Trigger Warning: If you are in a fragile or sensitive emotional or mental state, you may want to hold off on reading the following share.
Sitting in the Aftermath…
The holidays are a bittersweet time of year for me. I enjoy spending time with the people I love. However, I often find myself sitting in the aftermath of it all, trying to process everything I am feeling and not knowing what to do with it.
If you don’t already know me, I am a highly sensitive empath. I am keenly aware of everything that is happening around me. I am sensitive to the environment I am in and I can easily pick up on what people around me are feeling.
I see and feel people’s unspoken pain.
I pick up on the insensitive remarks doled out and I can feel the cut made when they are received.
I notice when people react from their wounds, triggered by words or actions, and how the situation escalates without resolution, only to be left to fester for the next time it happens again.
I see the ones sitting quietly on the outskirts, numbing their pain with substances, in the hopes that no one notices.
There isn’t much that gets by me. I see, I feel and I notice it all.
I See, I Feel, and I Hurt
Over the years I have learned to be a witness to what is unfolding. I do my best to manage my experience without taking things on as mine. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Either way, it can be a very lonely, isolating and overwhelming experience.
If I take the risk of sharing and I am not met with kindness, love, empathy and compassion, then I risk compromising my already fragile emotional state.
I have heard one too many times that…
- You are too sensitive!
- Toughen up (read as you are weak)!
- Stop crying…why are you always crying?
- You are being a baby!
- This isn’t about you…
Being on the receiving end of this can be highly damaging for someone like me. So there are times I find myself weighing the risks associated with opening my heart and sharing. Asking myself…
Do I feel safe enough to share?
I know we have all had life experiences where we finally opened our heart, only to be met with harsh words of judgment, criticism and unkindness. This is deeply painful, and as a result, people shut down, numb out and distance themselves from others.
As I sit with all of this…
I know a big part of the reason people, myself included, are easily triggered by the actions and words of others, is because we do not share* how we are feeling and what we are going through.
The Social Experiment
A dear friend of mine recently conducted a ‘social experiment’.
When asked, “How are you?”, she would respond in full transparency. Do you know what happened? People began to open up, connect and empathize with each other. They found out that they were all going through a very difficult time and they were not alone.
This wasn’t about solving anyone’s problems. This was about being open, vulnerable and real. Being willing to allow others in and cultivate a space of understanding, love, and compassion. Holding the space to let your guard down and to be seen and heard. It was a truly healing process.
Hurt People Hurt People
There is a saying that hurt people hurt people, and there is so much truth in that. I see it all the time with the people around me, within myself and I have certainly been on the receiving end of it.
The more we continue to hold onto our pain, pretending like everything is okay, the more we hurt. We inflict pain upon ourselves and the people around us. We react, rather than act from a place of love, compassion and understanding.
*Earlier I said ‘we do not share how we are feeling’. Reacting is not sharing. This is so important. To speak to someone from an emotionally triggered reaction, will only cause the situation to escalate. People get hurt, nothing is resolved and the underlying resentment lingers. The only way we can truly resolve anything is when we feel safe enough to explore what we are experiencing from a space of love.
My Hope
My hope for you is that you are surrounded by love and that you have at least one person in your life that you feel safe enough to be real with. I hope that person is able to hold you in a safe space, that allows you to experience what you are going through, without each of you hurting each other in the process.
My hope for this world, is that we will begin to acknowledge each other’s pain as valid and that we love each other from that space. That we begin to hold space for healing to unfold while cultivating more peace, love, compassion and understanding.
Blessings of love, light and big hugs, from heart to yours…Tania
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