As a child I could easily perceive when someone around me was in emotional pain. The fancy word for this is perspicacity, or perspicacious, my new favorite word. I picked up on feelings of shyness, indifference, anxiety, fear, anger, stress, and sorrow, and still can. My parents especially, but also peers, teachers, siblings, grandparents, anyone close to me. I understand the underlying emotional reasons people do what they do, and perceive when people are in emotional pain. As I child I thought of this as being "sensitive to the Spirit" but nowadays I don't call it that at all (in fact my emotions get so interwoven with spiritual matters I usually don't even trust myself to pick up on the whisperings of the Spirit anymore and just go on faith), now I call it insight.
For a long time I had no idea what to do about it! In fact in my early years it often scared or disgusted me, or I didn't care, so I usually handled it with avoidance or insensitivity. Only after going through my own battles with emotions did I learn what I had was a gift, not a curse, and I no longer run from difficult emotions but address them quickly, and actually I want to help others do the same. I enjoy talking about emotions which turns a lot of people off, it’s not exactly proper table manners to say to someone in the group, "So, you still have that marijuana addiction huh? You must really be having some tough anxiety lately." I've made some major fax-paus trying to breach sensitive subjects with people. But I can always sense the pain, due to whatever may be going on--grief, jealousy, intimidation, depression, you name it--which makes being in a large group oftentimes somewhat uncomfortable for me.
Perspicacity probably has something to do with why I'm now a psychotherapist, I will chit-chat with friends and family and I will steer clear of all those messy emotions that make people feel awkward, because at work I can help people who are willing to discuss the undiscussable. I don't mind getting right in and hearing all about it, and it’s fun to me finding ways to manage the pain. Some people are emotionally bleeding to death, I went through a lot to make sure I was trained in properly applying the tourniquet so it will create healing instead of temporary bandaging or worse, cut you off from emotions altogether.
"The tendency to avoid emotional suffering is the primary basis for all human mental illness." --M Scott Peck
No comments:
Post a Comment