Knowing What's Ours, Knowing What's Not

One of the most difficult things to be in compassion with is someone else's reaction to me. Negative reactions, like anger, frustration or resentment, pack an emotional punch, slamming energy into me. I tend to get hit pretty hard by these and retreat in dismay. But even positive reactions can be energy bombs and it is a real challenge to incorporate, literally take into my body, the energy being directed at me by another person.

It helps tremendously for those of us who are sensitive to energies to realize that the flood of energy coming into us is not our own. So, when someone is reacting to me with a fairly intense emotion, whether negative or positive, I am learning to stay in my groundedness, in my truth, and to understand that their reaction is theirs. I don't have to take it in, take it on or take it as my truth. It is their truth and I honour it, but I don't need to become it.

Yes, believe it or not, I used to actually become whatever was being sent my way. I didn't know how to disassociate myself from what was not mine. I suspect that there are quite a few of us who find this to be a challenge.

My friend and I have been exchanging emails about HSP's (highly sensitive persons). I suspect that I fall into that category and perhaps you who are reading this do also. I can't cite the source of the term highly sensitive person, because I don't have a reference to his or her name, but someone came up with it and I'm glad that they did. It helps me to know that I am not alone in my sensitivity and that there is a category that I can place myself in. These people are more sensitive than others to such things as light, sound, weather conditions and energies.

Energies are everywhere. Places have energies. People radiate energies, either knowingly or not, powerfully or subtly, lovingly or fearfully. People radiate energies. So do pets. So do people's homes. I find it to be really cool and interesting when it is not overwhelming me.

The more highly conscious we become, the more aware we become, the more sensitive we become. I've reached a point where there are certain places that I just will not go to. Certain people's homes are very difficult for me. Cities are difficult for me. Crowds are impossible for me. Even just being around other people is very tiring to me. I'm taking in all of their energies and then sending them out. It takes up a lot of my energy to do this. So, most of the time, I prefer to be in what I call 'blessed solitude.'

With those whom we care about, those whom we choose to spend time with, and those who are colleagues in work we choose to do, we can practice knowing what is ours, what is not, and what we can and should move through and out of us. It is not ours. It is theirs.

It is a practice in compassion. It is a practice in consciously moving energy, rather than allowing energy to move me. Sometimes I do better at it than other times. If I am well-rested and centered in myself, it tends to go quite well. If I am tired or stressed, it can be a disaster. I take on others' energies and emotions and then feel terrible because I am no longer in my truth. And that has become unbearable to me.

So this practice is very important to me. I find it quite easy to be in compassion with strangers. It is those with whom I share more of myself and who share more with me that present a far greater challenge. Ah, well. Best just to get on with it, eh?

Knowing what's ours and knowing what's not - moving that energy through us, through the breath, through the truth of the self, through the groundedness of self being in the world, and doing so in compassion and with honour for the other, always with honour for the truth of the other - that is my practice these days.