All of these words came to me today in my meditation.  If you are an empathic person you understand that the ability to “feel with” those around you can be very draining.  And, after a while that draining can be damaging.  The climate of America 2019  is one of hurry and busyness and the work that really counts…rarely gets done.  Here’s what I mean.  In the hustle and bustle of life we often find ourselves exchanging our energy, our emotion, our focus and our time for things that do not sow back into our lives in  meaningful ways.  Sure our bills may (or may not) get paid due to our busyness but our sense of peace, our health and relationships suffer.  Now that is just in speaking about busy lives.  But, what about busy lives that are filled with trauma, toxic people, unfulfilling work environments and the like?  It’s doubly hard to put your hand to the plow of each new day knowing that on top of the pressure to produce you also have to appear to be “fine.”  If this is a prolonged state of being it leads to “toxic shock.”  I think you probably gather at this point I’m not talking about a bacteria that needs to be treated with medication.  But, it is something just as sinister.  And, it does require treatment.  Follow me?  When we go through prolonged periods of stress our nervous systems can develop inflammatory patterns and lose it’s seamless ability to flow and heal us the way it once could.  Restoration is needed and in this hurried society that is hard to find.  And, that is why I’m thinking on the verbiage of “toxic shock.”  It’s a place where our nervous systems, our mental and emotional health and physical health all become affected. In short we go into shock and end up living in survival mode.  We do just the necessary things to survive because to do more means more energy expenditure.  Think about when someone shocks a pool.  This is what I’m getting at.  The level of chlorine becomes so high that it kills off all things organic.  In the same way, stress if left unchecked can rise to levels that kill things within us.

When I think about empathic people I get the visual image of dark, rich, healthy soil.  A medium in which you can grow just about anything and know that whatever is produced will be hardy and abundant because of the material in which it was cultivated.  Have you ever wondered why you attract people who feel so draining to you?  It’s because replete attracts deplete.  And, I am convinced that once someone who is depleted learns how to focus the energy of their empathy towards themselves true healing and replenishment take place.  It is in that place that we are most effective and equipped to help the depleted people in our lives.

The practice of grounding has been popping up in my daily grind.  I hear people mention it.  I’ll see an article on social media about it.  My mother will suggest that I do it and so on.  My mother was the first person I’d heard about this from.  We have ended many of our conversations with her saying, “Zett, you need to go out and get you some cool mountain air and walk around barefoot and let your feet feel the earth.  It’ll be good for you.”  Albeit I didn’t understand at the time what she meant and I paid little attention to it because I used to think some of her free spirit ways were hokey at best. But, here I am at forty and I’m desperate to ground.

We understand that all things are made of energy.  ALL.  Rocks, water, human beings, the cells that comprise us, the sun, the moon, the shops in your city, and the skyscrapers in New York.  Big to small all things are energy.  Just as a tree sends down it’s roots into the earth so that it’s energy mingles with the energies of rocks and soil we can also benefit from planting our bare feet onto the earth and allowing pent up energies to flow through us and discharge.  Empathic people are like lightning rods.  But, if we do not have a ground then all the negative energies that hit us end up stuck in us.  Like a lightning rod is grounded to render an explosive charge harmless, so in grounding we are able to disperse the emotional turmoil of life as it enters our system.

But, what if it’s too cold or there are no good opportunities to get my bare feet onto the earth?  Grounding doesn’t have to be just finding some grass to walk around in.  It’s any practice that brings you back to your center.  It’s any practice where you can feel the scattered and fretful parts of you coming back together in harmony.  This can be in prayer, breath work, or anything that helps you find your center.

Questions I hope you’ll ask yourself and that I am asking myself is:

1.  Am I remembering that I myself am earth and that I reside in an energetic container?
2. In what ways am I feeling led to ground myself?
3. What are some ways to ground myself?
4. Have I been experiencing toxic shock but putting the acknowledgement of it out of my mind because I’d rather address seemingly more pressing things?
5. At what point will I begin honoring my own emotions as opposed to juggling the emotions of others?

Here’s to grounding.  Here’s to just being.  Here’s to being successfully and healthily empathic.

After a long running series of crises I realized that I needed to take control of my feelings as an empathetic person.  I understand that feeling the feelings of others has been very toxic and defeating for me.  But, I’ve never thought deeply enough about having options when I am bombarded by other people’s emotional traumas.  Can you relate?

Empathy is a gift.  Not everyone has it.  And for many who do they’d rather not have it.  Empathy when used appropriately is meant to be very life giving and refreshing.  It is like a life line that can be thrown from one human to another to help give clarity in the midst of struggle.  But, sometimes as empathic people we find ourselves caught in a vicious cycle of throwing life lines to people who don’t want them.  You read that right.  Some people want to drown.  It’s part of our brokenness.  And, when we are constantly tossing life lines our arms get tired.  See where I’m going with this?  At some point we will run out of life lines if we toss all we have.  And, then what’s left for us?  What’s left for the people in our lives who would readily grab a hold of the line we throw them?  At some point as an empathic person we are faced with the decision of helping at the cost of our own sanity or closing ourselves off in an effort to preserve ourselves.  We find ourselves exhausted, disillusioned, disappointed, and not helping anyone.

I’ve been describing to my friends the situation I have found myself in as an inundation of unrelenting crises.  I’ve felt out of touch with reality due to a deep sense of despair because the life lines I’ve thrown have been despised.  And so as a business person, a friend, an aunt, a daughter, and all the other roles that make up my life I’ve had to cover over the trauma I’m experiencing in order to not be seen as out of control and sad as I really have been.  Have you experienced this pressure?  There are consequences for weakness am I right?  If I’m too tired or unwell to work I lose business.  If I’m too tired or unwell my relationships become strained.  Then comes the pressure from the loss of business and strained relationships and so there is a cruel momentum that builds.  And, at the root of all of this is this seeming libelous nature we have of feeling deeply.  It’s time to take back our power.  It’s time to protect our gift.  If we are to thrive and use our gift of empathy to make the world a better place we have to stop ignoring and glossing over our conscience that is screaming at us because we are prioritizing everyone but ourselves.  I am worth my own priority.  You are worth your own priority.

On the element of fire.  As a metaphor and in a lot of proverbial talk fire is often used to describe crisis and devastation.  You might hear someone say they are, “going through the fire.”  As I read about this foundational element I understood the principal that fire essentially brings back to the beginning all material matter to it’s basic element.  Can you remember who you were before the fire?  Do you remember having a particular vibrance or degree of focus that you simply do not have now?  Can you attribute the loss of vibrance and focus to the pressures that surround you?  If fire brings back to the beginning all material matter to it’s basic element then that means it has the power to return us to our core.  It can serve to bring us back to who we were before the crises.  I don’t know about you but I liked myself better before I became divvied out to people who didn’t value me or my offer of help.

It has occurred to me that with everything burned down to the ground around me it is then that I can begin to discover that which is waiting to be created.  It is when the soil is blackened by seeming destruction that it finds the nourishment and clarity for new life to spring forth from it.  Out of blackened soil and ashes sprouts of green renewal come.  There is a poignant contrast that death serves and life serves death which ultimately serves life.  Feel free to read that again.  Fire is the energetic fuel that burns the way for new growth and new expressions of life to happen.

The questions I’ve asked myself this morning and that I hope you will ask yourself particularly if you are an empathic mess is this?  Do I believe in my passions or am I sabotaging myself by spending all my best energy on rescuing others because I do not value myself the way I should?  What passions when fueled properly in me burn the brightest?  What is the fuel or passion that burns the cleanest in me?  Remember our bodies can function on junk food and health food.  When we are burning dirty fuel we may be going but we won’t be going far or feeling well while we are journeying.  What passion causes me to burn cleaner and longer?

For me that passion is self-expression.  It is in expressing myself that I feel a sense of freedom, confidence and a restoration of what has been stolen from me by fear.  Today I am meditating on fire and as I survey the blackened earth around me I look eagerly for the green and tender shoots of a potential life I may not have gotten to experience had it not been for the fire.  The soil of my life is at peak perfection because of the burn.  With all things lost and the ground cleared I can with great expectation imagine what lies beneath that has been waiting to be created.

Tusks and bone

Release of the moan

Dry and weary and looking like leather

Eyeballing the sky for the curious weather

Its liable to roll on through or blast on by. Either way, she’s likely to cry.

June bugs, May flies, Whippoorwill schmooze.

Dancing in the woods in chalkboard shoes.

She doesn’t miss a detail.

Picture taken on Signal Mtn in Tennessee

Wild sprouts

They’re everywhere

We will never run them down

They’re our’s to clown

Let’s drink em down

And stagger about

Feeling stout

We decide to pout.

It can’t be long

They’ll be all gone

What will we live for then?

Image by Polish artist: Zdzisław Beksiński

Tumble down darkly
In the round remarkably
Why did you ask for time?
Why must you whine?
Would like some wine?
Ideas going up
Opinions laid down
Bare chested brawls
All over town
Swimming in the streets
Liquid dust
Brains now rust
It never really mattered before
It matters now they’ve shut the door
And I can’t pull myself up out this floor
Time is a fashion
Clouds are a trip
Railroad erosion
Rainwater sip
Psyche adobe
And riddled I lay
Staring down at the grass
I’ll wait for it to pass
Nimble as a thimble
For you I tremble
Skirt flare
Rare air
Chest bare
Here we go
And where we’ll stop…nobody knows.

*Image by Jeff Walls

It’s not a dirty word.  I promise.  In American culture long work hours, stagnant wages, political unrest, and an increase in mental health crises across our nation is taking it’s toll.  It’s literally draining just to sit and watch the news these days.  And, the depletion of our emotional energy has become a huge problem.  It strains our relationships.  It zaps our creativity.  It intrudes on our quality of sleep.  And, the list could go on.  In such a radical climate it is imperative that we get radical about rest.

I’m not going to tell you that you need more rest.  Chances are ANYONE reading this likely needs more of it.  What I am going to tell you is that you do NOT have to feel guilty for setting boundaries for the purpose of rest!  If you’ve ever wanted to contribute to a more peaceful society and make our world, our America great again I’d say…get some rest!  That’s not something you hear everyday right?  But, think about it.

When we rest life changing things happen.  And, perhaps rest, rather than harder work is the key to your best life.  When we rest inflammation in our bodies decrease.  I’d encourage you to check into something called, “C-reactive protein.”  While it is a nonspecific blood test there are a plethora of studies that implicate high C-reactive protein levels with brain inflammation, Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, sleep disorders, heart disease and anxiety disorders.  But, because it is nonspecific and doesn’t really lead to diagnoses of any kind it isn’t usually discussed.

So, how do we get radical?  Number one…we start saying, “no.”  It really is that simple.  It is okay to decline activities that you really don’t have time for or really don’t want to attend in the first place.  When I first began doing this I would often decline for reasons other than why I wouldn’t be participating in the first place.  Namely, rest!  There was this huge part of me that felt so guilty.  I felt that I would be perceived as lazy or selfish and that fear was crippling for me.  But, the victory over that would come later and is something I am now experiencing. Yet, even in the awkwardness of the beginning of saying, “no”  I had at least begun the journey.  Yes, I was still cringing and fawning but by golly I was getting some much needed sleep as well!  The empowering realization of understanding that we do not owe anyone an explanation for our saying, “no” is one I would recommend everyone embracing.  It is so freeing.  Trust me on this.  And, more often than not…people will respect that.  Believe it or not respect is the cornerstone of restoration.

It is through the lack of respect for our bodies and minds that we begin to deplete our internal resources.  Are you disrespecting yourself?  Did you realize that was even a thing?  I surely did not.  But, since I have it’s been a game changer.  I now get to be present, fully present in all the situations I say, “yes” to.

So, as we move through our weeks and live for the weekends know that you have permission to rest.  And, if you’re not comfortable declining all the busy-ness that your weekend may try to bring you and you feel the need to offer a reason to stay in…feel free to blame it on this blog!  You can totally have plans with “The Catalyst.”

Love and light,

Cozett

Photography credit: Marta Bevacqua