I sometimes hear people talking about picking up feelings and energies that are not theirs.
I understand where they are coming from. I understand how being around certain people, or doing some kind of healing work with them, can bring up certain feelings and states in us. And that the mind can come up with stories saying: “Those are not my feelings, states, energies. I picked them up from that person.”
And it’s not how I see it.
WHAT’S MORE ACURATELY GOING ON
When I notice feelings and states come up in me in these situations, I could tell myself that I “picked up” something from the other person.
And I also know that what’s coming up in me is from my own reaction to the situation and person.
Something in me reacts to the other person, and that triggers these feelings and states.
My reaction is always mine, and what’s coming up in me is mine. It doesn’t belong to the other person.
AN INVALUABLE OPPORTUNITY
This is an invaluable opportunity to learn something about myself, find healing for how I relate to the world and myself, and find healing for old issues in myself.
Why would I give that away by telling myself: “I am picking up the other persons feelings and states”? Why would I assign it to someone else?
If I did, it would not only be intellectually dishonest. It would be like giving away an invaluable opportunity to get to know and embrace more of my inner community, find healing for how I relate to myself and the world, find healing for wounded parts of me, and clarify who and what I am.
THE GRAIN OF TRUTH
As usual, there are some grains of truth in the conventional view.
It is possible to sense, to some extent, what’s happening in another person. People who do distance healing, including me, do it regularly. This is a sensing similar to seeing or hearing something. It’s inherently neutral. There is no sense of being “invaded” by anything.
If that happens, it’s because of my own reaction. It’s the consequences of my stories – conscious or not – about what I sense or what I imagine in the other person.
And, of course, what’s triggered in me may reflect something in the other. If he or she is experiencing and expressing anger, my reaction to it can easily trigger anger in me.
THE WORLD IS MY MIRROR
There is more to this as well.
The world is my mirror. What I see in others – and in the world in general – is also here in me.
I can take any story about anyone or anything in the world, turn it to myself, and find genuine examples of how it’s true now and in the past.
If I attach too strongly to ideas of “yours” and “mine”, and don’t use you as a mirror for what’s already here in me, I miss out of an invaluable opportunity to get to know what’s here and use it to explore and find healing, maturing, and clarification of what I am.
And to me, the world happens within and as what I am. Anything within the content of my experience – this human self, you, the wider world, and anything else – happens within and as what I am.
Here too, it doesn’t make sense to divide the world too strongly into “me” and “you”. Of course, there is a me and you in a limited and conventional sense. And more fundamentally, it’s all happening within and as what I am.
Here, it’s more about finding healing for how I relate to it all, whether it’s in me or others or the world.
It’s more about finding it all in me.
It’s more about finding healing for it in myself.
And it’s more about recognizing it all as the divine and forms the divine happens to take here and now.
INITIAL DRAFT
“I AM PICKING UP ON FEELINGS THAT AREN’T MINE”
I keep seeing people talking about picking up feelings that are not theirs, and so on.
I have never quite understood it.
When people say those things, they seem to talk about their reactions to a situation they find themselves in. And our reaction is always ours.
Not only that, when it comes up, it’s an invaluable opportunity to see more of what’s here, get to know it, befriend it, shift how I relate to it, see underlying beliefs and issues, and invite in healing and maturing around the whole thing.
So (1) my reaction is my reaction, and (2) why would I want it to be anything else when it can be so valuable?
Of course, this all depends on our orientation and how invested we are in healing, maturing, and waking up.
The more invested we are, the more inclined we are to embrace whatever comes up and use it as an opportunity to heal, mature, and clarify for ourselves what we are.
There is more to this as well.
The world is my mirror. What I see in others or out there in the world in general is also here in me. I can take any story about anyone or anything in the world, turn it to myself, and find genuine examples of how it’s true now and in the past. If I divide too strongly in “yours” and “mine”, I again miss out of an invaluable opportunity to “own” what’s here and use it to explore and find healing, maturing, and clarification of what I am.
And to me, the world happens within and as what I am.