El Ser

 'El ser' is a Spanish word which has such a profound meaning, it should be the first lesson everybody should learn. There is no good translation into English for the thought that this word conveys. 

If I literally translated 'el ser' into English, it would be 'the being.' Then you would be thinking of a monster movie, and that's the wrong thought completely.

If I try to tell you a more relatable translation, I might say 'your being.' This too is disingenuous because this talks about you and who you are and not something you possess. You cannot possess who you are any more than you can grab air with your bare hands. You are who you are.

No, it is 'the being as in you' or 'you are the being' or even better 'the being who is you.' 

Some may say, "Oh, your soul." Others may say, "Oh, your spirit." No! You are not your soul or your spirit. You possess a soul. You possess a spirit. The being who is you cannot be possessed.

The being who is you is a free person. The being who is you thinks. The being who is you learns. The being who is you loves. The being who is you hopes. The being who is you dreams.

There is nothing else like the being who is you. You are unique and irreplaceable.

Home

Where is home?

I traveled so much in my life from such a young age that the concept of home has always been “over there” instead of “here.”

Home was a time and place of happiness that never was. As a child I imagined it existed, but as I grew up I came to realize that it was never true.

I saw the families of my friends and how happy they were. It's little wonder I would spend time in their houses rather than mine.

Now, I am married and have settled down for over a decade. I just realized home is here. Home is where love is.

The Great Quest

This world will tell you what or who you should be from day one.  For the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and Empath this is a tragedy.  Without knowledge, we HSPs will listen to any idea out there and abide by it just out of sheer loyalty.  Self can get lost.  Some people feel like they need to forgive themselves.  I think they might have gotten their 'self' really lost. It's essential for the HSP to figure out who and what they are so that they can grow and be effective in society.

Its easy to live in someone's reality.  We do it as children.  We get to live in our parents' reality.  We may not get the message that we are to create our own reality.  That is, live in our own world and play our own game.  It may be a frightening thing to start down that road, but start we inevitably must.  Sooner or later we will be without our parents.  We may start our own families, careers, hobbies, and preferences.  I know of people who have the hardest time taking that step.  I recommend to take a deep breath and jump in.  Like jumping in a pool, it may feel awful at first but you soon get your bearings.

I realize it's hard to disconnect from parents, mentors, or even friends.  If you have a great family life, it is harder to disconnect than if you had a bad family life.  If you do come from a great family, being on your own is important to discover yourself and figure out how to better yourself.  Sometimes separation is thrusted upon you like entering the military, moving because of a new job, or even a death.  In such cases, I think it's important not to latch on to anyone else but to become self sufficient and start planning what you want to do.  It's only when your alone can you meditate and figure out your own feelings.


Eventhough you are on your own, your really not alone.  Parents, mentors, friends should be a phone or text message away for advice.  It's good to listen to your guides.  Guides come not only from people in your life, but also from what people say, what papers and blogs write, what books say...etc.  I think the most important guide to listen to is the guidance you get when you meditate.  You can extend your feelers to the world around you and figure out what it coming.  Feelings and premonitions are normal to have.  Too often people ignore these.  It is good to take these into consideration while you observe the physical world.  Of course, one of the most important guide is the plan you laid out for yourself.  That is, the things you want in the future.

Why am I encouraging HSPs to be their own person?  Well, it's because it took a long time for me to realize that that is the better way.  There are groups out there that recruit the unsuspected into their ideology, theology, or 'mission.'  These groups are self absorbed manipulative masters.  No, the HSP is better off on their own and figuring out how to help people in the world around them.  The Quest in this life should be for the betterment of self and community.  Do not waste it on someone else's ideals.  More often than not, if you do follow someone else they usually are sociopaths.  These people have no concern for anyone else but their own goals no matter what it costs others.  That's why I give this warning to all HSPs and Empaths.

Constructing Your Fortress of Safety

Wouldn't you love to have a house by the ocean or a mountain with cool breeze.  Someplace to call your own and where you can be at peace?  Well, we live in the real world where people bother us, lie to us, and don't often enough seem to improve themselves.  For the Highly Sensitive Person this world is a nightmare of constant bombardment of emotions.  Having a mental place of solitude and safety can help the day to day debacle.  It's a place to go to de-stress when you can't go anywhere else.  Let's build ourselves a safe place and fill it with useful things, and this is how you do it.

Make a building.  It can be a building you know or one you make up.  Make sure that it's a building where you feel love and loved.  To help your memory, you can draw it.  Make detailed plans about it.  Then, think about the base material with which you want it built.  I like concrete.  Its strong and durable.  Large logs are also a good option.  The point is that the outer wall should be for protection from the outer world.  Imagine the outer walls.  Feel them inside and out.  Then lay a reflective shield on the outside.  Next, lay a blue inner shield on the inside.  Now you have the shell of your home, your fortress of safety.

Now lets populate the place.  Think what rooms you will need.  I personally opted for a worship room, a library, and an intimate space.  You should make rooms where you will spend some time in and use for your own needs.  Now visit each room.  Put lights in it.  Put down a nice floor and wall paneling.  Put some furniture you like in it.  You should feel comfortable in this fortress of safety.  Once your comfortable there, you will want to spend time there.

Sure it's your place and your space, but it doesn't have to be lonely in there.  Make characters that though are an extension of yourself, can do tasks for you.  I strongly recommend a guardian angel or a bodyguard of some sort.  You never know when you might get an unexpected visitor that plans to stay.  Bodyguards are good to throw out unwanted guests.

I have always heard that it is good to keep your house in order.  Keeping your mind in order is also good.  This method is a 3 dimensional way of doing that.  Since I have started residing in my house in my mind, I have been more at peace and less affected  by the world around me. 

Primary Perception and Sensitives

Cleve Backster discovered Primary Perception with a lie detector, plants and other lifeforms.  This is a controversial theory.  When the scientific method is used as experiments, repeatability is a serious problem.  Any plant grower can tell you that plant respond to their environment.  Amount of sun light, types of soil, amount of water are factors in how plants respond.  Some plant are described as fickle, like the African Violet.  Perhaps that's why the University of Rhode Island recommends pasteurizing the soil for these house plants.  As an empath I can concur with Backster in that plant do have emotions and do communicate, but they do this in their own way.  I would like to share what I found out about them, what we know about them, and why I think the experiments are not adequate.

Common trees are the plants that I've felt.  Empaths feel emotion and are great listeners and communicators by nature.  We can just about relate to anyone.  Through my experiences, I find that the basis of thought is emotion.  That is contrary to popular belief.  Trees don't relate like we do.  Their timeline is much longer than ours.  They are not concerned about many things, but they do live in the present.  They are joyous with the sun, and they are quiet in the winter.  They are aware of themselves and trees around them.  When they are sick, they feel ill and don't want anyone to be around them.  Their emotion follows their looks.  Humans have are able to look at a tree and determine its state for may centuries.  The ground around them they consider to be theirs since their root system is in it.  I guess you can say that they are territorial.

Science does say that trees are alive.  They grow and reproduce.  In their own way, they also move.  Humans can look at a tree and determine its state of health.  Trees are made up of many cells and lack a central nervous system.  There are animals in the ocean that look like and act like one animal but in reality are a community of animals.  In a similar way, the cells of a tree work together to collect nutrients and gasses and light for the common good.  A government is not an one organism, but made up of many people in different functions all working together with all kinds of communication going on.  How do the cells of a tree work together unless they communicate somehow?  If the cells communicate with each other, what bars them form communicating with other lifeforms especially of their own species?  Humans don't readily communicate with trees, so its logical that they consider trees as non-communicative beings.  That would be due to ignorance rather than science.

So why would the science be so inconclusive?  I think one of the problems is the assumptions of the experiments and the experimenters.  If we are talking about communication beyond our five senses, and we are using our five senses then we are doomed to failure.  Even our electronic equipment have not been vetted to detect such communications.  We assume they are.  We assume it must be electromagnetic communication.  We assume that brain waves we know of are the only form of communication beyond the five senses.  I say we assume too much.  When the experiments are inconclusive then there is more research to be done.  There is more to be learned.  There is likely a whole field of study that we know nothing about that we need to explore.  Another problem is that when were talking intuition, analytical science fails to understand.  Science is a total analytical process.  Intuition does not obey the rules of analytics.  Its like trying to understand quantum mechanics with Newtonian Physics.  It just doesn't work.  Computer programmers try to get around the gap between the way a computer process information and our analytical operating of our brains by using fuzzy logic and other AI techniques in programs and devices.  Can Science take the same leap?  I believe they were able to do it in Physics by revisiting their assumptions.  They added probability to the equations.  This, Einstein notoriously hated.  A new approach to investigate Primary Perception is needed.

So Primary Perception just might prove to be a real thing one day.  Trees are living beings and empaths can pick up on their emotions.  Just because science produces inconclusive experiments doesn't mean that's the end of the story.  Reevaluation of assumptions and means of measuring is needed to create experiments that can have a positive result.

Music and HSP

I've come to the realization that as an highly sensitive person (HSP) and an empath, my experiences may not reflect the experiences of other people.  Consequently, my music experience may not be the same as that of other people.  I remember a study I heard about that concluded that 10% of the population cannot appreciate music like the rest.  We all process information differently.  We do not all appreciate the same things in the same degree.  We are different from one another.  I'm going to detail my experience.

It's not about casual listening.  If I wanted casual listening, I'd listen to elevator music. I'm not personally into that.  What it is about is drama.  I'm a sucker for a good drama.  Take for instance the Romeo and Juliet Ballet by Sergei Prokofiev.  Strength and a sense of establishment is portrayed.  Then there are times when its soft and light embracing every moment and gesture as when lovers first meet.  The contrast is astounding.  Or take the New World Symphony by Antonin Dvorak.  The music invokes majestic views of the Rockies, the Plains, and the Coasts of the continental United States.  Strength and softness combine to incur happiness and peace of mind.

Sometimes a song with a story will get my attention and not let it go.  This has happened to me so many times I can't count.  A Day In The Life by the Beatles has done and still does this to me.  Its not just the music, but its also the words that keep my conscious on it.  Then it feels like a drug.  I get high off of the song.  This can last several hours if not a couple of days.  Other songs that do this to me are Ode To Billy Joe by Bobby Gentry, The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia by Vicki Lawrence, Drops of Jupiter by Train, and One Piece At A Time by Johnny Cash.  This is just a short list.  I can't express to you the joy of experiencing these songs for hours on end.  It doesn't seem that many people experience this music quite as I do.  Well, at least none that I've personally been around.

Music is very important to humans.  Its strange that just a mixture of sounds communicate deep deep emotion and life experiences.  I don't doubt that other highly sensitive people and empaths experience music and other entertainment in a deep way as I do.  Though we have our things that we enjoy, we must make room for others not to enjoy the same things and not as much either.  To me such experiences are just one of the benefits of being highly sensitive.

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.

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.