Migraines On The Radio

I heard on the Diane Rehm's radio show a segment on Living with Migraines (please listen to the podcast).  I really liked it because of all the good new news on the subject.  I'm also a migraineur diagnosed with migraine with aura (or migraine with complex).  It seems that the medical field is still learning about migraines and that they took some significant leaps in the past twelve years.   I would like to share my experience with doctors and migraines.

Though I had migraines from childhood, I only went to the Veterans Administration Hospital for it in 2001.   Then, my doctor did not admittedly know much about migraines and she promised to get some more information and confer with other doctors.  She ended up giving me codeine and caffeine.  Hold on, there are many several type of migraines and it seems that some migraines get worse with caffeine and some get better.  This combination seemed to work for me.  I did substitute the codeine with ibuprofen and this also worked, and it would allow me to drive.

I moved from California to St Louis, Missouri and sought additional help in 2009 from VA doctors there because I was experiencing some numbness in my body, mainly on my right side.  I ended up seeing neurologists there and they took me off off the ibuprofen which I was taking every 4 hours.  This apparently could lead to some bad things with my internal organs.  They gave me Diltiazem to take every day and Sumatriptan as a rescue medicine.  They also identified the little 'fireflies' I see in my eyes from time to time are part of my aura.  I consider these doctors to be very professional and seriously interested in my case.  I was lucky.  The did not say anything about my body numbness and pain, but I believe them also to be part of my aura because of what I read and hear about migraine with aura.

If I think about it, I can see other aspects of my aura.  Growing up I would sometimes get up and my sight and my hearing would stop for a couple of seconds.  I wouldn't see anything but darkness and heard nothing in that period of time.  I would also get dizzy and see my 'fireflies'.  During a migraine headache, I couldn't stand light or loud noises.  I would also feel weak and would have to rest often.  My headaches usually lasted 4 days.  The Sumatriptan took away the pain, but not my auras, and not my weakness.  Being a migraineur is something I have to live with.

I can see that from 2001 to today, migraine information has indeed increased and there seems to be more help for migraineurs.  If you suffer from migraines, I suggest you find a doctor that is actively helping you and that you are managing it better.  It may still be hard to find the right doctor, but it seems more and more doctors and getting educated on this disease.  Good luck.

What Normal Person?

I don't see normal people on this planet.  I really can't tell that I have met one.  What I have met were unique individuals with various traits.  People are more diverse than you have ever imagined.  Let's explore together what people are like, what a normal person really is, and where can we go from here.

I've traveled through many countries to include Europe, United States, and Asia.  I've talked to many people; more than the average person would.  I have yet to talk to two that are the same.  Even fraternal twins seem to be unique in some way.  More often than not, you may find that people have traits in their character that make them stand out.  I've seen people: try to get away with as much as possible, yield to others consistently, talk to everyone they meet in depth, ignore anyone who approaches them, struggle with basic math or writing, have impressive understanding about construction/engineering, wonder at nature, think only of their goals, excel at fitness or sports, do nothing but sit at a computer or TV, appreciate the arts, thinks only of the bottom line, acts to impress as many people as possible, care little about what people think, have attractive looks or voice, have unattractive features, knows how to make a buck, knows how to spend money, forget to take stuff with them, always remembers what someone said to them, be that annoying and vocal neighbor, show kindness to their neighbors in need with coffee and blankets, and more.  People are unique wherever you go.

What do we mean by a normal person?  Normal means conforming to a standard.  A standard could be a law, a policy, a socially acceptable behavior, or even an unwritten rule.  Betty Crocker is a well known name among bakers and baker aficionados, and yet this person never existed in a single person.  Check out Who Was Betty Crocker? by Roy Rosenzweig.  Betty was a composite personality.  She was born out of popular responses to General Mills.  This is what a normal person is also.  A normal person is not a real person but an ideal of what society or a community thinks a person should be like.  The ideal also changes throughout history.  Imagine if you took a normal person today and put him/her in the 1800's.  Would they be considered a normal person? Absolutely not!  They would be considered liberal, radical, and strange.  That's because the ideals of today are not the same ideals as in the 1800's.  The idea of prejudice was different.  There was black and white prejudice like today, but worse, and there was German vs Danish vs Italian vs English.  Economy back then was more agrarian than industrial.  News was on printed newspapers not on TV or the internet.  You telegraphed someone instead of texting.  There were no phones, so you wore watches to tell time.  You actually had to be face to face with someone to carry on a conversation.  They wore more clothes and didn't have motorized washing machines.  You see that a normal person of today is not the same as a normal person of yesterday.

What does this all mean to you and me?  Most people see themselves as a normal person.  They pay taxes and obey the laws.  Some may not even do that and still consider themselves as normal.  The truth is; none of us are normal.  We all fall short of normal.  Not that it's a competition.  Normal is what we think we ought to be and perhaps strive for.  The reason is because we're afraid to stand out.  We're afraid to be ridiculed.  We want to hide those things that makes us look different.  Unfortunately, we often hide those thing form ourselves as well and disregard them entirely.  I say we should embrace those things that does not make us normal for ourselves.  If you think about it, those contestants on American Idol, or the other Idol shows around the world, that win are not normal.  The do stand out.  In the music industry standing out is important.  So not being normal can lead to good things.  I say embrace them regardless of what anyone else thinks.  I will caution you about being overt about them liberally.  You should gauge how much you show people and when to show them.  It helps to be more accepting by others.  As an extrovert, it's always been hard for me, if not impossible, to hide all the things that make me stand out.  I'm sensitive and quirky.  I'm opinionated and loud.  Different souls are attracted to me and different ones are repelled by me.  There are things that I do hide from people though.  I've never been fired from a job, but often I'm required to justify my employment.  I've learned to listen more to people and that helps a lot.  I give other people the stage to have their say.  That makes me look better overall.

People are too diverse to be normal, and normal is just an ideal.  We can claim our true nature and still work in society.  Fear is the only thing form keeping us form ourselves.  We are unique, and we are good.  We don't have to succumb to fear.  We can be unconventional and still operate in this world.

Slowing Tasks

If you have noticed, I have not been writing as frequently as I have before.  I have to go to writing biweekly rather than weekly.  It was too much to write two posts a week, one for this blog and one for my idea-writes STL Aeropspace blog.  Lessening my writing will help in two areas, quality of personal life and quality of writing.

There comes a time when doing gets in the way of quality.  As an empath and highly sensitive person (HSP) and a migraineur, I have limited capacity for activities.  Stress will take me down quickly.  Then my quality of life suffers, and it doesn't seem worth it.  Actually when I go down, everything seems worthless.  That's when thoughts of wanting to get away come and the desire to be in another world rise up.  Getting rest resets my brain and gives me back my optimism.

I'm not happy where I am as a writer.  I would like to grow.  Taking my writing frequency to two weeks  will give me more time to think of ways to be more creative and make better quality writing.  I am glad I'm writing for myself rather than for a manager or editor of some kind.  I feel that managers today fail to consider that their workers need not to burn out and they work them till they can't take it anymore.  I've been there and don't want to take my writing there.  I don't want to be put off by writing.  Writing is too important to waste it on bureaucratic deadlines and pressures.  Everyone who can write should write just as an civil duty.  We understand the founding fathers of the United States from their writings, and they were prolific writers.  Writing is just as important as voting.  Sure, you can say that you can get your message out via YouTube.com.  I say if your going to do that you should write your speech, that is what your going to say first.  Writing tends to congeal thoughts into messages.

Increasing quality of life and quality of writing are my goals for making biweekly posts.  I hope this does not put you off.  There are many blogs out there and articles to read.  So, I don't think you will have any lack of reading to do in the mean time.

Accounting For Weakness

Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Petreus, and a host of other powerful men have had their infidelities plastered all over the press.  More often than not these type of men have affairs in our society.  I don't doubt that there are powerful women who have affairs as well, but seem to not manage affairs well.  Sometimes our weaknesses get the better of us and we do wrong things.  This gives rise to the question, 'how do you manage weakness?'.  Let's look at some weaknesses, and how to manage them.

Everyone has weaknesses that need to be addressed in some fashion.  It seems that people these days major on their strengths and minor on their weakness.  I suppose some even ignore their weaknesses.  Other people, on the other hand, have no choice but to account for theirs.  Many weaknesses are of a personal nature.  How people manage their sexuality is a common one.  By nature, sexuality is supposed to be private.  These days, we understand that there are a variety of sexual lifestyles.  Most of them would abhor any one individual because were so diverse as a society.  Some sexual lifestyles are illegal, and some sexual acts are illegal.  People should find ways to keep their sexuality private and legal.  For some keeping things private is hard because there are people who pry for both personal and professional interests.  Romance is another area of weakness.  Some romance is fine to see in the right public setting.  Sometimes people are offended by public displays of affection.  People do tend to personalize the things they see.  I would avoid romance at work altogether.  I try to keep romance private or semi-private as well.  The less people know about your weakness, the higher they think of you.  There are weaknesses of a medical nature.  These society endures but prefers not to see.  How you take your pills shouldn't be public knowledge.  Talking about how gross your wound is might offend someone.  Some weaknesses are simple hygiene.  Wiping your nose on your sleeve is offensive in public.  Smelling in any way is offensive in public.  Too much perfume is offensive in public.  Contrary to the belief of some, perfume does not take away bad smell, it just adds more smell.  Sometimes just soap is not enough to take away bad smells.  You may have to use a disinfectant.  Some weaknesses are behavioral.  Touching a person in anyway may deemed offensive.  Many jokes are offensive.  Be very careful when it comes to joking.  Fights have started on a off color joke, and law suits have been filed for some as well.  Not smiling when someone smiles at you or not waiving when someone waives at you could be deemed offensive.  This is not to point fingers at anyone or for anyone to point fingers.  We all suffer from many of these weaknesses and more.

Weakness does not go away after it's addressed, it must be worked on continuously.  Making habits that compensate for weaknesses is a good idea.  Communicating in a good way is a habit that everyone needs to work on.  Cleaning yourself and dressing yourself appropriately are daily habits to develop.  Habits as to when and where to practice your sexuality and romance are just as important.  For the high profile people, it costs them a lot of money when they get caught.  What will it cost you?  Continual self evaluation is a must to keep face and a job let alone advancing these days.  I'm not talking about abstaining either.  The more you bottle up a need the more lightly it will explode at a later date.  No, it's better to manage it often.  If we have a desire to show violence, we play a game, or watch a movie, or read a violent book.  We don't go out causing fights.  In other words we let our minds simulate what we need emotionally.

Identifying your own weaknesses and learning how to manage them is important.  Though most people are not high profile or in the news often, it's still important to keep your weaknesses in check.  Even though you may not notice them, everyone you come in contact with will.

Sick Loved One

Taking care of your loved one while the're sick is quite common.  Sure, we have a lot of medicine for many things, but for the highly sensitive person, medication is not the worry.  My loved one was sick this week and I had to take off work to care for them.  I learned some thing in the process.

The first night, they were up all night.  Of course that just made things miserable for me as well.  Being an empth that communicates in a tactile/kinesthetic way I mimic their behavior.  When they are miserable, I am miserable.  So it behooves me to keep them healthy and happy.  The following two days, I gave them medication that was strong and also made them drowsy.  They slept and I was at peace.  Sometimes this empath thing takes a little time to kick in.  The next day, I was sleepy.  The third day, we slept a lot and got some good rest.  Now were on the recovery.

What did I learn?  I learned that keeping my love one adequately medicated helps me as well.  I've felt very overextended these last couple of weeks.  Fall season does that to you.  So many things to do and the sun goes down earlier and earlier.  I needed that rest.  Now, its time to hit the gym and shave off all the calories we ate while sick.

Precious Human Value

Value is a common word.  It's a word we use to describe something in a quantitative way.  I want to talk about the innate human value of everyone.  I use value instead of worth because worth has some negativity associated with it, such as "What's your worth?" or "How worthy are you?" or "Your worthless".  I feel value is impartial.  I'm taking you to the core definition of human value, then the past and present that shows our disregard for life, and then talk about championing human value.

Vietnam War Boat People

In this age of information,  we understand how computers work and often make comparisons between computers and the brain.  Sci-fi stories like the Matrix raise the question if we are in a simulation or not, and if we were, we would never know going about our own lives.  Therefore, our best understanding of our basic existence is 'Cognito ergo sum,' which translates into, 'I think therefore I am.'  It's a definition of ourselves that highlights the greatness of our reasoning and our sheer ineptness to affirm our own existence.  It does something else though; it shows our value as individuals to understand, change, build, destroy, and have emotional responses to the world we live in.  Now it's a statement that we more often than not apply personally.  Now consider that every human on the planet thinks.  If they think, they are.  They all have value.  They all have the same value as I do or as you do.  This is the beginning of compassion.  Their fate should be the same as mine.  The better the fate, the better for all.

If we think about how many people have died in wars, in accidents, in suicides; we can understand how lives have been extinguished before their time.  37,000,000 died in World War I, 60,000,000 died in World War II,  1,035,585 died in Vietnam War, around 2,000,000 died in the Soviet Afghanistan war, and around 14,700 and counting have died in the U.S. Afghanistan war.  There are countless wars; each with their own death count.  These wars are fought over ideologies.  We seem to adopt the notion 'Cognito ergo occidere,' which means 'I think therefore I kill.'  If we all really thought, we'd wouldn't be doing this.  If we considered that all have the same value, we would find other ways to solve issues.  What is the value of these people who died?  Well, instead of reaping the fruits of a free life and giving back to society, their value is to teach us to change.  Let it not be for nothing.

I like to talk about championing human value.  Yet, I find myself at a loss to understand how.  I suppose it starts small.  Kindness is a common word.  It's a word we take for granted.  When your kind to someone you show them that they are valuable to you.  We like to think of ourselves as kind.  We should evaluate ourselves though.  How kind are you to that shop person who is not giving you what you want?  How kind are you to the teammate on your team who is opposing you?  How kind to that person who just made fun of you and you don't like it?  As a highly sensitive person, I see a lot of frustration.  It's at work, it's in the stores, and it's at home.  Frustration can lead to anger, and anger can lead to violence.  Kindness can temper frustration.  Showing someone their value to them.

Examining what human value is shines bright in the darkness of our devastation of it.  Taking ownership of it anew and starting to show kindness to later take bigger steps is important.  We are in an era of post world wars.  Europe does not make war among its nations anymore.  Dialog has taken over.  The middle east seeks freedom.  The world is changing.  The change will be permanent.  Weapons will lessen.  We can help usher the change by being kind.

Pile Up

Sometimes things pile up.  Several conversations happen in rapid order with many people can cause emotions to pile up like some kind of multi-car accident.  It leaves the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP, empath) in a state.  I had this experience with a lot going on at work.  By a lot, I mean excitement and other emotions from about thirty people in a fairly small space.  It was all good things, but the emotions flooded in me and kept on pouring in.  I could sense each of the feelings and all of them at the same time.  They were good feelings, and they were strong but not as strong as anger.  All the same, I was affected.  My behavior was erratic; it was hard to focus.  It was like being in a crowd but not as intense.  Afterwards, I decided that I should get rid of them.  The following is what I do to get back to normal or some semblance thereof.

First, I push the emotion out.  What I do is get into a meditative state and then use my will (intent) to push out the emotions out of my body and away from me.  It's a simple and effective technique.  It can be used in a moment when needed.  A problem with it is that if you like the emotion, you may find it hard to push it out.  What I do is try it several times.  Every time I feel a little more like normal. I guess it's a judgement call on how much you want to feel the emotion.  It's like turning down the volume on a music player.

Second I try to get into a meditative state to allow emotions flow through me but keeping my soul untouched.  This does take some practice, and does take some getting used to.  I've called this being detached.  I guess it's a compromise.  I figure sometimes it's hard to hold back the ocean of feelings, so you might as well run with it.  Yeah, I've mentioned these two techniques in other posts and for other situations.  They can be a harmonious way of dealing with this world.

A good night's rest is good after the ordeal; though, the emotions can linger for a few days.  Did I really wanted to get rid of all of the emotion?  No, not really.  I just wanted to get to a manageable state.  This way I could have control over my behavior.  After the rest I had a calmer disposition.

  Some empaths like to use shielding to not be affected by others' emotion.  My problem with it is that it's not always necessary to go to such drastic measures.  I like to experience the feelings of my environment, and shielding just diminishes that.  It's like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Pushing out emotion, being detached from the emotion though it flows through you, and rest should help to get back to normal.  Yeah, getting back to normal. Some would question what normal is.  Of course if your an HSP, you may never know what normal is.  In this case, I am referring to what is normal for you.  It's a crazy world and from time to time it gets a little more crazy.

Old Emotion

When your hit with a very deep old emotion.  These are hidden issues in life.  They tend to make you feel funny or strange.  On the surface you feel fine, but deep, deep inside there's a storm raging.  It's quite an odd feeling experience.  Sometimes this happens to me.  Once, I had to take action, and I knew there was going to be a bad result for a particular person.  I had been working with this person for a long time.  The patterns  that arose in them were self destructive in nature.  In the end, there was nothing I could do about it.  It's like watching a train wreck in very slow motion.  The guilt emotions came up even though I see I had done everything I knew to do.  These guilt emotions were familiar to me.  When I was very young, my parents divorced.  The guilt feelings developed then; now they were back.  This is nothing less than emotional trauma.  After consulting with my highly sensitive friends (hsps, empaths), I figured out how to deal with the situation.  I'll talk about the symptoms, the investigation, and the recovery of this trauma.

The first thing I want to talk about is the symptoms.  For me the symptoms were emotional and a little weird.  Overall I felt fine, but the underline emotion was not fine at all.  I could sense that.   I couldn't shake my mood.  It was like my emotional being was preoccupied, and it couldn't handle any new emotional situations.  So I was not myself.  In that state you question what could be the matter.  I had to rationally think of what the matter was.  I could not use my intuition to help with that but I had to use my analytical brain.  A sense of panic was starting to come over me, and a sense of hopelessness as well.

To get a handle on my emotional situation, I had to go into a deep meditation state and started to ask questions to myself.  These were inquisitive and investigative questions.  I got my answer.  It was guilt I was experiencing.  Then I kept on asking questions on why the guilt was.  I got my answer again.  It was a guilt pattern as when my parents divorced.  To me that was a revelation.  Years before, I wondered if I experienced guilt due to the divorce.  I was very young and did not remember much from that time.  I only remembered some glimpses of scenes.  You really don't want to remember the bad stuff.  Sometimes you just blank out the bad stuff, but emotional evidence of them will probably remain.

The first step of recovery for me was in the meditative state.  I reasoned out my feeling of guilt.  I told myself that my parents divorce was not my responsibility and was not my fault.  Surprisingly that went quite well.  I suppose it's because over the years I gathered enough information about the divorce, and I reasoned how it indeed was not my fault.  So it seems though I knew that, I still had a pattern of guilt operating in me.  Now I was dealing with it.  Then I had to move on to the more recent situation.  I told myself that I was not responsible for the outcome and that I did do what I needed to do.  That I also did everything in my power to make things better.  That was the first step.  The next steps is day by day living with the outcome.  Though I feel fine, I do have a residual feeling that I went through something very traumatic.  So I have to take it easy.  I have to do some grounding exercises, and push out the old emotion to move on.  It's a struggle, I have to admit.  It will take time to fully recover.

Trauma of any kind has symptoms, needs an investigation, and demands a recovery.  Emotional trauma is not different.  You may experience some emotional shock.  Make sure that you keep yourself comfortable, warm, and hydrated.  Talk to others to help sort out the pieces.  Seeking help from a psychological counselor is a good idea.  These old emotions are wounds that have festered over years.  Recovery won't be immediate, but immediate headway is possible.  I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist.  I'm just a highly sensitive person sharing my experiences, recommendations, and opinions.

Music Obsessions

One of the things I get obsessed with is music.  I think it's fairly common to get obsessed about things now and again for highly sensitive people (HSP, empath).  Now with me, I developed this obsession with music.  I know it's common to like music, and many people buy much music in a year's time.  That's not exactly what I'm talking about.  Try listening to a song over and over for weeks.  Soon, you'll get tired of it.  My obsession drives me to listen to it and to play it in my head.  I'm going to share how I started with this obsession, how I understand it works, and share some artists I've obsessed about over the years.

It's 1970.  There is no internet, there is no cell phones, there are no computers, no social media, not even compact discs.  What's sitting in my living room on a table is a box with a bunch of nobs on it and a round thing on the top that turns.  It's a stereo system made up of a turntable, radio, and amplifier.  These pieces were stacked on top of each other.  I am two years old, almost three.  The room is huge to me.  There are soft chairs and a sofa.  The windows are very tall but thin.  The carpet was shag.  There's a sound coming from the stereo, and it's a song.  It said "if you want it, here it is come and get it.  But you better hurry because it's going fast."  I find the album cover of the long play vinyl record and its a picture of a outside patio with a giant hand on some stone podium and the index finger having a nail in it.  All I could think of was ice cream, because ice cream melted.  From then on when I heard the song I thought of ice cream and when I had ice cream I could hear the song in my head.  Yes, I'm Pavlov's dog.  That was the beginning of this obsession.  I got a kick out of it.  By a kick, I mean a natural high.  I went into a state of euphoria.  From then on I was hooked.

I blame my empathic abilities for this.  By concentrating on a work (painting, song, technology) I can tap into the excitement associated with the work.  Sometimes it's the whole artist and sometime it's just a song.  The feeling goes so deep.  Heart and soul get rattled together till they resonate in concert.  It's becoming one with the music and words.  It's feeling every agony and every excitement in pure harmony, until I'm ready to burst.  Then streams of tears come and I'm fully taken.  Sure, it's my drug.  There has been many  times throughout my life where I've drove my friends and loved ones crazy with this obsession.  At one point in my childhood, I was asked not to sing out loud since I could not carry a tune, and didn't have rhythm.  In fact, I found out in recent years that audio information is not my preferred source of information.  My preferred source is tactile or doing and my secondary is visual.  So this obsession seems like a contradiction for me.

Here's a sampling of song and pieces I've obsessed about over the years with youtube links to the songs:

Bad finger

Burt Bacharach

Carpenters
Elvis
Bobbie Gentry 

Dion Warwick
Peter Paul & Mary

Moody Blues

Eric Burdon

Fifth Dimension

Bee Gees
Simon & Garfunkel

Barbara Streisand
Shirley Bassey

Olivia Newton John
Gordon Lightfoot
Neil Diamond 
Paco De Lucia

Linda Rohnstat

Elton John

Tchaikovsky
Prokofiev

ABBA

Cat Stevens

Beatles

Dvorak

Queen
Aerosmith
America
Eagles 

ELO
Boney M

Donna Summer

Police
Dire Straits

ABC

Diana Ross

OEM

Mecano

Michael Jackson

Supertramp

John Lennon
Mike Oldfield

Train

Five For Fighting
No Doubt
P!nk

Lady Gaga

Christina Perri

Diana Krall

Kimbra

You should have gotten a good overview of this obsession of mine with how it got started, how it works, and what artists I've obsessed about over the years.  I don't consider myself as having obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I have never been diagnosed with that nor has my behavior promoted and comments about that from others.  I think HSP's can develop these obsessions if they pickup on an emotion that they love.  Isn't that a normal human thing to do?  We are attracted to situations, people, or things that make us feel good and we're repulsed by those who/that make us feel bad.  What do you obsess about?

Work, Keeping It Superficial

The work environment is very different than any personal environment we're in.  The interpersonal communications are different as well.  For the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP, empath), it can be a minefield.  People don't communicate what they feel but communicate what is necessary for the job and to maintain work relationships.  That's the problem.  A work relationship is much different than a personal relationship.  You talk to people, you know how they work, and you work with them, but you don't know them or who they really are.  So that's what your interpersonal communication has to operate in.  Let's see how this poses problems for the HSP and what can be done.  These are general suggestions based on my own experience.

Try not to be too personal.  This is probably the worst problem to overcome with the HSP.  We tend to pick up the nuances in behavior and in brain waives.  We pickup so much information that we can be intimidating to anyone we work with.  It's better to keep that information under your hat.  We also like to know about people and like to interact with people on a personal level.  We have to restrain ourselves from that preference.  It's best to keep communications to a minimal and with light meaning.  That's hard.  We like to get to the root of things and tend to dislike the superficial conversations.  Some of us are even extroverts and like to converse a lot, others, are introverts and like to communicate meaningful things.  The key here is to keep emotional distance from co-workers.  You have to work with everyone and not everyone appreciates personal communication from people like us.

In a work environment it's common to be made fun of.  When this happens to you as an HSP, try to not react to it.  It's considered light fun though it may not feel like it at the time.  Certain characters will take it to the extreme, and it's better not to give them any fuel.  If you can, just find an exit.  It's not worth staying in an environment that is emotionally hostile.  Don't react in kind.  You really want to put your best foot forward.  When you give respect you get respect, but it takes time.

We talked about what not to do.  Now let's talk about what to do with all that pent up energy we absorb at the workplace as HSPs.  Here is what I recommend to do several times during the workday.  Take 4 deep breaths, and with each exhale, use some intent (manifestation, or will) to push out the energy you've absorbed.  Then, reason your current situation at work.  This will help bring down the anxiety level.  You can also be diligent about taking breaks.  Make sure you talk to your supervisor about breaks.  This will help establish your needs with your boss.  You can establish your needs with your coworkers by the way you act.  If you do it vocally, some people will try to argue with you.  You need to avoid arguments.  Anytime you have a serious problem, go to your supervisor.  There are no real friends at work.

For HSPs, the work environment can be naturally hostile.  Knowing how to be reserved and knowing how what to do is important to keep you job.  Eventually, your coworkers will get used to you and move on their attention to something else.  When a new person comes in, you may want to revisit your ways of being reserved.  Jobs are scarce.  It's best to keep yours.

Listening To Intuition

Highly Sensitive People (empaths) are nothing if they're not listeners.  We listen to everything and sometimes wish we didn't.  People in general have intuition.  People in general don't seem to listen to their intuition enough.  Dr. Judith Orloff has an article with a test on how much we listen to our intuition (see Dr. Orloff's article).  Do you listen to your intuition?  We get really busy and focused in our daily lives.  It's common for everyone to get tunnel vision and we loose sight of what is going on around us.  When we do that, things may happen that can affect us without us realizing it.  So it's helpful to stop look and listen to intuition.  What I want to do is highlight some things that may prevent us from listening to our intuition.  Through experience, I found out that trusting intuition does not come easy,  interpreting intuition can be hard, and wishful thinking is a hindrance.

In our society we are told not to listen to feelings, hunches, and imaginations.  Well, not in so many words, but over time and the fact that hard cold facts is what gets listened to rather than preference.  So, it's not surprising that we don't trust when thoughts come to us out of the blue and give us information that seemingly has no evidence.   Our overgrown analytical minds want proof.  The reasoning goes nuts without logical steps.  So we blow the information off.  That information is our intuition telling us something.  We must learn to trust it.  It took me some time to understand that my intuition was giving me good information.  Sometimes even now, my mind wants to say that it's just all my imagination.  That's how strong my analytical brain is.  I have strong reasoning abilities and it often clashes with my intuition.  Telling yourself that there could be something to this information and testing the information is one way to start trusting it.

Interpreting the information gleaned from intuition can be hard to do.  Interpretation is a function of the analytical brain.  To interpret intuition, we need to have a "common frame of reference".  Yeah sure, I took that one from Spock in Star Trek IV The Voyage Home (see quote).  You do have to have a common frame of reference to have practical information.  I see most of the common reference is learned in life as we associate feelings with situations.  Intuition comes in the form of emotion, and emotion is a language in and of itself.  Some things don't translate.  Some things are hard to put in words.  Some things you can only describe.  Some things are a driving force for action.  I went to a balloon race last weekend, and there was a large crowd with a festival.  There were lots of vendors of food and drink.  There were even some student dancers.  I picked up on the overall intuitive emotion int the area and my mouth relaxed and the ends of my mouth were edging upward.  That told me people were relaxed and were enjoying themselves overall.  Sometimes intuition comes like that.  I interpreted that one based on how I reacted to the emotion.  It's quite an art to interpret intuition. 

Wishful thinking is an enemy to intuition.  It will try to override the intuition information.  What I mean is that if you want something bad enough you may try to wish it into existence.  It's important to distinguish between what you want and what your observing.  I use this word observing in the sense of picking up information from intuition.  I have a hard head, as my wife would say.  That means my will is a strong one.  I blame genetics for that (thank you parents).  So, what I have to do is to get into a meditative state and listen for the intuition.  Sometimes, this takes a while.  I don't think it's because the intuition doesn't come to me.  I think it's there all the time.  It just takes a while to quiet down my analytical hard head.  By the way what I call analytical mind Dr. Orloff calls linear mind.  I use that word because I understand that the brain is very very complex, more than science understands.  So I don't think the work linear quite describes it.  Wishful thinking is a function of the analytical mind and it's made when we establish an intent (wish, desire, manifestation, prayer) we made earlier.

So, trusting intuition, interpreting it, and handling wishful thinking can help you listen to intuition.  As you listen, you come to realize that everything changes.  Then the more they change, the more they stay the same.  Sure, it's a paradox.  I think life itself is a paradox as well, but don't ask me to explain it.  The more you listen, the more you will change, and the more you become yourself  and you shed the facades you have in life.

Patience

 Patience is said to be a virtue.  Highly Sensitive People and Empaths are patient listeners.  It's one of the very special gifts that make interpersonal communication so enjoyable.  You can ask yourself how does patience help me in my interpersonal communication and how does it make me feel?  I'm going to explore how patience in interpersonal communication is a power for uplifting emotion.

In law enforcement there's the idea of letting people talk things out.  This requires patience.  Police are usually involved in talking to people who are emotionally charged.  Letting people talk it out helps them sort out the situation mentally.  Sometimes as an empath, I talk to people in regular situations that are passionate about a subject.  Their voice gets louder, they may talk faster, and/or they may have a more active body language.  I let them talk it out until they seem calmer.  Often they appreciate just the listening.  I don't choose these times as a time to argue so I avoid contradicting them.  That includes holding my opinion about the subject.  You might think that this somehow invalidates or ignores my opinion.  On the contrary, I feel it opens the person up to listen to my point of view since I was kind enough to listen to theirs.  As a result, a feeling of friendship and respect develops.  If you have trouble making your point of view known, or your view is not well received, try some patience with your audience.

I love how patience can change your life around.  Judith Orloff's article on patience emphasizes how patience is a powerful tool, though some people may look at it as weakness.  I know a type of person who will try and try to manipulate a highly sensitive person like me into doing whatever they say.  This person does not practice patience but the opposite, they practice urgency.  That is, they make you feel like you have to act now without thinking through the situation.   This is a mean trap.  Listening and being patient without reacting can help you avoid this trap.  I also use other techniques in such situations, like emotionally detaching from the individual.  It's really quite dangerous falling in such traps, because these people will make you their slaves if you let them.  In extreme cases, physical distance can be a good defense.  Using patience can protect you and can help the other person change if they are willing.  You don't have to point out that they need to change it will be evident to them naturally because of the feelings that patience on your part creates in them.

Patiently hearing out someone creates a bond of friendship.  This bond of friendship is spurred by respect you've shown by being patient in listening.  People have very few opportunities to be heard, and it's an innate need for all humans.  The right of free speech is an example of the need to be heard, to be listened to.  Parliament is derived from talking.  That's what legislatures are all about, talk or to be heard.  This is how we get our laws for our societies.  Likewise, being heard is how we derive at rules for ourselves and form ideas about personal situations.  Patience is essential for interpersonal communication to be uplifting.  Have you ever heard people arguing before?  They tend to interrupt one another.  This interruption just perpetuates frustration for both sides.  When one side is patient to listen without judgment, then the other usually reciprocates the courtesy and they both get heard.  Even if they disagree, they can walk away from the conversation feeling uplifted.

I looked at patience in interpersonal communication.  Being patient to let people talk and counter unreasonable urgency meets the need of people to be heard.  Patience is quite a power.

Humans Are Xenophobes

I heard, the other day on the radio, a scientist claiming that humans have more consciousness than plants.  That humans have the most consciousness than all the animals.  To me this smacks of xenophobia.  When xenophobia is used in science fiction, it seems to refer to the fear of other species, namely alien ones.  The true meaning of the word is "an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange" per dictionary.com.  So it has a very broad meaning and implication.  Xenophobia is based on fear, as the name implies.  Fear is a huge driving force for us.  The consequences of this fear extends far and wide in our social lives.  I want to discuss how our definition of consciousness is self serving, how xenophobia repletes our history, and how xenophobia extends to behavioral types.

I cannot say that a tree has more consciousness than I do.  I know they do have consciousness because, as an empath, I can feel it.  In the consciousness wiki, there are some science studies on consciousness.  I think there is a problem with their definition of consciousness.  If you define a consciousness based on humans only with the assumption that humans are the most conscious, then your conclusion would be that humans are the most conscious of all the animals and plants.  Then the conclusion is not a conclusion at all but a bias and an assumption.  Here is the dilemma of science,  that science is based on reasoning, and reasoning is based on language.  Biased assumptions lead to biased conclusions.  I'm afraid that that might be what science has done here.  It's a xenophobic act. Which, of course, is not science at all but just human fear.

Humans have always been xenophobic.  We look at anything or anyone with suspicion if they look or act different than we do. I think we all know this.  Do I have to mention the racism in the United States and in all other countries?  Does Martin Luther King need to give again his "I have a dream" speech?  Decades ago it was not only the color of your skin, but your language and your customs.  Germans against Danish, Italians vs French, etc.  History is replete with examples.  When our fist instinct when we find an unfamiliar animal is to kill it, we are unreasonable.  Cruelty to animals is a xenophobic act.  The other day I saw a semi-truck run over a canada goose without even putting on the breaks.  It made me sick to my stomach.

I dare say the xenophobia also extends to behavioral types.  If you act differently than the crowd, you get labeled.  Terms like nerd and geek were derogatory terms to describe those who weren't sports buffs.  I figure the more insensitive you are to others the more you tend to belittle others for your own ego's satisfaction.  This is the definition of a bully.  I believe bullying is a byproduct of xenophobia.

We looked at how the definition of consciousness is xenophobic, how xenophobia is in our history, and how it extends to behavioral types.  The reason for xenophobia is the fear of the unknown.  The problem with it is that the fear is unreasonable and unfounded.  It's a default response to something new for some people and it shouldn't be.  We need to move beyond it and start analyzing when we encounter a new person or thing. We shouldn't be 'demonizing' it/her/him.  That is what science is for.  That is what critical thinking is for.  This is what education is for.  We should not take new things personally but take steps to understand what it/she/he is all about and find ways to relate to it/her/him.  This is especially true when you encounter people from other race and cultures.  The benefits to understanding are many times more prosperous than refusing to understand.  It's my hope that more people come to this conclusion, that thoughtfulness is a powerful and empowering tool for good.  We should be teaching our children how to go through the process of understanding things.

Obsession or Focus?

As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) I tend to get focused on things.  My loved one says I get obsessed about things.  In fact I get so focused that someone could come up to me an startle me.  I usually give out a sudden high pitched sound and jump up.  That sounds kind of crazy.  They always apologize for it but it's really not their fault.  As kids, my brother would do this to me to see me jump.  There was an amount of shame and guilt associated with this.  For years, I did not understand what was going on.  Now, I would like to describe what this concentrating is like and what I do to help my situational awareness.

I've learned to accept that being focused is part of being a HSP or an empath.  I think it's natural for us to think intently on a subject or item that's in front of us and analyze it or read it.  In such a mode, I seem to naturally shut off all other distractions.  It takes someone coming up to me, sometimes closely to break the concentration.  Other times it takes someone talking rather loudly to break the concentration.  Something else is curious about this.  I tend to concentrate on something for a long time.  Several minutes can pass before I break the concentration myself.  The concept of time warps for me in these instances.

One thing I try to do when I concentrate like that is to take a look around every once in a while.  A problem with this is that the concept of time is warped for me.  So I may look around a couple of times a minute or not look around for several minutes.  That's not very consistent.  So, someone could and do still startle me.  Yeah, it's still a problem I'm dealing with.  At least people just shrug it off, especially when I say it's OK after I literally jump out of my concentration.  Sometimes the other person gets scared and I have to assure them.  It may sound comical, but it's really not for me or the other person.

Well, I gave a short description what this concentration is and what I try to do to minimize it's effects.  Living with this all my life can be traumatizing.  A bully can pick up on this situation and have their way with the HSP.  This is pretty much involuntary for me.

Thinking Through Conflicts

I react to people who push my buttons.  I suppose everyone does.  It's hard in such situations. If you've been there, then you know.  When you react to these things, you do what your pre-set 'programming' says to do.  You vigorously defend yourself.  Then afterwords you feel bad about it when you look over the astonished faces of those around you and you have to deal with the aftermath.  It comes as a surprise to you and to them.  How do you deal with this situation could dictate what your relationship to these people will be.  I recommend excusing yourself and getting away to think it over for a couple of hours.  When you do this you will go through many emotions and plausible plans and outcomes.  Let me give you some advice on how to successfully go through this with minimal damage and maybe come out in a positive light.

After getting away and start to think about what happened, you going to go through some shock and anger.  Your imaginings may shock you because your going to think of extremely extreme things to do that may not be totally legal if at all.  When I go through this, this phase always shocks me and I feel embarrassed of the thoughts.  I think its OK to go through this phase as long as you get to the next phase.  I feel that this phase is the hardest because the strongest emotions are coming out.  These emotion seem to be reactionary emotion.  They do have meaning and should not totally be dismissed, but they shouldn't be acted upon.  The point is that you have been hurt.

To get to the next phase, which is an intermediary phase, you have to tell yourself that your hurt and now it's OK, that your safe.  Then you have to tell yourself that there's a better way to deal with the situation.  Next come the thoughts that evaluate your current situation in a broader aspect.  You start identifying the different people involved and those who could get involved.  You start to think of things to tell the authority whether it's your boss, parent, or even police.  In this phase it's good to seek advice from a trusted friend.  This allows you to express what is going on in your life and helps you think through this phase.  You will come up with ways that may be drastic though legal to retaliate and get revenge or even protection.  If you think through these ideas you will find that they will hurt relationships.  Those relationships include the one with the offender (the person who's pushing your buttons), and your relationship with the authority, and your piers or friends.  In the past I have not moved on from this phase and acted on the thoughts and ended relationships drastically.  It is much much better to say NO to these thoughts and move on to the next phase.  The point here is that your identifying all the direct and indirect players and their positions.

This third phase is a rational phase.  This is where your going to come up with your best ideas.  To get here you need to tell yourself that you really don't want to hurt anyone.  Realize that strife begets strife, that is, if you hurt someone chances are they are going to hurt someone and maybe you.  No, hurting is not the answer.  Empaths and highly sensitive people (HSP) generally don't want to hurt people, but rather prefer healing.  The thoughts in this phase may come as some form of communication which can be verbal and/or non-verbal.  You may choose to tell the person who hurt you to stop hurting you.  You have to gauge this though.  You can use words directly, or you can use body language.  That is, you can walk away or disregard the person when you see they are about to push your buttons.  You also can avoid the person for a time, and later find a way to heal the relationship communicating that you were hurt.  What your doing is a form of punishment on the person.  Everyone has authority on their own person.  You choose who you have a relationship with and who you don't want a relationship with and what kind of relationship that is.  I'm not necessarily talking about love, because love involves a mutual agreement to love each other.  This is more of interpersonal relationship.  Whatever you choose you want to choose a thought that first hurts the least amount of people, and hopefully no one at all.  Second, you want that thought to have some benefit to yourself and the other parties.  Then relationships are strengthened and respect is also strengthened.  The point is to find a win-win situation.

Yes, it's hard when people push your buttons.  It's even a sign that your being bullied.  Taking the necessary steps to think through what your going to do and taking time to think through is important.  Getting to the good thought where relationships are strengthened is preferred.  At first you may feel like the perpetrator, but you have to concede that your also a victim.  If your good thought does not work, then you have your other thoughts in the second phase that should work, but relationships won't be helped.  I think when these things happen they give us an opportunity to grow and become stronger and wiser.  Your wounds will heal through this process.  Some wounds though never heal and you carry them with you all your life, but thinking these actions through can minimize those.  This is a serene subject to write about and think about.  Let's not the hurt build up to some grievous action.  Let's mend the broken hearts.

Communicating Space To Avoid Anger

Highly Sensitive Persons (HSP) need space or alone time.  Most all HSP psychologists and coaches agree on this such as Dr Judith Orloff.  Then they also have a hard time with putting someone out for fear of being misunderstood.  It's also not in their nature to put someone out either.  As a result, they do not assert their need of space among their friends and family, and consequently suffer.  As a HSP myself, I would like to share what I go through when I don't communicate the need, and would like to share how it's possible to make the need known agreeably.

Many, many years ago, I became quite religious.  I had a guy who followed me in religious studies.  I felt he followed me too closely and I really felt confined, even claustrophobic.  Then, I had no idea I was a HSP or empath, nor what it meant.  The friendship ended abruptly with me confronting him with anger and frustration.  I always regretted that.  Throughout my life I have experienced many emotional verbal fights and a lot of them can be attributed to my feeling confined.  I really had no idea how to handle the situation.

Unfortunately it took me just recently to find out first hand how to handle the situation.  I had to do this with another friend.  You see, when I feel confined like this I want to get out so bad.  I just want to escape.  I cornered a geko once in a corner and it reacted very forcefully opening its mouth wide and taking a fighting stance.  I also cornered a horse and the resulting behavior was much the same.  It's no different with us.  The way to let people know how you feel is to take them aside.  Explain that you need space and time alone.  Explain that it's not because of them and that you value the friendship/relationship.  They might be taken by surprise, but they will most lightly agree to your terms. The reason is that it doesn't affect them.  Most people are motivated on the selfish level.  That's awful to say, I know, but when you think about it it's true.  Keeping their self esteem intact will usually allow them to agree.

If you doing what I have done and causing strife in your relationships because you feel confined, stop.  Taking the time and courage to share with them your need should do wonders.  Once you do this your anger and frustration will dissipate.  I believe that HSPs are better off fostering strong relationships.

Highly Sensitive President

History is full of characters.  Most are serious 'A' types, some are funny, some are sad, but all are extraordinary.  From its very beginning, the United States has been an environment where every type of extraordinary people can make their mark.  Lincoln was said to be a failure at everything except his Presidency, but this is not about Lincoln.  If you think about the different personality types in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) how many of those types make a mark in history?  Julius Ceasar, Napoleon, Henry VIII, General Patton, George Washington, and Lenin are all strong political figures who we think of having good judgement, rely on their thinking, and have good handle on their five senses.  Could a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) have a political role as powerful as President of the United States?  Well there may have already been a Highly Sensitive President.  I was watching a documentary by Ken Burns on Thomas Jefferson.  Though the people commenting on the documentary were historians, they gave me the impression that Jefferson was indeed a HSP.

The documentary right at the start states that Jefferson was a controversial figure.  He wrote about liberty for all men, even made several bills on emancipation, but did not free his own slaves.  Thus the historians see him as a dichotomy and cannot quite make out what he was, whether a hypocrite or something else entirely.  In trying to explain the problem, the historians go into Jefferson's persona. Jefferson is described as a poor speaker and as soft spoken individual.  He was also brilliant in being a diplomat, an engineer, a farmer, and an architect.  He squandered the first year of college getting caught up in the atmosphere, but after that he studied 15 hours a day.  He wrote without notes.  He traveled with a chess set and a violin, no ipods, tablets, or ipads in that day, let alone phones.  If you wanted music you had to make it yourself.  As a consequence, he suffered when he was away from his family cause he heard nothing from them.  His wife at the time was in great distress cause her child died.  He was quoted as stating, "Every human being must be viewed according for what it is good for, for none of us, no not one, is perfect.  And were we to love none who had imperfections, this world would be a desert for our love."  He also wrote the Declaration of the United States of America which states that all men are created equal.  All these little fact point to some of the empath's or HSP's traits such as loyalty, deep feeling, focused, absorbing environments, and wishing goodness for all men.

In the documentary there were two statements made that affirmed my suspicions on Jefferson.  The first said, "Jefferson was an incredibly sensitive man, thin skinned, vulnerable, fragile in character.  ...His greatest desire was harmony and to be loved, and couldn't stand not to be loved."  This statement alone showed me that the historians in the documentary who studied Thomas Jefferson were giving an accurate account on his personality in that he was indeed highly sensitive.  The second statement said, "This was the real Thomas Jefferson, a man who loved deeply, who felt deeply."  To me, this seals it, he was highly sensitive.  The only way historians can judge a historical figure is by what they did and what they wrote.  Jefferson was a brilliant writer.

On the basis of this documentary I believe that Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was indeed a Highly Sensitive Person.  The controversy about him and why he didn't do according to how he wrote, I believe, could possibly be found if we understood him as a sensitive.  Modern Psychology is not unanimous about the affirmation of HSPs.  How then could we expect historians to understand this?  Perhaps someone would be crafty enough to make a Myers-Briggs test or some other personality test for historical figures and we could understand them a little better and why they made the choices they did.  Understanding personality types would be a great benefit to humanity.  As for Thomas Jefferson as an HSP, I think to judge him with our modern lens is a mistake.  We cannot change what he did or didn't do, it's history.  I believe we now have a little more insight in this historical figure on who's words men are becoming free even today.

Think You Might Be An Empath?

If you wonder if your an empath there are no lack of websites and advise on how to tell.  Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is a term that has a presence on the internet.  It's a psychological term for empath.  There now are several psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and coaches who cater to HSPs.  Many have tests from psychologists or esoteric teachers.  These tests can give a sense of disappointment if you prove not to be an empath or HSP.  If you wonder if your and empath, you're really on a quest to understand yourself.  To seek to understanding your strengths and weaknesses is a noble quest.  Every type of person is important, and everyone should understand how they can contribute to their themselves, their loved ones, their community, and their society better.  I will give a couple of ways that would seem less bias and a more generally beneficial a way.

The personality test I recommend is the Briggs-Meyer test.  You can find many free online Briggs-Meyer tests just by googling.  The result of the test is four letters that describe you, or your preferences.  You can read up on it in the link I provided.  When you do take the test, I recommend to take it 3 times to get some consistency.  You may not be familiar with the language of the test so that would skew the results.  Taking it more than once is a good idea, with the idea that the last time you take it is the best result.  Also, taking more than one test online might be a good way to go as well.  Now there are 16 distinct results from the test.  You are only one of them.  Where do HSPs fall into?  They fall into the results that have NF in them.  There are 4 of those: INFJ, INFP, ENFJ, ENFP.  Now just because you have NF in your result may not mean that you are indeed an HSP.  I'm not a researcher on this, so I have to allow for this possibility.  With any result from the test, it's a good idea to read up on it via Wikipedia and other sources.  Always check out the sources mentioned in Wikipedia because academically Wikipedia is not a valid source in and of itself.  If you do have NF in your result, then you may want to check out the other empath and HSP tests that are strictly geared for HSPs.  This test lets you know of your preferences on how you operate and relate to things and people in your world.  Understanding these can help resolve long standing problems you may have encountered in communicating with other people.

The bad news about HSPs and empaths is that they have a disability.  That disability is that they sense too much.  So much so that they will be involuntarily affected by peoples emotions and/or pain.  This disability will show itself in everday happenings.  Evaluating and acknowledging the happenings that go on around you and affect you can confirm if your an empath/HSP or not.  Mind you it seems that through meditation, a normal person can become clairsentient and feel as well as empaths, but it doesn't mean they are empaths/HSPs.  Personally, I'm affected by people's emotion.  Strong emotion from another person will cause me to act in kind.  I take on their emotional state and imitate it without thinking.  Which is why I have made arguing matches into shouting matches, been overly sad by a sad event, and able to reflect emotion to a person.  Of course if you find out you are an empath/HSP, then you have a lot of work to do.  They need time to train themselves how to operate in a emotional and painful world.  Over time, they can turn the disability into one or more abilities.

[UPDATE]
I've been reading Emotional Freedom by Judith Orloff.  It's a great book for all people.  It has self evaluation tests and helps you determine emotional problems and preferences.  I highly recommend it, especially if you want to evaluate yourself.  Dr Judith Orloff is Psychiatrist and an empath herself.

To take an empath or HSP test is not enough to find out who you are.  Taking the Briggs-Meyer personality test and evaluating your behavior in daily stimuli can give you a bigger picture of who you are and whether you are an empath/HSP.  Either way knowing yourself is important for your self development and the betterment of the world.  The Ancient Greek maxim "Know Thyself" comes to mind when I think of how to better myself.  We are a mystery most of all to ourselves.

Understanding Emotion

How should we, as a society, understand emotion?  Why am I asking this question?  We take emotion for granted without really studying it.  We have moments of fear, happiness, sadness, joy, jealousy, elation, and many more emotions.  But what is emotion?  In the 1960's science fiction played with the entity that had no emotion, they also played with entities that could feel other people's emotion.  Emotion has been on people's brains for a long time.  There are a great many theories of emotion in the medical and psychological fields.  Just check out the wiki on emotion.  Seeing that it is a subject that is studied and used in so many fields would lead you to believe that emotion is innate to humans, and you would be right, but lacking.  Why would you be lacking?  As an empath, I see that animals and plants also have emotion, and that emotion lingers in places where people use to be.  In my experiences, I came to the conclusion that emotion is a language of its own.  It is a language of this universe.  I want to discuss my experiences with emotion in the areas of space-time, telepathy, and sharing emotion with other entities to show how I understand emotion as a highly sensitive person.  Here is a warning, this has nothing to do with science as our society understands it today.

Emotion is energy.  Energy exists in space-time. Like lingering footprints in the forest, emotion lingers in places.  When you enter in a room, do you feel the atmosphere?  I feel the atmosphere of an office, and its different than that of a movie-theater, which in turn is different than that of a stage theater. Depending on what goes on in a room will dictate the emotion.  These are rooms that have the same thing go on in them day after day and night after night.  Once I did an experiment.  I stood outside a building and closed my eyes and got into a meditative state.  I then focused on the building and counted people I sensed in a large room.  I then went inside and check for the results and I was right.  I was able to count the people currently in the room with my eyes closed.  The experience was interesting because in sensing the people they were like blobs or mounds of emotion.  When I counted I counted each mound.  The rest of the room had emotion as well but of a lesser degree so the people stood out.  Another time I wondered how we can pick up on emotion that is on a different time.  If you remember some fond memory, you feel what you felt back then.  Sometimes you can smell what you smelt back then.  If you read about a historical figure and then focus on that person and an incident, you start to get some feelings.  I believe we can pick up the emotion of those in the past even if we did not experience them ourselves.  Two specific incidents that easily conjure up emotion are the sinking of the Titanic and the first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  Anyone can immediately pinpoint the time, the place, and even the emotion with those events.  Excitement and awe at Kitty Hawk.  Sadness, anger, duty at the Titanic.  Both have a sense of trepidation.  It's just like being there.  This is what I mean when I say emotion exists in space-time.  Many say, 'I wish I could go back to that time and place and witness.'  For sensitives, the brain is a time machine.  In this way, I concur with the movie Somewhere in Time, which is a story of a man finding love in a timeslip.  I don't think interaction is possible this way but observing the past is by experiencing the emotion of the past.

Telepahy, is defined as communication between minds by some means other than sensory perception.  We  have some fanciful ways of thinking what telepathy is in practice thanks to television shows and movies.  The way I have experienced telepathy is by communicating with plants, animals, and suggestive messages.  At this point I understand if you think I'm out of my mind and that such things are not possible.  Not everyone acknowledges these things.  In this area is where I realized that emotion is truly a language.  I had had communication with trees, that is putting my back against them and just listen to their emotion.  I did find out that sick trees feel sour, and bigger trees in are stronger than their surrounding smaller trees.  The other thing that I found out is that time for trees is much much longer than for people.  I shan't go into details of my communications with trees at the risk of sounding even more bizarre than I do.  One night I was walking when I got a sensational chill down my spine.  I stopped and wondered what it was.  I looked around and there was a cat staring at me.  It occurred to me that the chill came from the cat.  I sent a telepathic message saying hi.  I got another chill in response.  I couldn't make out the message of the cat.  I suppose it uses a different style of language than I do.  My telepathy is English riding on emotion.  To linguist that may not sound right, but to people who have studied radio waves and frequencies that makes sense.  You see you can have a radio program in different human languages, but the language that the radio understands is the that of radio waves.  The radio on the other hand doesn't interpret video signal on the radio waves.  I suppose its the same difference between humans and cats as it is between audio signals and video signals.  Now with humans, telepathy is interesting.  I have not sat down in one room and tried to telepathically communicate with another person in another room.  Instead, I have sent suggestive messages via telepathy. The messages I send out are real short and to people that I can see.  For example in grocery stores, I typically would tell someone I'm coming up to that I'm going a certain route and if they could get out of the way.  They usually do.  I've noticed that normal people can get the messages, if they are open to them.  The ones that don't get the message are usually non-sensitives, that is those who are not sensitive at all.  It is rather fun sending out a quick message and seeing that a person gets it and responds accordingly.

Another way I understanding emotion is by sharing it.  For instance, I already mentioned that I put my back against a tree and feel its emotion.  In that instance I'm sharing the emotion of the tree.  The effect is that it helps me calm down.  Even when I detach from the tree I still feel the lingering emotion in me.  I also share in the emotion of other people.  If a person is excited then I get excited.  If they get angry, I get angry.  Most of this is involuntary as it is for most highly sensitive people.  I share the emotion of a room of people whether it's a concert, theater, or a meeting.  In crowds I get exited because of all the emotion floating around.  When I feel safe around people I will let their emotion flow through me, but when I feel threatened I will put up a shield.  This sharing emotions is innate in highly sensitive people.

So I shared how I experience emotion in the areas of space-time, telepathy, and sharing emotion.  Everyone is different.  Your experiences are probably different than mine.  I just wish the rest of the world would learn to understand how emotion works so we would stop stepping on each-others' toes.