“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Empathy is not just heightened sensitivity; it is a way of perceiving the world, a way of life. In order to embrace all the gifts of empathy, you first need to learn how to navigate its “pitfalls.”
I talked about this in the article “Getting on First-Name Terms with Empathy: The Pitfalls and Gifts of Empathy.”
But how do you do this in practice? Are there any special techniques or exercises? How does it work in real life? I’m sure many of you, just like I did at one time, are asking yourselves these and many other questions.
And the whole point is that while theoretical material can still be found on the internet if you set your mind to it, how it works in real life, practical, concrete recommendations, and personal stories from those who have been through this stage – these are things that few people share online.
This is what prompted me to tell my own story of how it happened for me.
Today’s article is about how I took my first step and overcame the very first “pitfall” – unconscious empathy.
After all, until you accept your gift, you are essentially deprived of the ability to, at the very least, understand what is happening to you, and at most, learn to manage this gift.
My story is one example of how this works in practice. And perhaps for some of you, my experience will be interesting and useful, becoming a first or new step on the path of self-discovery.
I had heard the term “empathy” many times, but I never applied it to myself. Yes, I always knew I was a highly sensitive person with powerful intuition.
I always had a subtle sense of people, reading their emotional state. My lie detector always worked like clockwork; I always knew when I was being lied to or when someone was trying to use me. How did I know? I just knew!
When I was studying the material on the Keys of Mastery website about the dangers of spiritual practices, I read about the abilities that could open up, including empathy, but that was it.
Everything changed after going to the theater to see the deeply philosophical play “When We Dead Awaken.” By that point, I had three years of spiritual practice under my belt, along with my own collection of favorite practices and achievements.
Uncontrollable Reading of Others’ Emotions and Sensations
The performance began with a full house, and about 15 minutes in, I was simply “overwhelmed.” It’s hard to put my inner feelings into words. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, I was shivering, trembling, a sense of being lost settled inside me, and I stopped perceiving what was happening on stage.
I couldn’t sit still, I fidgeted in my seat, turned around, and my mind was swarming with thoughts. Barely making it to intermission, I shot out of the hall like a bullet.
And when during intermission, here and there among the audience, I heard discussions of the very questions that had come to my mind during the performance, I completely “lost it.”
How is this possible?!! What is going on?! It felt like someone had read my thoughts.
Coming to my senses a bit, I saw a man staring intently at me. He was an acquaintance, someone I clearly had a crush on in real life, and when our eyes met, I literally physically felt that gaze!
At that moment, I had a clear realization that these are exactly the sensations I would experience when someone stares at me intently, especially with interest.
And then it hit me: it was his gaze I had felt in the audience during the performance, which is why I kept turning around! Bingo!
Realization: I am an empath
Coming home from the theater, for the first time, I intuitively wanted to write down everything that had happened, all my feelings, in detail. I wrote until late at night, and after pouring it all out on paper, I physically felt lighter.
An amazing feeling of lightness and completeness appeared, as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. You know, that feeling when you’ve done what you were meant to do.
From that very evening, I developed a strong desire, I would even say a need, to write down unusual sensations and circumstances that caused them, unusual thoughts, words, anything that stood out from the ordinary course of things.
Along with this, I started searching for information online to understand what had actually happened. And when, almost two weeks later, I accidentally stumbled upon a similar story, the realization struck me like lightning: at the performance, I had “read” the feelings of the audience!
I had felt the audience’s confusion from not understanding the meaning the author had embedded in the play, and the questions surfacing in the viewers’ minds, I had taken as my own.
It was at that moment that I understood I am an empath. At the moment of this realization, a wave of heat washed over me, my cheeks flushed, and, strangely enough, I had no doubt whatsoever that this was 100% true.
This feeling of absolute certainty, in the form of that heat, lodged itself in my memory and later became my working tool.
Finding “working tools” and accepting the gift of empathy
Since then, by keeping records of my sensations and regularly reviewing my journal, I began to see patterns, dynamics, and to connect things I hadn’t seen before.
It’s like looking from above and seeing the whole picture, rather than just its individual fragments. The gap between lived sensations and realizations gradually shrank. And I developed my own arsenal of sensations that I use to navigate, and which grows day by day.
Would this have been possible if I hadn’t started keeping records? Who knows…
Our memory is designed in such a way that in the fast pace of our lives, much is erased, remembered fragmentarily, due to the layering of a huge number of events and people with whom we interact in one way or another.
What’s more, we often don’t attach importance to many things simply because, at the moment they happen, they don’t fit into a coherent picture. But this becomes clearly visible in retrospect when you regularly record everything and review your notes.
In my specific case, keeping a journal helped me realize and accept the gift of empathy, thereby overcoming the very first “pitfall” — unconscious empathy.
Only after that did I begin to purposefully and CONSCIOUSLY study this issue, gradually learning to live in harmony with my ability, and building my own toolbox for managing empathy.
See also How to Determine Your Development Progress, or 3 Compelling Reasons to Start a Journal of Achievements
Among us are those who want to develop this gift within themselves, having simply read about its “fairy-tale possibilities,” while others consciously reject their gift, having felt its peculiarity firsthand. To both, I offer a phrase from a broadcast on the Cosmic Law of Spirit for reflection:
“Everything I need to know, everything I need to have, everything I need to be, will be exactly at the right time.”
Just trust yourself, listen to your sensations, and gratefully accept all that is given to you, for it is not by chance. You can and should befriend empathy, but whether to do so is for you alone to decide.