By Thea Iberall
Twice now in the last month I experienced someone else's emotions. I didn’t pick it up from their facial expression or the tone of their voice. I just suddenly felt an emotion that didn’t feel organic to the situation I was in. It got me curious about innate abilities that humans have.
I read that we are innately programmed through evolution to live socially. We form friendships with unrelated people. We unselfishly cooperate with others. We’re kind to strangers. We teach each other things. Our social focus is so real that Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”
This social living involves communication. But communication is not just verbal. 93% of our communication is non-verbal.
It's interesting to realize that in order to be social, we have to first become more individualistic. Our faces have to be different. And our brains have to learn to recognize faces. We are intuitive face readers from birth on. A baby's brain lights up when looking even at a picture of her or his mother's face.
But are facial features random? Some claim a science can be made of face reading. That there is a correlation between the features of the human face and the personality traits of its owner. For example, a straight nose belongs to a person who makes buying decisions logically. Protruding ears are a sign of independence and nonconformity. Curved eyebrows are on people-oriented people. Arched ones are on controlling personalities.
I realized a long time ago that I have trouble with face recognition. I always have to see a person a second time in order to remember them. Something is being recorded in my brain the first time I meet someone, but obviously not enough information. Other people are the exact opposite. I once walked into a doctor’s office and a man in the waiting room greeted me by name. He said he had been a workshop instructor 15 years earlier and I was one of the students. I remembered the class, but I barely remembered him.
What other innate skills do we have besides being programmed to live socially? I found other skills. Our innate skill to create and interpret facial expressions of emotion, like smiles and blushing and sadness. Another one is how we can keep ourselves safe through things like our reflexes. We have a sense about numbers upon which mathematical ability is built. We have an innate ability to learn languages. And we have imagination skills which start with pretending in childhood and leads to creative thinking.
Our culture respects all these because they lead to our functional and social well-being. But other skills, like being an empath or having psychic abilities, our culture frowns on. There's no psychic reading classes for 3rd graders to take along with long division and computer skills.
I had glimpses of empathic experiences years starting 25 years ago. Now I am having more. I attribute to all the work I am doing to clear my energy. For example, the work I did exploring Attar’s seven valleys: to see beyond what I think I know, to detach so as to want nothing in order to see what others want, to unify all opposites, and to accept all contradictions as being equal. Basically, to expel everything that does not belong to the core of me, and to be in a loving state in every moment.
As our hearts are broken open, our hearts become our brains and we begin to sense more. What I'm experiencing isn't really abnormal, it's just my innate abilities growing. As we grow spiritually, our curiosity widens with our awareness. As we include our energy body more into our awareness and have more respect for these abilities, we develop more willingness to grow into them. Healing my heart pain opens my heart more.
Participants' Reflections:
Thank you. That last line was just stunning. It’s what I went into the meditation with. That healing can happen a long time after one has been pained and living with pain for a long time. I think that is hopeful when we do this inner work, so much more is possible.
I thank you for this a lot. I am naturally empathic and have tried to quell it. I think it has to do with taking on other’s emotions or circumstances. I appreciate your welcoming it and accept and let it be. When you talked about unifying all opposites, I’m working on both/and. I liked the line ‘when we grow spirituality, curiosity grows.’ I love spending the days wondering about things. Thank you.
That was an amazing reading. Enough to chew on for weeks. As we deepen emotionally, our intuition also increases.
I read recently where Margaret Mead was asked what was the first major step for humanity. It wasn’t a particular technology, but she said it was finding an ancient body who had a healed bone. It implied someone taking care of that person while they were vulnerable. It was that giving, even in harsh conditions that someone cared for someone else. The other thing that came to me is about the glass wall. It’s a way to protect oneself as an empath is to imagine a glass wall between you and the other person. It’s an image I use around my solar plexus to protect myself. A mesh around me and then a glass sheet around me to block negative energy.
I run my meridians every day to protect myself.
I’ve always been that way about animals, just knowing what state an animal is in. I also think that, since I’m that sensitive, maybe I’m picking up on people’s feelings. It’s easy for me to get pulled down because I am empathic.
Thank you for your reading. What’s coming up for me is intuition, knowing something just because I know it. I work on discerning whether it’s something I know on a deep level or is it just my mind taking me somewhere. I met a friend’s new boyfriend and I felt my body contract as it felt so wrong and it wouldn’t end good. About a year later, it did turn out bad. I wasn’t going to say I knew that. It’s so hard to know when it’s your business to speak and when it’s not your business. Today starts the Energy Healing Challenge with Donna Eden and David Feinstein through Hay House. Today is Restoring Your Body’s Three Biggest Energy Patterns.
It is a challenge what to do with the knowledge we sense. It can be unpleasant, like unwanted advice. One way to deal with it is to be in curiosity about the other person, keep them talking and I keep on listening.
When I told my father my ex-husband and I were divorcing, he said, “I never liked him anyway.” I often wonder if he had given me this feedback at the onset, how much pain would have been saved. Or would I not have listened?
I can relate to that with my son. I had reservations about his bride-to-be and I chose to share them with him. They were my observations and he could choose to do what he wanted with the information. I reasoned it gave him something to ponder and a choice to make. It’s tricky because I’m a parent. Kids think that if a parent says something, it’s really true. I had to work with my kids for them to learn that it’s only my opinion. I think that’s the quest, of knowing and choosing how to share.
Knowing when to share what’s our opinion and what’s coming from the psychic world. It’s all a balance and somewhat of a mystery still.
Thank you. It’s in the context of being present with no expectations. I remember wondering about my son-in-law and being so wrong. It’s hard to know what is truth because truth has to evolve. The take-away with this discussion is the appreciation that I can share at any level with whomever I know based on my relationship and the cues I get in a way that can help me sort it out as well as that person. Like when I feel something so strongly like I did with my son-in-law, I thought anything I said would be hurtful or I’m being so superficial in what I don’t like. There’s no simple way to think about it but to be with it.
In the end of the reading, there is the point about curiosity. In a situation like that where you have opinions about someone, it’s perhaps better to get more curious and listen more than telling.
I loved what you said. Yesterday, I was working all day and during a break, I was shown this beautiful fully-restored car. As I looked at it, I realized I knew nothing about cars. I wanted to show interest in all his hard work by asking questions because that shows interest. But I couldn’t think of any questions. It’s challenging when I don’t know anything about the subject.
Great example. I like to ask personal questions like what does this mean to you and why did you get interested in doing this.
Thank you for the reading and the shares. I’m recognizing how I fixate on something. I stay away from the word ‘impact’. It brought up thoughts of being out of control, like something’s coming at me and I can’t stop it. You said something that hit me because I’ll feel something and look around and see that no one else noticed. It’s painful. Then my squirrel mind says I should say something, that someone’s feelings are getting hurt, and if I give them this information, they won’t feel so bad. I wind up going inside my head and having a whole dialogue which takes me out of the group and out of the present. So I tell myself to close down my empath ability because it will take me out of the present. And I want to be in the present. I’m struggling with do I notice and go okay, that’s interesting and that’s their lesson and I can just watch. What obligation do I have with this? This morning, I worried one person felt interrupted and she may feel what she was saying wasn’t important. I started to focus on that and wondered if I should tell her. I take on responsibility for others because I love so great. I love so great that I feel like if I can do something, I should. Should I? Shouldn’t I? I want to give someone here a hug, but I think she’ll think I’m a stalker. This is what goes on in my head. I want to give you all a hug and tell you that you matter. If you get lost in your squirrel brain and wonder should I, shouldn’t I, what should I do? Spit it out and clean it up later.
Thank you so much. Thank you. We are giving each other hugs at this moment. We all need hugs, we all can give hugs. We are a wonderful incubator. We are building community and joy and connection and honesty and authenticity about topics that can be scary and confusing. I’m grateful that people are willing to participate so that we can all learn about this together. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you for listening, thank you for sharing. Thank you for being part of this incubator. I hope you all have a blessed and gentle day as you go forth.
Photo credit: Magnolia blossom, cloisonne by Linda Lundell