We can not relieve someone of their feelings

I awoke around midnight and slowly became aware of a gentle song playing through the darkness. The girl next door was singing and softly strumming a guitar. I couldn’t hear the words but the tone was hauntingly beautiful. I closed my eyes and listened, feeling caressed and rocked like a baby being lullabied.

A few minutes later, I heard a man’s angry voice swearing loudly at someone on the street outside my home. His abusive noise drowned out the singing and I found myself tensing and feeling annoyed and offended by him. He sounded drunk and I anticipated his argument was heading towards a fight. I tried to will him away. For a moment, I considered walking out to the balcony and yelling at him to shut up or threatening to call the police.

I felt indignant that he had imposed his rage on me when I had been in such a peaceful, gentle place. Between his outbursts, I was able to shift back into alignment with the singing girl. This happened a few times, before I became aware that between these two people, I was emotionally being pulled into two extremes. I pulled my awareness back and observed myself. I was neutral, in the safety and comfort of my own bed. I was in the middle of this interesting polarity of aggression and serenity. As I shifted my focus from one to the other, I observed my body as it responded and synchronized with these two opposing energies.

Neither of them had any awareness of me and I had no knowledge of them, other than their sound. It was interesting to me to see how they were able to manipulate both physical and emotional responses in me. It was even more interesting, to see how my body reacted, and how many judgements I made. I studied myself as I deliberately tuned in to each of them a number of times. It was such a fantastic example of how our thoughts and emotions are influenced or perhaps even dominated by our choice of focus.

I have always paid attention to my thoughts and I try to catch destructive threads as soon as I can. I have also tried to maintain communication with my emotions and my body. Since the diagnosis, I have become even more protective of my body. I am currently having a love affair with my body; with my life for that matter. I am constantly watching what I think and feel, what I eat, how I move and breathe and how I interact with others. I am also removing, redefining, changing, increasing, pacing or embracing people, things and habits. In short, I am doing my best to release myself from anything destructive or toxic.

“Choice of Focus” has become a law for me to live by. The little example of me lying on the bed and switching focus between two extremes illustrates how easily we can be taken away from ourselves. It made me realize how often we take on other peoples stuff and run it through our own system. In my own life there is good and bad; on the world stage and throughout history that is a consistent. Highs and lows, dark and light, life and death – everything is operating within a range of positive and negative. So much of our experience is a matter of choice of focus.

Many of us understand this law and try to live by it. We have the power to choose our thoughts, emotions and behaviours; we have the ability to recreate our lives. But, are we too often out of our own bodies and involved in other people’s lives; missing most of our own? Do we honestly believe that we have mastered ourselves so completely that we are capable of taking on authority over others? Are we really so invincible that we can run other people’s emotions through our own system? Or, are we just unaware of how open and receptive we are to the influence of others?

We all have our own emotional worlds to explore and balance and this is never more important than when we are fighting disease. I am no longer looking at cancer as a disease. In fact, I am looking at disease as a symptom. It’s not about catching a disease which attacks the body. It is about the body being too weak or so overloaded that it is unable to cope with too little of what it needs and too much of what does it harm. Toxins and pollutants accumulate, we don’t get enough oxygen or sunlight, we are over stressed and over tired, we lack nutrients and eat and drink lifeless matter, we drug ourselves, we maintain unhappiness and treat ourselves with disrespect and abuse. These things tend to be consistent and it usually takes years before the body finally reaches a ponit of being unable to cope. We act like disease just appears unexpectedly and unfairly. Unbelievably, we expect it to be cut out or drugged away with every intention of carrying on as before. Disease is not a thing; it is the body in a state of crisis!

Healing is not just a matter of destroying a symptom. Long term health means serious long term changes to lifestyle habits. The body must be detoxed and rejuvenated. It needs proper nutrition, fresh air and clean water. Stress and fear needs to be controlled and purpose, fulfilment and enjoyment needs to be enhanced. We do get to choose how to treat our own bodies and the same is true for our thoughts and emotions.

It is not so easy to see how other people or external events are healing or harming us, but it is certainly worth giving it some attention. We don’t have control over what goes on around us, but we do have a choice in how we perceive it. We are capable of absorbing the energies of others and we are very often bled of our own energies. No one is here to experience or control another’s life and yet far too many of us are unconsciously trying to do just that.

We do need to make good choices and practical changes when it comes to our health and well being. But, just as importantly, I believe that we must consciously pull back our energy and focus more on our own realities. We need to be present in our own lives and less seduced by the dramas of others. We need to be a lot more discerning about what emotions we absorb. We have one life – our own life. Hopefully, we will influence others in a positive way, but let’s not forget that they have their own journey as well, and it is never up to us to live it for them. We can not relieve someone of their feelings by taking them into our own bodies. But, we sure can destroy ourselves by doing so.

It’s so easy to think that our compassion, caring and good advice is about what nice people we are. Empathy is about connecting and sharing someone else’s pain and we believe that the more empathetic that we are, the better we are as people. To a very small degree this is true, but to be brutally honest with ourselves, we might well uncover that our empathy is more often a control issue. We can care and support or listen and help others and we should. Very often though, we are assuming responsibility and demanding that things be right – our measure of right. We do want people to think like us, be like us and feel like us; we insist that others do things our way. We also want to be liked and admired, we love to prove ourselves right. We also secretly feel a little superior if we take charge and produce a good outcome.

Empathy becomes a very big problem when we habitually find ourselves worried, anxious, exhausted or frustrated by being too involved and too responsible for other people. Thinking that we are the only ones who care or that they can’t deal with the things we can, or we feel we must be available because they love us. Isn’t it really true that we are simply bleeding out to prove we care? Perhaps making ourselves indispensable or just approval seeking?

And who are we to insist that others must never fail, make mistakes or do things the hard way? It’s a bit egotistical don’t you think? We are not the parents of the world and we are no ones God. Assist – don’t insist!

Disease or illness is often a matter of being totally burned out. One of the main reasons people become so burned out is that they are habitually taking on the pains of others and running those issues through their own system. Everyone has a right to make their own decisions – right or wrong. We must allow others their freedoms. Offer advice, help or allow them to talk, but don’t take over, don’t repeat the same advice over and over and stop cleaning up their mess! Stop being an emotional waste dump for others.

We all learn through our mistakes, we grow from our pain and failure. Let’s allow others to have their experience.

Copyright Sonya Green 2008 www.reinventingmyself.com
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