I was a kid). So I figured it was a stupid thing to do and stopped trying. As to not hurting people's feelings, I hate hurting people's feelings, so I usually just say something to them that is both positive and true, or find some way to escape, lol. Or change the subject. Like, if someone asked me if I liked their pants and if they made them look fat, I'd be all like, "Those are a pretty color! Where'd you get them?" or something like that.

Yeah... sadly, a lot of people are cold. There are people that I see daily, at work and all... who... drive me nuts. Like, there's this one person who works there who's always getting off early or calling in. Everyone pretty much hates her for it, because it always leaves us screwed. I don't hate her, because deep down, she seems like she can be a nice person. The reason she does this is because her husband comes in and yells at her. Or calls her and yells at her. And he is a complete jerk - it's all I can do not to slap him every time I see him come in. He's got a lot of anger.

So... even though I DO get very upset with this girl and don't see it as an excuse... at the same time, I can tell that she's very unhappy at home, and is very miserable. So... even though I get mad at her for doing what she does, at the same time, I feel sorry for her.

I don't really try to act overly sympathetic, though, because she is one of those who does it for attention a lot of the time. But I guess I can understand a little bit.

Controlling Empathy

I will attempt to avoid going on a philosophical tangest about energy and emotions, and all of that. If you're interested in that end, u2u me.


When dealing with any form of empathy it is critical that you learn to distinguish your feelings from others. In order to do that, we use vivid mental pictures and feeling to program the mind to achieve what we want.

Picture your emotion as a color that is quite distinct from everyone else's.

In order to identify your emotions more easily, here is a simple qigong exercise.

Take a deep breath. Inhale, and as you do so, imagine your body filling up with heavenly positive healing white light. The white light is coming down from Heaven, through the top of your head and filling your entire body. As you exhale, dark misty negative energy is pushed out of your feet into the earth, where it is grounded and released.

repeat 21 times.

Continue to breath deeply. Now, focus on your solar plexus. As you do this, imagine a the biggest cheesiest, happiness smile in the world in your solar plexus. The happy smile gets bigger and stronger with each breath.

Repeat 21 times.

You should be feeling pretty good now. This will help you to distinguish your emotions from others. Now when you picture your emotions, imagine that they are seperate from what is around you. Feel the seperation form. Throughout the day, maybe for 10 breaths an hour, imagine your emotions remaining distinct.

If you find yourself slipping into depression, or anything else, supercharge your inner smile again, and that will not only make you feel better, but also transform any energy you may be projecting into positive, loving, healing energy.

Onto the problem-

When your do not have control of the energy you are projecting, it violates another person. It invades their turf. So, when people feel this, they will be made uncomfortable. When people are uncomfortable with something, they either ignore it, or attack it.

As your previous experiences demonstrate.

In order to deal with this you must learn to relax. Exist presently, naturally, stop fighting yourself. Learn to relax and be at peace.

How?

#1 Forgive yourself

Understand that you are human, and making mistakes is part of the experience. You have a gift, and you simply don't know how to use it yet. As you tell yourself this, imagine yourself letting go of tension, grudges, pain, any feeling of attack or guilt you have focused on yourself. Just let it go. Whether you picture yourself letting the feeling run out of your feet into the earth, picture your heart shooting out steam, whatever you do, just let yourself be forgiven.

As you forgive yourself, instead of attack yourself, any energy you may project will be positive, not attacking, or painful.

These exercises will help.

Exercise #1 Look in the mirror, breathe deeply. As you breath, star at your face. Smile the biggest cheeseiest smile you can. As fears, or judgements, or anything else arises, just smile. Do this for 200 breaths. try to do it 2-3 times a day. In 90 days, you won't be the same person you were.

Exercise #2 Look in the mirror, breathe naturally. Now, tell yourself, over and over again, out loud that you forgive yourself. Doing this often will reprogram your mind to stop attacking you.


#2 Forgive others

Anyone who has ever hurt you, or made you uncomfortable. Understand that they too are human. They are ignorant, or scared. They don't realize your situation, they don't think what's going on. Alot of us go through life with blinders, and in doing so, end up running over others at times. Forgive yourself. Picture yourself in court, or in a meeting, looking into the person's eyes, and telling them you forgive them. Believe it!

This exercise will help.

Exercise 1- Look in the mirror. Name a person, and say out loud "I forgive (person's name) for (fill in the blank) I hold no grudge or ill will towards them

#3 See yourself at your best
When you imagine yourself, picture yourself how you want to be. Your Gift is spreading comfort and love and healing to all those around you. You are successful in all you do. When you have troubles, imagine yourself shrugging it off, smiling, and trying again, and achieving the goal. When you stop beating yourself up, you will learn to relax more, and gain greater control of your power.

Don't worry if you can't do something perfect right away, or if you have problems. Don't try to be someone else, or try to eb how others wnat you to be. Just be yourself, trying to do better than your previous best, each new attempt. This is how we improve in life, we keep trying to do better.

btw these last 3 were from Dr. Maxwell Matlz' book Psycho Cybernetics. It may further help you.

I don't need to tell anyone who participated in this thread how a Gift can make life difficult, so I won't share my horror stories of a power out of control. Just remember to be vigilent. Remember the tools I and others have shared with you in this thread. Remember, the worse a situation is (or seems) the greater reward once you overcome the difficult. It need not take long. We can overcome most obstacles with eae once we just stop fighting ourselves.

When you're not attacking yourself any longer, you won't be atatcking others, at least as much. Persistance and attention will further deevlop your control over your Gift. There may be times when it becomes more difficult for you, but that's ok, you've risen to the occasion before, and you will do it again.

We all have our own demons to slay. We slay them by reprograming ourselves, we do that with vivid mental pictures, deep breathing, and powerful positive feeling and enthusiasm. Then, we take positive action, to see how transformation through. Without the action, we're missing the dynamic part of the equation.

I can understand how to do a pushup, but if I don't do them, I won't get stronger, same with these tools I've shown you.

Just remember, this is a gift you have, and you're just adjusting to it. Don't be so hard on yourself. You're not alone in society. Look at all of us in this thread if have had similar problems. You're not alone, and if you look within for answers, you will find them.

Take Care-!

reply to post by lseekingtruthl


I know what you mean about affecting others. I have since my youth avoided keeping people out of my consciousness, for fear of affecting them somehow. I don't know why I thought this, I had never really believed in the "paranormal". I can remember seeing a film called I think it was called "The Medusa Touch" with Richard Burton when I was young and I can remember thinking is that possible? In that film if I remember Burton has the ability to make things happen with his mind, the power of thought, sort of thing.

Also I can remember "The Forbidden Planet" where an advanced civilisation, the Krell, were destroyed by the monsters of the "Id"....the evil of their minds subconscious thoughts were created by advanced technology and their worse fears eventually destroyed them.

I too have difficulty lying, I feel my soul shrinking!! I think that is why I have difficulty with liars. I can't get my head round the concept!! I too had to get my ex back speaking to people and I paid for it!! Ultimately, I was proven right and I think my ex resented it!!

I know what you mean about retaliation. I have had times when the human frailty of my being has been hurt and I would like to retaliate. But I cannot harm anything, so I think I repressed those feelings and eventually they surfaced and I was on my way to a breakdown. Not a good place to be!! Looking back I don't know how I got through it, whether it was Angels, Spirit Guides, meditation or whatever..it certainly wasn't because of any help from my ex-lady. Thing is as they say "If it don't kill you, it makes you stronger!!" and it has. I know deep inside (I don't know how..delusion?) that life has more instore for me and I am yet to find my true purpose. I have had hints that my latent empathy will be part of it, we will see. I firmly believe that all that we encounter in life happens for a reason..everyday is a day in school.

Sorry double post...crap ADSL connection!!

[edit on 27-8-2007 by Il Papa]

reply to post by MinHawk


With me its just that I travel a lot so I am always meeting strangers!!
LOL!! Yes I too have the ability to be "invisible"!!!
Yes the talkative thing. Yet again it is something that seems to have occurred with my job. I think it could just be a phase but I am sure in part it is a protection mechanism, as I have said before..I think. It wasn't always that way, I used to have to sit in my car and focus on the job and tell myself I could do it before I can enter the clients premises.

I think we are more easily aware of negative emotions because they they are more noticeable. I mean if you get up in the morning singing and dancing, feeling good and all is right with the world do you think to yourself "Why am I so happy?". I don't, I just grab it and try to pass my happiness onto others!! But if I wake up feeling bad and negative I try to analyse it "Why am I so down?" Also, when you are down you tend to look for cures...being down is not our normal disposition (well for most of us!!), we try to get into a state of being more happy or just negate the unhappy feeling. So, some of us drink, do drugs, eat chocolate or do some "retail therapy" or whatever.

So what I am trying to say is that happy is our intended state or where we aspire to get. So, like anything normal, its the old "Familiarity breeds contempt" imho. For example, If we have always been able to walk, we don't appreciate what a blessing it is. Take away the norm, in this case the ability to walk, even for a day, and we will notice it. I think it is a mechanism similar to that!!

reply to post by TheGreySwordsman


Hey those are great exercises. I think over the years I have stumbled on things that kinda work, well I am still here. I tend to rob a bit of one idea and bit from another.

The light exercise, I used to do a similar Chi Kung exercise "Pushing The Mountain" and I visualised breathing in white light and when pushing the mountain I visualised all the nastiness and negativity exiting my body and being pushed away.

I always preceded my Chi Kung / Qigong my smiling on the inside at my Solar Plexus (middle Dan Tien?).

The forgiveness exercises seem a good idea too.

I think I have been using a kind of positive reinforcement "The Secret" for while too. I am learning that seeing yourself more positively is so important.

Great input

reply to post by Il Papa


Hmm... makes me wonder if it's helpful to not focus your mind so much on why you're down... that could work, if you also worked to put some positivity in your mind. Because, if you leave your mind totally blank, it will fill up with negativity again. That can be very hard and takes a lot of work, though. It's hard enough for me to remember to shield myself when I start to feel crappy... I just don't think to do it. And I think this is my main problem - it's not something I often remember to do. When I do, it works. But most of the time, I just don't remember and end up suffering for it.

reply to post by Il Papa



That's really a good qigong exercise. I've seen a lot of variations, but typically choose the simplest when trying to describe it online. Also, inner smile work needs to be looked at with greater regularity. When I first read about it years ago, I thought it was such bs. But having actually learned how to do it right, I just have to reccommend it.

I think "The Secret" was a good idea. However, it definately left too much out. The Law of Attraction is really one of 27 or so related laws. Without further education, one could easily reverse the Law of Attraction and cause your thoughts to repell instead of attract. I also would have liked if there was more of a focus on the "action" part of the law of attraction. I mean, I can think of hot chicks wanting me all day, and they won't come to me while I'm sititng in my house. But by going out into social situations, I could definately meet some.

I'm glad you liked these exercises. I do mostly qigong/shamanism/kabbalah type work. A few other exercises I pick up here and there that I like, as well.

I wrote quite a lot of other information and exercises. If you check my profile and start hitting up my threads, you'll find a variety of exercises to improve different things, if you're interested.

Thanks for the reply!

reply to post by TheGreySwordsman


wow, this feels about right with my "gift."

Thank you so much. I honestly keep making my self kinda nutts cuz sometimes I think its all in my mind, an illusion... I guess its because I told my mom about it and I can tell that shes kinda worried about me. I also have a social problem.. which makes it 2x times worse for myself.. I am not sure if I have shared how I first got this but I might as well.

One night, I was having a dream about my friends... They were going to beat me up for some reason and I just kept saying "WHAT DID I DO!?!??!" like crazy... I felt extremely confused/sad/angry at the time in the dream and suddenly I got like a zap of high pitched sound in my brain and it was almost unbearable. I was enduring it for about 5 seconds before I woke up but the damage was done. I couldnt hear through my left ear and my right ear hurt like, alot.... After that day, I felt a presence all around me and it felt like I was being stared at.. I dont really freak out like I used to but now I feel like im alittle paranoid when people are around. I also went through major life changes with friends/business/gf problems... That is also why I thought it was all in my mind only but now after having proof that people can sense me , I feel like I am kinda driving people nutts.

I will definately try everything you recommended. Thanks again...



[edit on 28-8-2007 by lseekingtruthl]

reply to post by Il Papa


wow... I guess we really can relate... I think that I was trying to suppress this so much in the beginning that I produced some weird phobias. I definately need discipline... My mom's Buddhist friend recommended some yoga classes but she thinks its not "good." My mother is Catholic..

I feel that I need God in my life but I also feel that I need to over come this on my own... This is were I get really confused...

But like always Il Papa, you have awsome advice and things to relate to.

Thanks!!

reply to post by lseekingtruthl


Also, try to stop telling yourself you have a problem. That's like trying to climb a rope, and telling you'reself you're too weak to do so. Instead, tell yourself you don't have a problem. You don't have social problem. You're not paranoid.

When you're fighting yourself, trying to make a change in your life, but are constantly affirming the tremendous size of the problem, you are giving your power away to the problem.

We often make these transitions much harder than they have to me. Let me give a mundane example. I practice martial arts. Sometimes, when learning a new technique, I have a hard time getting it to work. When I beat myself up, about how bad I am, what a slow learner I am, etc, I don't get even one repetition right. However, when I just look at each rep as a chance to get better, pretty soon, I have it right and am already working on improving it from there.

So, please, try to remember to stop feeding your problems, and start empowering yourself. The bigger you make the problem, the more difficult it will be to get over it.

Also, it might not be a good idea to tell people about it, especially Christian/Muslim/Jewish people. Various branches don't take too kindly this type of thing. Be concious of who you are talking to, this way you don't risk further isolation.

Good luck!

reply to post by TheGreySwordsman


I am going through your exercises.

I had a really bad night yesterday, I had to get out of my house and just sleep in my car.

Sorry to hear that.

If you contnue to have problems, come back, you have quite the support group here!

Originally posted by TheGreySwordsman
Sorry to hear that.

If you contnue to have problems, come back, you have quite the support group here!

Well, I am going to get my brakes/oil changed and then off to another day of camping.

Too much thinking, and no action for me... should I get pills to stop thinking so much ?

Thank you for all of your kindness!!

[edit on 30-8-2007 by lseekingtruthl]

Originally posted by lseekingtruthl
[

should I get pills to stop thinking so much ?

[edit on 30-8-2007 by lseekingtruthl]

No


I'm happy to help. As are others here. I wish you well.

Text Green hey hving trubble its like i can feel energy of others and like spirits and i dont know what to do any ideas???

Hi I'm new here. And I'm looking for some advice. For as long as I can remember I've always had overwhelming emotions at times. Now I'm not sure if I'm able to sense other people's feelings or if it's just a chemical inbalance in my brain, meaning me not some extra sensory perception. I believe in many things, I believe that there are things that can not be explained and that there is more to our existence than we may ever know. When it comes to emotions I'm literary scared to hurt other people's feelings. I like to make other people happy cause it makes me feel better, but somtimes I will sacrifice my happiness for the happiness of others. For awhile now I've drank and smoked marajuana to block my emotions and it worked. I've recently stopped and I'm just flooded with emotions. I guess what I'm getting at is, is there anyway you can tell if you're an empath?