Marie Buda

Discovering the River Towards Inner Freedom

The Illusion of Belonging: Why it’s time to abandon the search

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Belonging can only happen when a “part” joins a group

So by wanting to belong

You are under the illusion of incompleteness

In waking up you realise

You are already complete

You are not a part

But a whole

And a whole doesn’t need to join any group

You are there already

You are a whole universe

 

The Problem of “Belonging”

Most of us at some point feel the painful pang of wanting to find the place that we can call “home”. A place full of people that fills us with unconditional love, protection and strength whenever we feel we need it. A place where we always feel accepted, where we can bare our deepest selves.

We label this state as “belonging”.

When we don’t feel like we belong anywhere we feel like a puzzle piece, endlessly searching and hoping that we will finally find the whole picture that we are a part of.

This, however, is a problem.

This is because belonging is a complete illusion. It is a belief that we must abandon if we are to relieve our suffering, or else we will spend our whole lives searching for something that doesn’t exist in the first place. We will end up in a state (“be”) of eternal “longing”.

 

What Belonging Actually Is

Think about the last time you felt like you belonged somewhere. How did you feel on the inside? Warm? Loved? Accepted? Expansive?…

…Complete?

This is what belonging actually boils down to: completeness. And ultimately it is this thirst for wholeness that drives almost everything that we do. When we feel complete in a group, we feel loved, because we become love itself.

As mentioned in my little midnight musing at the beginning of this post, belonging can only occur if a part joins a whole. Yet, in waking up we realise that we are complete. So how did we come to believe that we were only a piece, rather than the entire puzzle?

Let me tell you a story.

 

How the Circle Became a Puzzle Piece

This is Circle. Circle is one full, content and joyous entity.

One day Circle goes to play with some other circle friends. They have a chat.

 

Circle is embarrassed. It doesn’t want its friends to reject it so it decides to cut a fragment of itself off and lock it up in an closet. Now it doesn’t have to show this aspect of itself anymore, and it feels safe.

 

Then Circle goes home. Circle’s parents have spent years cutting off pieces of themselves, so they don’t like it if Circle doesn’t cut them off either. So they push and prod Circle until it does the same.

Soon Circle trims and locks away so many parts of itself that it isn’t a circle anymore.

It becomes a puzzle piece.

Now Circle may feel safer, but it doesn’t feel whole anymore. Feelings of loneliness and incompleteness flood in. It wants to find the place where it can be a circle again. So it starts searching. Little did Circle know however, that what its little soul was crying out for wasn’t for other people. It was yearning for all the parts of itself that it locked away in its closet many years ago.

Eventually there will be times when Circle will go to places, or will meet other people, that will make it feel secure. Suddenly, Circle is now ok with opening the door to its secret closet and letting back in all the fragments that were lost.

This doesn’t last for long though. If Circle always relies on external circumstances to cue whether or not its ok to let back in its fragments, sooner or later someone, or something, will lead to Circle quickly locking the door again.

What Circle doesn’t realise, is that it always holds the key to the closet. Nobody can take this key away. Circle can actually choose to open the door whenever it wants to.

And when it does, it will finally become itself again.

 

Complete. No longer needing to “belong”.

 

Beyond Belonging

When we say, “I finally feel like I belong”, it is never because a person or a group is making you feel that way. Rather, it is you giving yourself permission for once to be who you truly are. Ultimately you are the gatekeeper of your fragments, the decider of whether to bare your heart to the world.

It takes courage, acceptance and a sense of fearlessness to learn how to open your gate when everyone may be against you. It may take a lifetime of practice. But remember – you are always the holder of the key. Go back and invite all of those locked-up selves to “belong” again to the core of your being. Only then will that feeling of completeness return.

It’s time to go beyond belonging. We are each unique circles, so there will never be a circle that is exactly like yours. In this sense, we will always be alone. Yet, to fully embrace this aloneness means also to joyously celebrate your special circle, to revel in all of its imperfect perfection. This opens your heart and fills your being with love. This love then expands outwards, embracing every living being in its path.

In embracing your aloneness, you actually connect with all.

Do You Want To Help Someone With Depression? Don’t try.

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Do not try to help someone with depression.

“How can you even say that?” I hear you yelling. “You can’t just leave someone in pain alone. Surely they want help too!”

Sure, I agree. I have struggled with depression for 15 years. But hear me out.

I mentioned in a previous post that a key reason for depression is emotional suppression. The person in front of you is suffering because they cannot accept something. This could be an aspect of themselves (“I hate myself”), or it could be an event that has occurred to them (“How could this be happening to me?”). If they are depressed, they have been suppressing a whole host of emotions inside, such as sadness, anger or regret. The only way to release oneself from this suffering is to completely and fully accept the present, to embrace everything that is occurring both internally and externally (note that this is not the same as passivity). The opposite of depression is to freely express one’s soul.

So this is where the problem of trying to “help” someone with depression lies. You may relieve the suffering of someone as the end result of being with someone, but to have the intention to “save” or “help” will lead to suffering for both parties. To feel that you want to help someone with depression also involves motivations like, “I want to make you happy” or “I don’t want you to be in pain”. This may seem like a noble sentiment, but here is the problem. The flip-side of these thoughts are: “I want to try and change your mood”. If this is the ultimate impetus behind what you are doing, you are actually denying how the person is in the present. In thinking, “I want to make you happy”, you are simultaneously saying, “I do not want you to be who you are in this present moment”. You are not accepting their darkness. This is precisely the opposite of what people with depression need (see also my article on the challenges of being an Empath).

Remember there are no “good” or “bad” moods. All emotions — even painful ones — need to be accepted in order to be released. If the person in front of you is in pain, give them space to accept that pain. To try to do something to change that is to block the natural process of things. It is like building a dam in a river that wants to flow. To approach someone with the intention of helping, while seeming like a great intention, actually is subconsciously sending the message, “I don’t want you to be who you are”. This is not love.

This tactic will backfire too. If you approach people like this, soon you will find a lot of people who won’t respond to your “help”, because in fact you aren’t really helping them in the first place. This will just lead to disappointment and frustration on your end. You may even get angry at the person wondering why they don’t get better more quickly when you’re offering so much “help”. Well, now you know why.

Don’t try and help someone in emotional pain. If you feel a tug to be with them, then go with the flow and be with them. Literally. Just BE. Don’t make solving their problems your goal. Being present can manifest in an infinite number of forms. Anything could happen while you are with the other person. You may want to just be silent. You may listen, you may speak. You may even end up giving them advice. But it all comes from a place of not trying to forcibly change anything around you and going with the flow.

It is highly likely that if you do this, the almost paradoxical end result is that you have helped this person. But “helping” shouldn’t be your first intention.  The person suffering is in a state of non-acceptance regarding a lot of things. You being in a state of presence will draw them into your healing light. In fully accepting them, you help them accept themselves.

Bottom line, if you really want to help someone with depression, let that sentiment go. Being yourself, and in doing so inviting them to be themselves, is the best medicine you can offer.

How Do I Embrace My Emotions? – Depression and Emotional Suppression Q&A

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I have noticed a very steady increase in the number of visitors to my last blog, “Depression and Emotional Suppression”. Even though I wrote that entry six months ago, it has quickly catapulted into my most read entry of all time.

This emphasised to me how much people all over the world are also in pain, and how we are not alone in our experiences with depression. What also struck me was that the majority of the hits were directed from Google. To find my entry one would have to specifically type in keywords along the lines of “depression emotional suppression”. Clearly, people are realising themselves that this could be the reason for their darkness and are searching further.

I received some questions this week from a reader, so with his permission, I have published my responses to them below. I realised that in the last entry I didn’t go into detail about what one can do personally to embrace one’s emotions, so I share a lot of the techniques I use below. I sincerely hope that this will be of help to other people who are starting to shed light on their darkness.

 

Say one has been suppressing emotions for quite some time now. Would depression result in confusion and some form of apathy in contrast to feeling pure sadness?

Even though I have experienced depression, I do think that depression can take a multitude of forms. My experience is just one experience, and may not be the ultimate truth. I just want to reinforce the importance of finding your truth, your path to freedom, and to just take on board what truly resonates with your heart.

My experience is that depression ranges from complete apathy to deep sadness/despair. So to answer your question, I would say “yes”. Either way, the common denominator seems to be suffering.

However, despite these so-called “feelings”, it is still not quite the same as fully experiencing an emotion. The analogy I used in my last entry was if that your suppressed emotions are rotting garbage, depression is simply the smell alerting you to them.

Subjectively, the depressive experience feels 2D, almost like a vacuum. As it is occurring because you are not feeling true emotions, what you are experiencing is something slightly different. It’s like a blackhole. I often felt like it was like white fire raging through my guts.

In contrast, emotions are embodied. They feel 3D. Even so-called “negative” emotions like hatred or grief have colour, shape and character.  So the sadness you experience when depressed feels different from when you are completely embracing your sadness. The former is a painful vacuum, while the latter flows through your body. With my synesthesia, sadness also feels dark blue to me, whilst depression has no colour.

 

If someone has been subconsciously suppressing emotions and after doing it for quite some time (which comes with self-rejection of how you feel), how would it be possible to face and embrace said feelings and emotions buried deep?

Firstly, I want to congratulate you for even realising that you a suppressing. Realising this is the first step towards acceptance.

The answer to your question is: there are many ways!

1) Mindfulness and meditation

First and foremost, you need to get back into your body.

It is highly likely that if you are suppressing, you focus most of your consciousness in your head i.e. your thoughts. This is a coping mechanism you picked up at a very young age in order to avoid feeling “negative” emotions like grief or anger.

One interesting exercise is to draw how you feel in your body right now. Shockingly, when I did this I just drew one circle that represented my head. Although obviously I knew I had a body, subjectively I had completely lost touch with the rest of it. It had ceased to exist within my consciousness.

Body scan practice (a form of mindfulness) can slowly help shift the spotlight of your attention from your thoughts back into your body. Here is a helpful link to get you started. In learning how to become aware of your body again, you can increase your sensitivity to any emotions that may arise within it.

In general also, practice mindfulness. Gently, and compassionately, observe how emotions may arise and how you push them down. The importance is not to beat yourself up about it. Just notice. The key here is just to get to know your patterns and habits a bit better.

Finally, meditation — specifically, mindful breathing. If you clear your mind, you will notice that sometimes suppressed emotions will just come up on their own. Instead of fighting them, smile in your heart, smile with your whole being. No matter how tough the emotion, don’t take it too seriously. Be playful with it. Surround yourself and the emotion with love. Soon, you will start to be able to release emotions through the breath.

 

2) Let your body express itself

Personally, while mediation and mindfulness helped, one issue I started having was that I had the strong urge to move while emotions started bubbling up. If anger started rumbling from within I felt the urge stamp my feet, punch some pillows and scream.

My solution? I now just do it. At an appropriate time and place of course.

For me, having danced for many years, I found that movement medicine was right up my street. I discovered 5Rhythms® at a spiritual festival I went to two years ago. Essentially in these classes, you let your body move however you want for two hours, with the leader’s invitation to explore certain styles of expression, should you so wish. Allowing your body to freely communicate what you feel within is great, but seeing everyone around you shedding all of their layers too has its own magic. This practice has taught me so much about myself, how to relate with other people and so much more. I will put some links to a variety of movement meditation forms at the end of this entry. There are so many to choose from.

Dance not really up your alley? Don’t want to publically show your emotions? No worries – just do it in the privacy of your own home. I do this too. Allow yourself to laugh, cry and rage, and do it in a very embodied manner. Become a three-year-old having a tantrum if that’s what needs to be expressed. There is something to be said about returning to the way we used show emotions as kids, with no filters.

I do have one caveat though — make sure that you are still in control of your emotions, and that your emotions do not control you. Ultimately, this is the difference between your adult self, and your three-year-old self. It took me a good few years to get the hang of this. Letting your emotions flow is a great thing, but if you identify with them you can get lost in them. Trust me, this isn’t pretty. You want to be in a state of expanded awareness, as opposed to having narrow focus on only the emotion. The key is to let go while still being centred, knowing that you are simply awareness, and are not the emotion itself.

 

3) Emotional Freedom Technique

Another technique that has really helped me on my journey of self-acceptance is the Emotional Freedom Technique. It is a tapping technique that helps accept and release emotion. Here is a YouTube link to get you started.

 

4) Speak your truth  

To some people, simply feeling their emotions is enough to release them. However, I find I need a little more support. If there is an emotion I can sort-of feel, but can’t quite embrace, and I then proceed to let go and say out loud anything that comes to mind. I usually do this in a safe space, like in my room or in the bath when I’m alone.

I also have a notebook that I exclusively use to release feelings. When I feel the pangs of depression coming up, I know I’m suppressing and not allowing life to flow through me. So I get out my notebook and start writing what I feel. The notebook technique helps because you can do it anywhere, even in a crowded train.

For example I may write:

“I feel angry at Sally, and that’s ok”

“I feel scared about taking that risk, and that’s ok”

Some key points I want to emphasise here are:

1) To always write “I FEEL”, and not “I am”. The former emphasises that at you are simply having an experience, like anger, and that your core being is simply awareness. The latter is identification with the emotion, which is something we want to evolve away from.

2) Be completely honest with whatever comes through, and to add “that’s ok” to re-emphasize that. Remember, even if they are very dark emotions, you have to love and accept them. Feelings are just feelings, they are not You.

 

5) Understand that you have multiple personalities

As you start your journey to observe what is going on within, you will soon get to know the multiple personalities that exist within yourself. Your nurturing personality, your artistic personality, your business personality, and so forth. You also have within you personalities from your past, ranging from your infant self, your childhood self, your teenage self, to your adult self.

Now, things can get a bit tricky when several of these characters come up at the same time, especially when they are in conflict with each other.

For example, let’s say that my friend and I have an argument. At this moment, the “mature”, mediator personality may calmly whisper, “look, your friend also has a point”. At the same time however, our inner teenager will also rip through wanting to yell out a bunch of expletives. When this happens, the mature personality may take over, shoving the teenager into the dark depths of our unconscious (not with everyone though, some people definitely choose to do the opposite!!).

This is understandable, as to give the aggressive teenager the mic may not be the best decision. But suppression equally isn’t the answer. Remember, to accept your emotion doesn’t necessarily mean you act on them. As explained earlier, feeling your emotions doesn’t mean being controlled by them. The eventual goal is to feel, accept and release all emotions that come up, from all of your personalities, but to also calmly pick what action you are going to take next (note: this could mean letting the teenager express itself, but if you choose to do so, it will come from a place of deeper knowing rather than impulse).

To accept contradictory, conflicting emotions that come up is definitely the skill of a master. Meanwhile, for the rest of us mortals who aren’t the Dalai Lama, what we can do is to find a safe space and express what the other personalities have to say later. You can do this out loud, through writing — anything that works for you is fine. No matter how ludicrious or immature the other persona may sound, don’t judge, just observe and let it speak. Swear away if you have to. After all, it still is a part of you.

 

To Close 

Re-embracing your emotions takes daily practice. Although a few years have passed since I had the realisation that I was suppressing my emotions, I’m still learning to embrace them. Even when you do start to get the hang of it, once you’ve released a set of emotions, you’ll find that more come bubbling up to be expressed. It’s like a never-ending train. Don’t let this put you off. Think about all the years you’ve suppressed your emotions. That is a whole load of build up. It’s only natural that we have a lot of healing to do, so welcome the challenge with compassion.

Eventually the goal is to clear what is left within, and to be in a place where even if emotions come up, we simply observe and let them go. As I wrote in my last entry, the opposite of depression is the ability to freely experience your emotions.

Finally, I have written here my techniques of embracing and releasing emotions, but again I want to emphasize that these are things that work personally for me. What works for you may be different. For example, I read recently of a lady who found drumming to be the perfect medium to express her pain. Art and music are also popular choices. The key is to find your voice, and to speak your truth. And don’t forget to do it all with love, as it truly is the key to growth and transformation.

Special thanks to BR whose questions inspired this post.

 

Recommended Reading

Emotional Clearing: Releasing Negative Feelings and Awakening Unconditional Happiness by John Ruskan

Eastern Body, Western Mind by Anodea Judith

 

Types of Movement Meditation

5Rhythms®

Ecstatic Dance

Biodanza 

Depression and Emotional Suppression

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One of the biggest misunderstandings about depression

I was on the phone with my friend and told her that I was depressed and struggling. We didn’t dwell on it, and she asked what I had planned for the next coming weeks. I told her about my plans to attend a wedding in Surrey, a business trip to Florida as well a trip back home to Japan to attend another wedding.

“Your life isn’t miserable at all!” she said.

I think my friend’s response represents a typical misunderstanding people have about depression: that it always occurs when something bad has happened. Therefore on the same vein, if your life isn’t demonstrably “bad”, your sadness and misery are not justified. Typical manifestations of this attitude can lead to painful statements along the lines of:

“Cheer up, your life isn’t that bad”

“You should be grateful for all the things you have”

“And why are you so upset?”

I want to take this opportunity to clear up this bias once and for all:

Terrible things do not need to happen for depression to occur.

Now, there is indeed a very strong correlation behind critical, upsetting events and depression. But as we all know correlation is not causation. In this post, I want to talk about what I have discovered to be one of the key causes of depression — emotional suppression. Once this is understood, it is easy to see why critical events often lead to depression, and also why equally they are not needed for it to occur.

 

The Link Between Depression and Emotional Suppression

All of us go through hardships. At times the majority of us will feel emotions of sadness, helplessness, defeat and low self-esteem. However some of us aren’t very good at fully processing these emotions. Instead of letting them pass through us, we push them down. We become aware that they are bubbling up, but we isolate ourselves from our bodies and try to distract ourselves using things such as work, exercise, food or drink. Another very common escape mechanism is to focus our energy on our mind. Instead of connecting and embracing our emotions with our full being, we start to compulsively think. Hence why rumination comes hand-in-hand with depression. So long as we talk in our heads about why we are not happy, that at least saves us from feeling how much in pain we are.

Ironically, this tactic backfires. All those emotions that we push down eventually will reach a tipping point. It’s almost like garbage piling up. Unless you continuously pick up and throw things away, it will start to rot and smell. Depression is a warning sign that your emotions have piled up for far too long, and that they need to be processed ASAP. Think of it as emotional constipation. It is your soul crying out, begging you to confront how you actually are inside. This might be the reason why we feel like we need to be alone when we are depressed. It is our body’s way of telling us to take a time-out to just be with ourselves.

You now may be able to see the connection between critical events and depression. When something terrible happens a tsunami of emotion invades. This can be very overwhelming, almost as if a truck has hit you. It’s only natural that a coping mechanism is to start pushing some of the emotion down to deal with later. However if left for too long it will pile up and, boom – depression. However, you can also see that equally dreadful things need not have occurred for someone to have depression. It can also occur as a result of a drip-drip effect. By the time the darkness finally manifests it could be after various feelings have built up over days, weeks or years. This is why things don’t need to be terrible for a person to have depression.

Now, if you are currently struggling with depression you may be thinking, “How can you say that I’m not feeling my emotions? Every day I feel like crap! I’d much rather be feeling nothing!”. I say all this because the sinking sensation of depression is not the core feeling that you are suppressing. To re-use the garbage example, depression is the rotting smell, but not the garbage itself. When you sit down and really connect with the pain, it is likely that you will find a whole mixture of emotions swirling around, including anger, fear, helplessness and sadness. So many of us have mastered the art of suppressing our emotions that we don’t even know that we are doing it. Even if we want to feel what is inside, we genuinely don’t know what is there. And if we did, most of the time we don’t want to look at them. After all, there was a good reason why we hid them from ourselves in the first place.

Furthermore, connecting with our emotions is one thing, but fully accepting and loving them – that’s a whole other thing all together. Let’s say for example, that you look inside and start feeling that you have anger towards a very close friend of yours. You then realise that is because you are jealous towards him/her. An immediate reaction is that this is wrong, that it’s very petty of yourself to feel jealousy, and that this friend is such an amazing person who doesn’t deserve someone feeling this way towards her. Besides, just because you feel this way what can you do about it? This then leads to suppression again.

There is nothing wrong with feeling anything. Feelings are just feelings. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet throughout the years we are taught that some feelings are acceptable, and some are not. That some emotions are justified based on the external circumstances, and some are not. That there is “no point” in allowing yourself feel certain emotions. All of this is utter madness, not to mention toxic. The reality is, we must love and accept every emotion that passes through us.**  The opposite of depression is not happiness, but the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.

 

The Importance of Having Open Listeners

I hope now you can see why statements such as, “Cheer up, your life isn’t that bad”, is as counter-productive as it gets. The person in front of you is depressed because they believe that they are not allowed to express certain emotions. Therefore in telling them to “cheer up” you are telling them yet again to shove down how they are feeling. In essence, you are reinforcing precisely the toxic behaviour that has gotten them into darkness in the first place.

This is why you may have noticed that people with low self-esteem shut down even more when you tell them that they shouldn’t feel that way. People with depression don’t need you to try and change their minds. Nor do they want solutions either. When a person approaches you with their pain, what they require is for you to show them that feeling bad is totally fine, regardless of the circumstances that underlie it. What they desperately need you to do is to hold a loving, safe space for expression. To be an open listener.

If you open your heart to that person’s emotions, simply by being very present in the moment, this automatically shows the person that their emotions are perfectly fine. If someone says they feel worthless, let them know there is nothing wrong then with that (“I see, that must be really painful”), instead of bombarding them with evidence on why they shouldn’t be feeling this way. It’s only after the emotion is accepted and released — often in the form of tears — that you can perhaps discuss how worthy of love you think they are. But it is incredibly important to wait until the catharsis has happened.

 

How to Listen

So how does one listen with an open heart? My personal answer to this is to employ mindful listening. When practicing mindfulness, you calm the chatter in your mind and let your awareness expand. The key is to not be in a mindset where you feel like you want change the person or fix things for them. You are simply there, experiencing the space with them. If listening to them brings up emotions within you, notice them with full acceptance as you would in meditation. You being your honest, raw self in the moment will help the other person also embrace their authenticity. You accepting them, exactly how they are, is the greatest show of love (I have written another article on how to be with someone with depression).

 

To Close

I am really surprised that emotional suppression and depression aren’t talked about more often. After being introduced to this idea a few years ago it quickly became clear to me that this really was a key cause of it – at least for me. I am not saying however that it is the only cause. Depression is incredibly multifaceted and each sufferer manifests his or her own unique version. As such, the reasons behind it can slightly differ. Yet, the more I talk to people with depression, the more I do see that this could be a common cause for so many of us.

I see people often at a loss as to how to help people with depression, and because of this end up accidentally talking to people in a counter productive way. In fostering an understanding of how emotional suppression can be contributing to depression, this can not only help people with this issue understand better what is going on with them, but can also help those who have loved ones with depression support them in the best possible way.

 

Feb. 10th, 2018: Since writing this entry I have written a follow-up post where I talk about ways of embracing your emotions again.

Apr. 4th, 2018: I have written a follow-up post on how to help someone with depression.

**Note that this is not the same as acting on the emotion. If you feel hate, that is fine and should be accepted, but you don’t need to act on it.

A Survival Guide for Highly Empathic People

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I’m a highly empathic person. I not only pick up on other people’s emotions easily, but I also feel them strongly. If you are mad, I can rage with you. If you are happy, I can giggle with you. If you are sad, I will cry with you.

Being high in empathy can be both a blessing and a curse depending on how you manage it. Much like a knife. The knife itself is harmless. Use it well and it’s a tool for chopping up food or even carving art, but if you’re not careful it can leave you with a deep wound. Empathy is the same – it can be fantastic tool to help understand and connect to others, but if used carelessly it will product a lot of misery, both to yourself and to people close to you.

If I were to give advice to other people who are high in empathy, I would say these three things:

  • Learn the difference between unconscious and conscious empathy
  • Become comfortable with emotional pain
  • Compassion is the only thing that heals, not sympathy or empathy

 

1) Learn the difference between unconscious and conscious empathy

Even though empathy is bundled into one thing, I have come to learn that there is a difference between unconscious and conscious empathy.

In a nutshell:

Unconscious empathy — when you feel another person’s emotions and get lost in them (or use Buddhist speak, “identify with them”). “Your pain is my pain and it is beyond my control”.

Conscious empathy — when you feel another person’s emotions, while still being fully grounded in your own being. You observe their feelings with nonattachment. There is space between their pain and your sense of self. “I feel your pain, but I know this is not my pain and I will lovingly accept them and let them go”.

Conscious empathy can help heal, whilst unconscious empathy can cause harm.

How can unconscious empathy hurt people?

The problem of unconscious empathy can be seen best when two people high in empathy get together. Imagine an empath lives with another empath. Let me call them Empath A and Empath B.

Both of them feel emotions strongly, and they can pick up on what the other person is feeling without even having to explain things to each other. This can be great, because so much of living together can be effortless. If something bad happens, without having to say a word the other person will know and will rush to the rescue.

 

Imagine however, that instead of having a one-off drop in mood, Empath A has something more chronic, such as depression, bereavement or a prolonged tough period at work. Empath A is just about navigating the maelstrom of emotions that are coursing through their being. Meanwhile, because Empath B is using unconscious empathy to relate, they are also going along the roller coaster ride. So long as Empath A is down, Empath B is down. This is the danger of unconscious empathy.

Things aren’t easier for Empath B either, because they don’t want to come home to someone so miserable all the time. Empath B starts to get bitter and angry at Empath A for “causing” their discomfort, and starts to complain to their friends about how frustrated they are that Empath A is “not getting it together”. Empath A picks up on all this and feels angry that Empath B cannot be more understanding of their hardship. As they both descend deep into the toxic spiral of unconscious empathy, none of them are getting better. This can eventually lead to a friendship breaking apart.

The bottom line with unconscious empathy is this: If you practice unconscious empathy, you will be at the mercy of other people’s emotions.

Other people’s emotions will control you, rather than the other way around. You getting lost in another person’s sadness or anger will not help either of you. All you are doing is adding fuel to fire, a phenomenon which I’ve dubbed, “bringing in the clouds of doom”. Yes, the person talking to you may feel slightly better from being listened to, and you may feel content from having shown so much empathy to their problems (in a martyr-type way – “I am such a good friend I will be just as miserable as you”), but believe me, you becoming just as sad as the other person has done nothing to help alleviate their pain.

 

2) Become comfortable with emotional pain

People who are high in empathy seem to have a huge aversion towards emotional pain, perhaps because so many of us are also highly sensitive people (HSPs). Any emotional blow that happens inside is like trying to manage an atomic bomb going off within. So most empaths will do whatever they can to avoid feeling these darker emotions not only in themselves, but in others too.

On the surface, this can make the empath seem like a very caring person, always coming to the rescue to help everyone around them be happy. The reality however, is that most of the techniques empaths use to do this is to escape pain themselves. These include: quickly changing the subject to try to cheer the other person up, throwing “happy bombs” or using default vacuous sympathy statements (“I’m so sorry to hear you’re not well”).

Another more subtle way that empaths demonstrate this tendency to want to escape pain is by rejoicing more than anyone when a person previously in pain becomes better again:

This may seem to others like this person truly “cares”, but what actually lies behind their reaction is something much more selfish — they are simply expressing joy from being released from agony. Ironically, it is the very suffering the other empath has inflicted on themself because of unconscious empathy.

This can be saddening to the person in pain, because the bottom-line message that the other person is giving is: “I didn’t like it when you were sad (because I’m sad)”, “I don’t want you to be upset (because I’m upset)” or “I don’t want to accept you when you are down (because I don’t accept myself when I’m down)”. Part of Empath A now feels ashamed and invalidated. This does not help with healing.

Until we are comfortable with our own pain, we cannot accept others’ pain. Until we can accept others’ pain we cannot help them heal.

We must sink into our own discomfort, melt into it as if that’s exactly what life is about, as if we chose this pain for ourselves. Only then will compassion towards others naturally flow out.

 

3) Compassion is the only thing that heals, not sympathy or empathy

Because of the issues created by unconscious empathy, during times of chronic depression I found my anguish being relieved more hanging out with less empathic people. This was because they seemed completely unaffected by my condition. It had no emotional impact on them, because they couldn’t feel my pain. This also meant that they had no desires regarding how they wanted me to be, unlike my empathic friends who clearly wanted me to be happy again ASAP. They were more likely to just accept me how I was. That, I noticed, was far more important when it came to healing.

Ultimately the only thing that heals is compassion. To share your light with the other person and to show that you accept them how they are, sadness and all.

So is empathy a hindrance to helping people? I really don’t think so. I actually think empathy and compassion can be the ultimate healing combination so long as the former is used consciously. I mentioned earlier about people with less empathy making me feel lighter during times of depression. While I was happier after seeing them, it did always feel like a bit of a Band-Aid. As they didn’t understand my pain, they didn’t know how to talk about it. So we usually ended up talking about something else. It was an effective distraction. At the end of the day though, you still want someone to understand what you are going through so healing can take place.

This is where conscious empathy comes in. The method is identical to meditative practice. You feel the other person’s emotions, but you don’t attach yourself to them. You let them fizzle out naturally. You don’t make any judgements about them either, as any resistance to the emotion will only lead to a feeling that wasn’t yours being stuck in your body.

If you can find a way to use your empathy to simply understand what the person is going through, without getting lost or attached to the emotions, then this can lead to conversations where you can delve deeper into the other person’s wound. You accepting their emotions will help them accept theirs, which will in turn lead to healing. If used correctly, you may also find you notice emotions that the other person didn’t even know they had. You’d be surprised by how much emotion we hide from ourselves. Compassion can then follow and let the healing happen.

 

Final comment

To close, I have to mention the ultimately challenging part of being an empath. Even though I have written a whole blog post on the damage unconscious empathy can do, it doesn’t mean that now you should try to change yourself. If you are an empath and you find yourself wanting someone in darkness to get better because you want to escape from their pain, that is fine. Remember that this is your natural reaction to the situation, and as such it should be honoured and embraced. Any attempt to suppress your emotions will leave you with more problems later (trust me).

All you have to do is consciously notice, observe and savour your responses with other people. Do you find yourself bringing out the clouds of doom with others? Do you want to avoid pain when you feel it in others? Do you celebrate almost exaggeratedly when we hear other people are better? That’s ok. Just notice. Know that shedding your awareness onto your responses will lead to natural transformations, an alchemic reaction, without you trying to do anything about it. There is no need to try to get to the state of total acceptance. It will naturally happen simply with conscious awareness.