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I'm afraid, snippeteers. I am 64 years old and I feel afraid at this time in my life. Of what?
Not of dying. I am not afraid to die. Not of living. I am living my best life and enjoy many beautiful and continued blessings.
I am afraid of what's coming. I am afraid of what's here. As we watch more and more people struggle, hear bad reports, process this never-ending cycle of ill-fated situations.
Soooo many people I love and care about are muddling / have muddled through soooo many struggles, challenges, and sad situations - many of those physical. I am fried.
These people are not all older than me. Some are. Some are younger. Some are equal in age.
I have always told God He has given me way too much empathy. I don't want all this empathy! I truly do not know how to handle this massive quantity. It makes me afraid. I do not want to be an empath any more.
What is an empath?
A person highly attuned to the energies and emotions of those around them. Empaths are said to feel what others are feeling so deeply that they “absorb” or “take on” the emotions themselves, often at the expense of their own emotional well-being.
Empathy can feel overwhelming. It is emotional flooding. It is hard to regulate. And if we push it away, then it's replaced by guilt and obligation. Of not doing "enough" for someone.
Certainly, it is not that I do not care about people I know whom are struggling - of course I do! I am not an ogre. It is that I care too much.
Carrying the burden of CARING on our hearts and souls can be absolutely overwhelming and stifling.
Do you understand me, snippeteers? Do you feel this at times, too? I can't be possibly alone with these thoughts.
The more we age, the more people we lose. The more people we hear about struggling. The more we are aware and scared of the future. Even for ourselves. How will we "end up?"
Radiation and chemo ... surgery and broken bones ... marriage breakups and broken homes ... replaced hips and new knees ... still finding themselves and career woes ... nursing homes and assisted living ... funerals and diseases ... hospitalizations and ill health ... drug overdoses and accidents ... potty chairs and safety bars on the shower ... falls and unexplained illnesses ... pets dying and our sibling's teens left behind without a mother ... frail aunts & uncles ... young cousins in therapy ... rheumatoid arthritis and people left alone in their home unsafely ... and ... and ... and ... mamma mia!
This junk goes on and on and on ... the problems grow and the worrying escalates and the thoughts of others pile higher and higher and higher still ... 'til we feel like we will POP! We cannot possibly stay on top of the enormous pile any more, even though we deeply care for these people.
And then ... then if all of that isn't enough to feel and think about, we are asked to pray specifically for people we don't even know: in our parishes and communities and circles and clubs and through facebook and even around the world. And then the empathetic pile looms larger and larger and the fretting and worrying grows out of control. And we feel SO RESPONSIBLE for everyone.
It is not that we don't want to pray to help others. It is not that we do not feel compassion or pity. It is not that we do not want to offer support or do nice gestures to help someone feel better.
It is that it becomes overwhelming. And how do we do it anyway? Do we say 1 prayer and we're done? Say 5 prayers and move on? Add that person or situation to our long prayer list and pray daily? Do you know how long those lists become?? Do we kick off the ones at the bottom so we can add more to the top?
[How does God possibly keep up with the zillions and trillions of prayer requests He gets by the minute???]
Where is the line drawn? When or how do we say: Emotionally, I cannot manage all of this. I simply cannot take on everyone's concerns and heartaches and situations and experiences and journeys - it actually hurts my heart, soul, and mind.
I have surmised personally, that I cannot listen / take on / digest too many - and so many - details of others' journeys and woes because it literally haunts me daily. It siphons my energy faster than a Hoover picking up a peanut.
Compassion is draining. It sucks the very life out of us. It pulls us down. And then who / what are we left with? We then cannot even assist ourselves? Help ourselves through grief ... help our bodies to heal ... help ourselves to feel better emotionally ... or to allow ourselves time to follow a dream, a project, a goal?
Read the last line of that empath definition again: "at the expense of their own emotional well-being."
Where do we go from here? How do we not feel afraid of tomorrow? Of taking on "too much" from everyone else?
I truly don't even have an inspirational message here for you. Maybe this time I'm asking you, snippeteers, to inspire me.
How do we emotionally distance to self-preserve??
How do we handle this empathy dance??
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Are you an empath?
- feel drained when exposed to intense emotions
- avoid emotionally-impactful media
- the person everyone confides in (or strangers tell everything to)
- compelled to practice compassion in everyday life
- have strong, often correct, intuition
- dislike crowds
- regularly feel burned out
- experience emotions without knowing why
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