I have been wondering what enables some people to sense other people’s emotions and feelings in a such way that they can hardly differentiate whether what they are sensing is their own or that of another. When I started looking at myself in this case and had my eyes open to what has come into my life lately, I’ve received answers that have sufficed me for a while and in this article I give you what I got.

At first, I found that if people are so sensitive to someone else’s feelings in the situation they are in, it is probably because they have gone through a deep pain or traumatic experience themselves. Pain is something that occurs when someone hurts us deeply. They offend us or ridicule us through their words or actions and we keep it in our memory, because it was such a shock to our being that it caused us to abandon ourselves and clutch the energy tightly associated with the memory and the pain of the experience. The pain is then maintained through the memory of the mind that tells the story again and again either in our own internal dialogue or in our conversations with others. In this way the mind summons the emotions and feelings of the shock again and again. That part of us that we lost is stuck in the shock until we acknowledge it, release it and heal it so we can regain that part of us that we abandoned and reconnect with the love for that part of ourselves.

Second, if we have not acknowledged our own inner pain there will be others who will come into our lives that have similar life experiences to mirror for us. We then often get caught up in their pain and sorrow, and we listen to their stories and analyse them back and forth as a mechanism to escape our own wound, but if we are aware, it is a pathway to understand that we are not alone in this process. Thus, we seem to been drawn to people who may feel quite similar to us and therefore reflect our inner feelings and struggles for us.

Unfortunately, we can become consumed in analysing other people’s lives and then it becomes part of our internal dialogue, or we analyse the person with others. Sometimes we know the person and sometimes not. That person can for example be a friend or family member and we are often very good at psychoanalyzing them. It may also be that the person who is in our analyzing machine has done something that hurt us and they are prominent in community discussions (some are more than others). They often are someone who is gifted or have a talent that we feel we lack, or they have fault or imperfection we find difficult to handle. When this happens we are starting to focus our attention more on other peoples lives that have really nothing to do with us and therefore lose the opportunity to use our energy for ourselves. We have been drawn into the emotions and feelings of others and waste our energy trying to organize what would be best for them in their life. This is vital energy that we should be using for ourselves rather than wasting it as we immerse ourselves in others lives. In actuality, we are avoiding our own emotions and feelings and denying ourselves our attention; we have abandoned ourselves.

Another thing I’ve noticed in this regard is the role of talking about another person’s behavior against us. How he or she has hurt us, offended or did not say something that comforted and nourished us, (something we wanted to hear from the other person) or something that was not done when we wanted it to be done. We repeat the story over and over again because we so much want others to know how it is to be in our circumstance or understand how we feel. All of this relates to our own feelings and emotions, but we do not allow ourselves to admit it and focus on ourselves. It does not mean that it is not good to have another person´s opinion in this situation, but we also have to look inside and release the hurt and painful memories. If we repeat the story again and again we are holding onto the energy bonds with the person who hurt us and we certainly don´t want that for our future.

But of course we need to get rid of situations that are hurting us and others around us. Sometimes it takes a little while to realize that we are in painful relationships, as it is quite common that those who find it easy to know how others feels find it difficult to find how they feel themselves because the attention has been dispeled to others in such a long time(sometimes it has been lifetime). We often need third parties to show us the circumstances we are in and often there are children or others in our close surroundings that we love that take that role. When we see children or others we love who suffer from the same words or circumstances we have been in before we may discover that the person that hurts uses quite the same coping methods to them as to us and then finally we may see how this person has affected ourselves but we are hardly aware because we are so willing to leave ourselves. We even have compassion for that person who hurts because we know better how he or she feels and maintain the interaction and relationship until we have finally decided to stand by ourselves but not the other.

After these answers, I feel that it is not so supernatural to feel others feelings and emotions more than ourselves, because so often we have left ourselves. We have abandoned ourselves because at that point we were so hurt that we could not handle the situation properly. There is nothing else in the situation. Maybe we were little children and did not even understand the fact that we left ourselves because of others, that we took over others’ feelings when those who hurt us did it because they themselves were hurt. We were not able to stand by ourselves because we never learned that we should stand by ourselves. We are taught to be good to others but we have not been taught that we should be good to ourselves until the last few years. How should we be aware that we should pay attention to ourselves and honor ourselves by loving and respecting ourselves if no one ever taught us?

It is never to late to stand up for ourselves! When we are ready, it is important for us to release the traumas that are the puzzle pieces that make up our soul. Release the pain, forgive, love the wounded child or adult and take them into your heart, let go and thank others and ourselves for the life experience. Energy is energy and we have a lot of energy for ourselves if we are aware of how we use it in our life.

It’s also good to realize that it’s not bad to have gone through trauma or a painful experience because when the pain has been transformed, it becomes our strength, understanding, tolerance, patience, compassion and love. Through the experience we know how it is to be hurt and we can be wonderful healers for others and ourselves. What we previously experienced as a pain becomes a kind of bonus in our life if we decide to turn the process of releasing it and seeing it into a meaningful process that expands our awareness and assists in our development.