Empathy

My daughter is what I’d like to call a ‘natural’ being.  When she’s happy she’s truly happy and she knows when she’s upset.  She only cries when something is wrong or hurting and not, as is advertised by “well-meaning” parenting books, to manipulate a situation.   She has no sense of time, according to a clock, except for the changing of light and shadow.  She’s able to go for a walk unrushed and untethered.  My daughter is absolutely sincere in her expression.  She is truth personified.  I may be a mother madly in love but I’m sharing being witness to my daughter to illustrate something so essential to all of us.  We were all once just like her.  

My daughter and I cuddle as she lays to sleep at night.  Some nights it feels like it takes forever for her to go to sleep.  Others, she’s asleep within minutes.  There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why some nights are easier than others.  While I used to lay with her and let my mind wander or do some leisure reading on my phone, one night something changed for me.  Grace was quiet and not getting up every couple of minutes like she usually does when she’s trying to avoid sleep because she’s too tired to handle it.  She wasn’t trying to engage me or crawl on top or around me.  This night I was reading on my phone and for minutes straight Grace was fidgeting and twitching or consistently rocking her head from side to side, the latter she’d never done before.   I thought this behavior bizarre and then it occurred  to me.  When I massage I can feel the tension/kinetic energy within my clients as their minds are whirring non-stop.  The kinetic energy varies.  It can be very loud or it can be a low buzz but it's usually obvious to me when my clients are mentally anywhere else but on my massage table.  

I put my phone down, consciously quieted my mind and relaxed my body.  My daughter fell asleep within 2 minutes.  I don’t think it was a coincidence.  I recall another evening where as soon as I felt her start to settle I figured she’d be asleep soon and started to let my mind wander.  She was fidgeting and trying to get up within seconds.  Nights when my brain is really buzzing are the nights Grace really fights settling long enough to sleep.  Those nights, instead of calming myself and risking falling asleep I find it easier to physically separate myself from her.  Whenever I’ve done this, she’s asleep within several minutes.  I’m making the assumption she’s able to sleep because she’s not getting charged by my kinetic energy anymore.  

I’ve been consciously touching people for years now so I’ve had many an opportunity to be cognizant of how thoughts and emotions can radiate off people.  We were all just like my daughter once.  And I believe we still are in the most fundamental way.   I believe we are all Empathic.  But for lack of practice, perhaps we are not more Sensitive to this Sense.  Like when someone stops listening to their intuition they can forget what it sounds/feels like.  

Let’s work with this metaphysical truth that we are all connected and feeling what others feel whether we’re conscious of it or not.  I know so many who are emotionally struggling right now, myself included.  If we could but get in touch with how we are not alone in our struggle, then maybe we can all have a little more compassion for ourselves and each other. As Aubrie put it so well:  “We have the empathy inside of us but we’ve lost touch with it.  Now is the time to be in touch with our empathy because we all need each other right now.”  Our empathy can be a step towards compassion.

This is a call to let go of the ego some and recognize we are all struggling right now. This is a call to be kind. Maybe if we each express and experience a little more kindness to ourselves and others we can shift the current collective consciousness and help us all to heal.