I’ve been listening to Pam Gregory talk about an eclipse. She described how, at a certain time of year, the ground becomes so hard that it can’t absorb anything else. Flooding happens because the ground stops taking in the water that’s available to it.
Water can represent emotion. That’s when I stopped thinking of this only as a literal explanation for the flash floods that have ravaged Nepal or swept through the Grand Canyon, and started seeing it as something else.
A Different Plane
I work with people who identify as empaths, as highly sensitive people (HSP), or both. In a moment where things are changing, and changing fast, that sensitivity means reading and understanding those shifts on a different plane than others might.
What Isn’t Mine
It’s only recently dawned on me that part of staying sovereign, in a world I could wholeheartedly feel, is learning not to absorb what isn’t mine. All the feeling and energy that comes at me is not mine to hold, or mine to do anything with. I can let it bounce off. I can let it pass by.
Creating that hard shell isn’t about being unempathetic. It’s about recognizing that what isn’t mine doesn’t stick. It bounces off and finds another channel, like a flash flood. But that flood, the emotion or expression someone else unleashes with wild abandon, isn’t my responsibility. It isn’t my fault.
Once, I would absorb it. I’d try to make people feel better, try to protect them from whatever wrath was coming. I no longer do that. I’ve found the freedom in allowing people to own their own mess.
The Hardened Heart
I think of Pharaoh and how his heart was hardened. The flood of plagues that followed came from that hardened heart, from his inability to absorb what was asked of him with empathy and understanding that could have led to peace and coexistence. Instead, it led to plagues and a world forever changed.
A Data Source
If you’re an empath, or are highly sensitive, the goal was never to stop feeling. That intake is real, and it’s a data source. The goal is to stop absorbing it as though it’s yours to carry.
All of this comes back to one idea. I don’t have to absorb what isn’t mine just because it’s directed at me. It is entirely a reflection of the person who unleashed it in my direction.
I am still here.
What have you been absorbing that was never yours to carry?
