I had a huge personal victory over the weekend. A friend of mine was full of anxiety and stress and negativity. She was venting and I was, for the first time I can remember, able to keep her emotions separate from my own. This probably sounds strange to many people, but for me, hearing/reading/seeing/ imagining something … I feel it as if it is happening to me.
As you can imagine, trying to survive when everything I read or hear or see causes me to have an internal experience of the same thing as the other person is difficult. And I don’t just experience it once. It usually plays through a few times. Sometimes a lot more times.
Today I was able to protect myself from my friend’s energy. And the best part, the very best part, is that I was still able to help her through her trouble while maintaining my own calm space. In fact, I was probably more helpful because I wasn’t distracted by my own need to cope with the emotions she was feeling.
She was venting about the things that were bothering her and I could feel her emotions around her like a black crayon had been scribbled over a photo of her. I listening to her and I made positive and sympathetic comments. After her venting had run its course, I gave her a hug.
It was one of those long tight hugs that only our oldest of friends can give. As the hug began, it suddenly felt as if her energy and emotions were readying to pour into me. Like when something is about to spill over but the surface tension hasn’t given way just yet. I got scared but, instead of just letting it happen, I took a breath and resisted by sharing my energy with her instead.
I imagined that I was filling her with the peace I had been nourishing all week. It felt like I was performing a Carebear Stare. I just gently let my peace flow into her as imagined her negative energy flowing out of her shoulder blades like thick dark smoke.
When we broke the hug, her face had changed and the tension had drained out of her shoulders. The way she was holding herself was different. And she expressed her thanks multiple times.
To my scientific mind, this all sounds like hocus pocus nonsense. But something happened. I didn’t take on her negative emotions and she received some peace. Call it anything you like: imagination, power of human touch, a change in my way of thinking.
I don’t believe that we had a literal battle of energies, but whatever I visualized definitely helped me stay separate from the negativity. And for her, maybe it was just that she was able to talk about it and the hug reassured her that I still cared about her even on a bad day.
Psychology, sociology, chi, magic, imagination, the Holy Spirit. Whatever you want to label it is fine with me.
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