Empathic Love

Some say life's greatest teacher is pain. Others say you can learn from either pain or joy, just that pain is the most common path to human wisdom. The hardest won lessons seem to be in matters of love. Love of every kind.

Empathic folks, otherwise known as Highly Sensitive People, (HSPs...and a term I'm not a fan of), have a lot of self protection to develop. And even more to put into play with the people in their lives. I can guarantee that most of us have not developed sufficient protections, at least not for the many instances of relationships and interactions that lead to said wisdom... oftentimes the hard way.

Dating, for me, continues to be a constant teacher. It has taught me confidence in speaking my needs and my mind with passion, It's taught me the accuracy of my intuition and the price of ignoring it in favor of powerful emotion, but most of all, it's taught me how my greatest strengths can be my greatest weaknesses. This will sound ridiculous, but I figured something out about myself in the last few years that's probably obvious to everyone else-- something I sincerely didn't comprehend before (though God knows why, as all the signs were blazing). I realize that when I love, I love hard.

No, I don't mean a lot. Not even a whole lot. I mean hard, people. Deep. Completely. I don't love like that OFTEN...not even close, because my self protections are strong enough to limit my circle of trust that much. In truth,I think intuitively, my spirit has known to make me slow to trust--even if my heart can't always obey. Because love is no small matter for me. Love comes with vulnerability that can empty an empathic person. It leads to sacrifice, to outpourings of compassion that are often drained dry. Vulnerability takes a leap of faith, but it should be one that is examined first, tested and earned. Unfortunately, as meticulous as I've been, sometimes, even my careful heart gets overwhelmed. Because it is, at root, a heart that seeks to give itself to those it loves. And by the time that's occurred, I'm invested--soul deep. By then I have resolved to give everything my heart can offer, and it's so rare that it's frightening to contemplate its loss. The piece of myself that goes with it can never be retrieved. Empathic people know that they were not born to love in a flat line, or a shallow pool. When we love and choose to trust, you get our loyalty, our forgiveness, our passion, our protection, our time, our anger, our whole selves. When we love that much, it is no small thing to navigate. It's life altering. And if it betrays us, if it falls to pieces... so do we. It takes a chunk of us that can never be returned. Romantically, familialy....if you reach the point where you're a part of me, you have the potential to rip me to shreds. And it'll take a long time to recover., And even then, I'll do everything in my power to somehow make it better for everyone. Because once I love, I cannot unlove. And that's where it gets painful.

I guess I assumed everyone was like this. I was wrong, though. Sometimes I worry I feel too deeply....that for all the zen I put out to people, they don't realize that inside I'm something else completely. A stormy mountain or a deep sea full of roiling water. Like the universe made me very wrong....or very right...just in the wrong paradigm. Probably why I write and sing. Maybe the heft of what I feel is meant to be bursting at the seams, because the overflow means creation. It means I can feel what others feel, I can understand what others can't admit to themselves, let alone each other, and I can relate those things in ways that touch the human heart. At least, that's what I hope this HSP thing is for, otherwise it's like nature just punched a hole too deep in my heart at the human factory and sent me out to market without fixing its error. All those feelings....mine, others', all of it, leaks out. It leaks out in lyrics, it leaks out in dotted half notes and crescendos and sleepless nights, it leaks out in rhyme....and in tears. And in compassion. A lot of that.

My hope is that I love people who aren't afraid to be loved like that. And where falling in love is concerned, someone who proves himself worthy, because I'll be watching, and waiting, ten times more cautiously than before, to understand their intent. To believe what my soul wants to tell me about their heart. And their comprehension of who I am.

Empathic people have a world to give....and a world to lose. I suspect, though, that the right people will always and forever refill what they take.