Tag Archive for: interoception

Connection with water.jpg

Years ago someone called me an empath. I was like “what is that?!” Back then, it wasn’t a mainstream term. Even as I am typing this, my computer still insists on automatically changing “empath” to “empathy”. All I could find at the time was that an empath was a sensitive person. OK, I had been told I was “sensitive” and “too sensitive” since I can remember…so? Then I learned that an empath was someone who could easily feel other people’s emotions. Ohhhh…

For a while, I felt special and validated that someone called me an empath. All those times when I felt bad about being called sensitive like it was a bad thing. Now look at me, I could feel someone else’s feelings, sometimes before they could even make sense of them themselves. How do you like me now? I thought. But it’s not all as glamorous as it seems to be. 

Empaths make really good teachers, nurses, therapists…you get the idea, the caregiver type. So what do caregivers usually do? They take care of everyone else, put the needs of others first, take on everyone else’s problems, sometimes to the point of burning out. 

My husband asked me the other day whether someone is born an empath. As much as I would like to give the credit to the Universe for this ability, most empaths – and I say most because I don’t like to generalize although my personal belief is that this is true for all empaths – have suffered trauma, especially childhood trauma.

When you experience trauma at a young age, your survival depends on your ability to stay safe. For that to happen you learn to recognize very quickly any sign of danger. Your brain is constantly scanning for any deviation from the baseline: a change in the caregiver’s tone of voice, how heavy the footsteps are, how fast someone is walking, what words they say or not say, any movement in their eyes or whether someone speaks or not etc. That’s how you decide how to respond to the situation in a way that ensures your safety.

Just like any other skill, after years of practice, you become really good at it. And you take this skill with you into adulthood. People will come to you to tell you their life’s story or to get advice. Also, you might draw narcissists into your life because…well, darkness cannot exist without light.

If you think or know that you are an empath, then you probably also like being close to the water. Water purifies and clears the extra energy that you carry. If you don’t live close to a beach (and let’s face it most of us don’t) then I recommend showers to release the stress and energy you don’t need. Place your hands on the ground. Walk barefoot outside. Hug a tree (c’mon it’s a thing now, no one will make fun of you!) Spend time in nature or with animals. Watch movies that make you laugh.

In a word, take care of yourself first.

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Happy foggy Saturday! Let’s talk about meditation. Or, alternatives to it. A lot of times, that word comes with a lot of expectations. We have an idea probably coming from the stock images of someone sitting cross-legged in a beautiful, serene environment, with their eyes closed and a smile on their face which says “do this, and you too can smile like me. That’s all you need to do.” We look at that and think “jeez, I can’t do that.”

 

 

Well, that may be the standard of meditation for some. For me, it looks different. I’ve always had a hard time sitting. I blamed my implementer mind for a while. And I thought I couldn’t meditate. But I like movement, so yoga became my moving meditation. Then, when I went through my trauma-sensitive yoga training (TCTSY), there was a lot of emphasis on interoception, i.e. sensing the internal state of your body, a.k.a tuning in. That’s probably why I fell in love with the practice of TCTSY! After a session like that, I feel recharged. But I digress…

So coming back to moving meditation. If you’re like me and you can’t sit still, this might be an alternative for you. And there are more like that:🚶🏻‍♀️Walking 

🏃🏻‍♀️Running

✏️ Doodling/coloring/journaling 

💃 Dance (dance yoga, ecstatic dance) 

🐎 Riding horses 

🏊‍♀️ Swimming

Anything that gets you in touch with your Self. 

Time! Oh, time is interesting…it feels like we never have enough of it. But what if we reframe it to say that time is all we have. It’s our most import currency. We trade time for everything. So, could we trade time for our Self? 

We’ll put a pin in that for now and let’s just say you only have 5 min, you don’t like to sit with you eyes closed and hum, and you know what, you don’t even like to focus on your self, not today. But you’d like to try meditation. I hear you! Okay, then here’s something that you could try: a sound map. 

My favorite time of the day is before everyone wakes up. That’s because that’s when it’s the most quiet. I’m not a morning person, but thanks to jet lag, I woke up at 6am today and stepped outside with a piece of paper and a pencil. I sat on the front steps and drew an “X marks the spot” in the middle of the page. That’s where I was. Then for the next 5 min I paid attention to the sounds around me and marked them where I thought they came from. No fancy drawing, just stick figures. I heard (lots) of crows, a blue jay, cardinals, cars, my neighbor’s AC unit… It helped me get in touch with the nature around me, especially after being away for a while. 

 

Sound Map.jpg

 

And then, guess what happened. My kiddo came and she wanted to participate. So she did the same thing for about 2 min. But then she upped the ante and on her own, she decided to add what she saw. And then, she decided to add to this map what she was thinking about. It started as an exercise of connection with nature and re-entry into our environment and it ended up being an opportunity for connection with my kid. 

For us, it turned into over an hour of being outside before we even had breakfast! So, I’m sharing this with you, if you want to give it a try. If you do, I’d love to hear from you.