Do you ever feel overwhelmed by other people’s energy?
It can be especially obvious in large crowds.

To me it can feel like drowning in an ocean.
I just
can’t
breathe.

It can be so draining that I don’t want to be around people at all, even ones I like.

I wonder if this is actually why I identify as an introvert…
I can imagine that if I weren’t so porous, I would like being around people.
If I didn’t hoover in all their crap, it would be much nicer to be around them.
But I do.
So I don’t.

Sometimes even individuals are too much.
I have a neighbor who recently, I injudiciously suggested that we car pool together. I was being a bit greedy thinking, “Oh, wonderful! I won’t have to drive all the time. Sweet!”

A little later I realized the error of my impetuousness… she was in a moment of negativity.
Oh, dear god.
She spent the entire 15 minute drive talking about what was wrong in her world, why she couldn’t do this and that… Thanks to my hastiness, I’m now faced with having to politely tell her that all that negativity is hard work… that it’s challenging enough to focus on the positives when I have a choice, but it’s really challenging when someone pours on the sludge unnecessarily.
Unnecessarily, meaning we’re not addressing and moving through. Not finding resolution.
It’s just complaining to be complaining.
Horrors.

I’m avoiding that conversation.
Hoping it will all just go away.
I’ll have to face it tomorrow, or just grin and bare it and hopefully not be passive aggressive and nasty about it.


The irony of being nasty to someone about being nasty is not lost on me.

And I think this is where it’s easy to explain my idea about how all of this absorption of other people’s energy happens in the first place.

What if we’re not actually absorbing at all?
What if what we’re doing is more resonating with? Vibrating with?
Like the example of plucking a guitar string on one guitar and the same string on a nearby guitar will also vibrate. Resonance.

The idea here is that as my neighbor expresses her unhappiness, the same unhappiness that lives in me also starts to ‘vibrate.’ She hits a cord (in me), and my emotional body starts to vibrate in the key of unhappiness, along with her. We’re now in a duo, emotionally singing the same song.

We can take this metaphor even further and say that if I have a big string of unhappiness, or a lot of strings dedicated to unhappiness,
then even with very little provocation,
like a short 15 minute drive filled with mild unhappiness,
I’ll start feeling unhappiness vibrate in me.
…Enough that it makes me feel very unhappy.
It becomes too much.
I want out.

Similarly, if we put me in a crowd of people, where the potential for unhappiness multiplies (by the number of people), now we have a recipe for overwhelm. If enough of those people are mildly unhappy or a few of them are very unhappy, I’ll start thrumming a cacophony of misery.
Dear god.
This sucks.


What to do?

Well, one very popular suggestion is to create a bubble of protection around yourself, a golden egg, a white light, etc.. The idea here is to create a barrier to keep the nasty energy out, while you happily float along inside.
This is a great idea.
But it never worked for me.

First, it was tiring to try to maintain a barrier and second, even when I did, I was never able to make the barrier strong enough to keep the nasty out. Even the ‘set it up and let it do it’s work on it’s own’ wasn’t effective for me.
I’m open to the idea that either this just doesn’t work for me or that I don’t know how to do it properly.
And, I imagine that it works for the people who recommend it, which is wonderful.

But what can I do?
Well, first, the obvious work of reducing my own unhappiness. Of healing the parts that resonate to misery by acknowledging, supporting and allowing them to shift… to tighten or loosen into another note, another emotional resonance.

Second, quite by accident I discovered that my practice of feeling into my own truth, of focusing on what I think and feel has allowed my awareness of myself to expand… I’m better able to distinguish what’s me and not me. I’m better able to recognize when unhappiness is originating from me vs from another, and thus I have a choice about whether to keep singing along with them.

This practice is simple and profound.
As a practice, I get quiet and feel into the physical center of me. The physical center of my body is also where I connect into the emotional, mental and energetic centers of my being… it’s the center of ALL of me, of all of my intelligences.
The more I practice this, the easier it is to find and feel it; the easier it is to answer the question, “What am I thinking and feeling right now?” vs what is coming in from the outside (everyone else’s thoughts and feelings), which we’re so used to being swayed by and taking as our own.

After a while of practicing that, I’m now able to do it on the fly, able to feel into Me, and in doing that, now it’s easier to dampen my response to others. Easier to clear and clean on the spot. Easier to focus on other songs that are alive inside of me in the moment, and not just start singing the song of misery with those around me.

And somehow, this focus on myself, this self awareness, has made me that much less ‘porous.’ I don’t vibrate as quickly or as strongly with others… I sing my own song more easily and clearly.

Of course, I still have the strings of unhappiness and misery and I’m still going to have to deal with this situation with my neighbor thanks to them… and it’s easier now.
I have a much easier time in crowds, though you’ll still see me purposely on the edges.
And the car rides will still be uncomfortable if I don’t do something to change the vibe.

But I know what to do now.
Focus in.
Feel in.
Find me.
Feel me.

If I’m the source of the discomfort, then I can work with that.
If others are the source of the discomfort, then I can breathe and relax, allowing my own strings to soften, knowing that I have a choice whether to be singing that song with them.
I have a choice.

And that my friends, makes all the difference.