A weather analogy

I have said many times in my life, and probably many times on this blog, that I feel people’s feelings. I know that the highly-sensitive people out there know what I mean, know what it is like to have someone else’s emotions permeate your soul. But I also know that for the majority of people, that concept makes no sense. And for whatever reason, the other day, I found an analogy that might explain it better (and we know I love using analogies to understand things!)

So, you know when you go outside? If it’s windy out, you feel the wind. If it’s cold, you feel the cold. If it’s rainy, you get wet. You can’t NOT feel the weather. And that’s how it is for me. I’m wired to feel people’s emotions, such that I can’t not feel them, the same way that I can’t not feel the warmth from the sun on a 90 degree day.

Of course, you might feel the wind but not be bothered by it. Like, it’s there and you notice it but it doesn’t consume you. And that’s what I work towards. Knowing that I’m wired to feel people’s emotions, but, like the wind, I can notice it and move on without letting it become the main focus of every single cell in my body. And it’s hard! If you’re outside on a day where the temperature is 3 degrees Fahrenheit, you are going to feel cold to your core. Your bones will feel cold. Try as you might, you can’t really ignore it.

But you can try. You can feel the cold yet know it will pass when you go inside. And I can feel the emotions of the loved ones around me, without letting them become my own, without letting them permanently take up residence inside.

Does this make any sense? Can anyone relate? Does anyone have another way to explain it?

Author
Speech-Language Pathologist. Nature-loving, book-reading, coffee-drinking, mismatched-socks-wearing, Autism-Awesomeness-finder, sensitive-soul Bostonian.

5 comments

  1. It absolutely makes perfect sense. I have always been this way and until you began your blog, I thought it was a weakness or a failing on my part. I didn’t know that others felt the heartbeat of the world as I do. Numbing and Isolating is my _go to_ response, to regroup and recover.

    1. It is not a weakness or a failure. It’s a wiring. And there are a lot of us out there, I know it, who are wired this way – it’s just that everyone is also silently sitting at home, isolating, feeling like they are weak and alone. I would even venture so far as to say that other people in our lives….some of our family members….are wired this way, too, and that’s why they act the way they do. Maybe knowing that you’re not alone, that you’re not weak, that you’re not a failure, that you a wonderfully-wired, sensitive soul, will give yourself permission to embrace it sometimes, or share it with those who you know GET it (….me….) without hiding yourself away. Love you. xoxo

  2. YUP! You capture this elegantly. I think the challenge is, as you say, to feel the weather and not let it bother you. But when it’s a blizzard out or torrential downpours it can be so hard…! :)

  3. Yes, I know this feeling well.And I don’t meet anyone else who has these experiences at such an intensity just as you described. I honestly found something that helped me was to work with my cycle and learn when my sensitive days are. On certain days of the month I just wouldn’t go to public places, I speak in the past because now I am 46 and in menopause. I feel now that my sensitivities are becoming more an integral part of me. They are still there but I am less phased by them. Recently I discovered that I was angry about feeling everyone else’s stuff because no-one really knew my pain of feeling all this stuff. At that time I met someone who understood my situation more than most and somehow he softened my anger, Since then I feel the compassion but not the anger and I find life easier. Slowly slowly I think we can find our way.

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