How Can I Generate A Positive State Of Mind?
Empaths have a heightened awareness of the world around them. They are extremely sensitive to the experiences of others, and they suffer greatly when others suffer, and they instinctively want to help. This causes empaths twice the angst: first, they feel it in tandem with other people, and second, they feel it in isolation, because they know they could do something about it and they think that they should.
Making this situation even more difficult, and lonely, is the fact that most people don’t experience the world in this way, so empaths have very few people in their lives who understand them. Often, there’s no one for them to talk to, so they suffer alone and their situation gets worse.
The Empathic Mind in Real Time
Before I give you some tools you can use to pull yourself out of a complex situation like that, let me tell you something about the way you think. Empaths react to the world, rather than respond to it.
Your mind is so fast that, in a moment, it puts together a complex, emotionally articulate, politically erudite, and culturally precise understanding of a person. Then, in the next moment, you are fully experiencing what they are experiencing, often to a much more intense degree.
Boom. You react with a massively complex, interwoven, holistic perspective that links you to other people. You have an instinct that says “we all must survive,” and it kicks in at this speed.
How do you get a handle on that?
A lot of empaths never really do. Many of us never really leave childhood. Well into adulthood we hold onto a child’s magical thinking. We clap for Tinkerbell, we tearfully identify with Kermit the Frog singing It’s Not Easy Being Green, we chase rainbows. We dream that it will all magically get better.
The ability to do that is beautiful, and incredibly powerful—when you are leading it. When it is leading you, it causes a disconnect with the physical that makes a lot of empaths sick. Everything from headaches to allergies to perpetual colds plague them, because they are out of synch with their gifts.
Physically weakened, and with your sensitivities out of control, you become really vulnerable to triggers in your environment, and you can find yourself kicked into a negative spiral at any moment, where the world can keep you spinning.
Prepare To Protect Yourself
You want to strengthen yourself to the point that you can pull out of a negative spiral under your own power. Self-care when you are able to control your thoughts and emotions helps you attain this ability.
A good first step is to find a way to be alone and safe for a while. Make your situation as conducive to positive feelings as possible. No two people are the same when it comes to what this means. For me, it’s listening to music, like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, that moves me deeply. It’s running (I was going to be in the New York Marathon this year, and I will be when it opens again). It’s baking. And above all else, it’s singing. For you, it could be anything, so long as it’s healthy and gives you wholesome joy.
While you’re in that space, taking care of your mind, intentionally remember times when you were a child and were fully in flow with the joy of life. Intentionally remember times that people appreciated your unique gifts. Remember songs that moved you to tears of ecstasy, and stories that made you dream incredible dreams. Create these thoughts, and revel in them, so they will be there for you later.
Tune In To Signals from the Cosmos
A good second step is to fully come to terms with the fact that when you’re about encounter something that will trigger you, a part of you knows what’s coming before it actually hits you.
This isn’t being psychic; it’s just part of your sensitive, acutely aware nature. It’s like you’re in the flow of singing a song, and suddenly you go off key. You hit a note wrong, and the whole of reality warps a little. Rather than scramble to correct yourself, realize what’s actually happening. That wrong note is a clue from the universe that something is coming and you are supposed to protect yourself.
The more time you spend in a positive frame of mind, the more sensitive you’ll become to those warnings. They will help you prepare to deal with triggers before they debilitate you.
But even if you miss them, you can still pull yourself out of a negative spiral. You do that with all those intentional thoughts from before. You keep those at the ready, so when something triggers you, this is what you do:
What Can I Do When I’m Unable To Generate a Positive State of Mind?
Find your breath, and before you do anything else, pay attention to it and get it to be steady and fluid.
You have a box of treasures in your mind. The treasures are rare memories from your life when people noticed that you were an empath and loved you for it. Open it.
Remember or experience works of music, art or literature that take you back to childhood moments when you felt at one with the cosmos.
On a whiteboard or chalkboard or using a stick in the dirt, write down the very worst aspects of what you are experiencing. The physical process of writing is crucial, and so is seeing it. Then erase the parts that you want to get rid of. Your subconscious mind understands this and will do its best to follow through.
Journal in great detail about the worst possible parts of what you’re feeling. The more directly you express what is disturbing you, the more power you will drain from it.
The most important thing is to get good at using one of these methods when you really need to. Don’t let the negative spiral overwhelm you. Learn how to turn on one of these methods, even in the worst of situations. That’s the essential skill. There’s more you can do, but you need this first.
You must learn to protect yourself, because if you don’t prepare, you can end up lost, believing that there is no way back. Let me assure you that there is always a way back, even when you are certain that there isn’t. The universe didn’t give you your special abilities so you would suffer more.
You are the way you are because you have fantastic potential to help others and to help the world. The world needs your positive qualities and your profoundly giving leadership, and you can give that only if you take care of yourself first.
Photo by Nathaniel Chang on Unsplash
