How Do I Handle It When I Know Things I Should Not Know?

There’s a powerful moment in the movie Powder (Buena Vista Pictures, 1995) when the title character, an empath from another dimension, holds a hunter’s arm in one hand and the neck of the dying deer he just shot in the other, and telepathically connects them.  The hunter’s face fills with terror.

In so many ways, that’s what you and I wish we could do with some of the people around us.  We want to believe that they would act differently if they would just take a moment to understand.  If they would just take a moment to look at the other living things in world around them, they would certainly act differently, wouldn’t they?  But, they don’t take that moment on their own, and so sometimes, we feel like grabbing them by the arm.

Obviously, that won’t ever work.  We don’t have Powder’s Hollywood lightning-powers, and we can’t force thoughts into anyone’s mind, nor feelings into their heart.  

Empathic Superpowers

But we do have certain superpowers, and one of them is that we often have a great deal more information about a situation than anyone else around us.  That’s almost the definition of being an empath.  Yes, we feel; but those feelings are more than emotions.  They are a source of knowledge, and information, and understanding.  

And along with that sensitivity comes other information, as well, including things that we could not possibly know.  When I was in school, a doctor who was also a teacher and mentor said to me, “you will always know when someone is unwell because you have ‘it.’” I asked him what “it” was.  “You know,” he said, “the hairs on the back of your neck rise up.  You feel it throughout your body.”

The coolest thing about being an empath is the way other empaths come into your life so often.  We’re a small minority, but somehow we find each other.   He understood what I was before I had a name for it.  

When you have those moments, you will instinctively pause and remember them.  Memories of connection like that help you evaluate future incidents when you aren’t entirely sure how to handle the additional information you have about a given situation.  Those memories give you confidence, for starters, but they also give you skill in understanding which parts of your additional information are relevant to how you can help, and which parts you can reveal to others without freaking them out too much.

And when things don’t go your way, which is what happens ninety percent of the time, you can use that part of the experience to gain experience and skill as well.

They’re Real, But…

The main thing is to accept that all of this is going on and to let it be part of you.  You were told as a kid that this made you “weird” or “dyslexic” or “ADHD” or whatever, forget all those labels.  This thing that you can do makes you an empath.  We have always existed, we still exist, you are one of us, and this stuff that you know is real and is a part of who you are.

You’ve pushed it away, we all have, and that’s what causes the anxiety disorders and other problems that we go through.  I think, in retrospect, after having had some really disastrous and evil encounters, that pushing it away makes you more vulnerable to bullies.  

Embrace it instead.  I’ll sometimes completely require exploding for five minutes.  Sometimes it has to come out that way, but as you get more skillful, you can make sure it happens when you’re in a safe space.  After exploding—really going for it, to the point of physical pain in my voice, if that’s what’s required—I go to humor.  You need that YouTube playlist of ridiculous anything that makes you laugh, just for this purpose.  

Then I realize, “Ok this is exactly what it should be right now, where am I going and what is going to happen.”  

You have to understand that sometimes when you are doing your most artful and profound work, no one knows it.  No one knows who you are.  No one knows what you’re up to.  You’re just operating with all this extra knowledge on some other level, and they do not get it, at all.  That’s OK.  Keep true to yourself, and ultimately, you will end up where you need to be. 

Your intuition gets better and better.   There have been so many times where I thought I was about to commit an impulsive act, but then, in the end, it was exactly what was supposed to be.  As Pollyanna-ish as this sounds, a true belief that the universe is good is how you know that your truth is the real truth.  The universe wants us to figure it out.

Embracing it more brings it in more.  You literally get feelings throughout your body, a tingling.  The more you lean into it, the more evidence will come forward that proves it to be true.

In the movie, the hunter was a cop.  He had also been hunting Powder, because he was so weird and different.  When Powder connects him with the deer, he screams in pain and fear, and collapses to the ground.  He feels true empathy for a deer the first time in his life. 

But, and this is really the brilliance of the plot, the cop responds by becoming even more certain that Powder must be driven out of the community.  He is incapable of seeing what a beautiful gift Powder has given him.  He only saw something freakish.  So, he must insist on his small, simple, hatefully light-or-dark world, and for that world to make sense, Powder can’t be part of it.  

…Don’t Expect Acceptance

It’s a tragic commentary on our position in society, but it’s real.  You will always have a deeper understanding of the people, in any situation you are in.  Use that power to do your work as an empath, but be sure to protect yourself at the same time. 

In the movie, Powder is lifted up into the sky by lightning, to “go home,” as he has always wanted.  That’s Hollywood, obviously.  

That will not happen for you, and do not run towards death as though that’s your goal.  What happens in the real world is you trying, over and over, and becoming more knowledgable and more skillful.  What happens in your life is that you meet more empaths who are like you, and you can help each other become even more powerful.  That’s our mission.  Use your extra knowledge and perception to change the world, but above all else, protect your ability to carry on.

Accept your place outside the norm.  Accept the fact that you will never have a “normal” frame of mind.  That acceptance is the freedom you seek.  Through it, you acquire the courage to be as unique as you are, and to act on the knowledge you have that no one else does.

Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash