Recently, I’ve met with a couple of parents who tell me that their middle-school aged children seem to literally feel the pain that others inflict or experience.
One mother wrote recently to tell me about Simon*, her 13-year-old son, who recently started in a middle school gifted program. She writes, “His new peers have low empathy. Emotionally, this social setting is a mismatch because Simon is very empathic. It causes him considerable pain to see his peers hurt others, even as an observer.” She went on to tell me that her son has been experiencing multiple stress-related health problems, most likely as a consequence of his school experiences.
My 15-year-old client Josh’s* empathic abilities are similar to Simon’s. Josh has the ability to literally feel another person’s physical pain just by observing the wound. Josh also experiences his own emotions through his inner vision, which means that when he experiences intense emotion, he has the capacity to visually translate the emotion into visual images. For example, when Josh felt embarrassed and angry about being teased by his peers for walking a girl to school, he witnessed his body going up in flames. His parents worried that he might have a neurological disorder, and he was taken through a whole battery of neurological tests to rule out seizure disorder and other likely causes. His tests were negative.
The pain that Josh and Simon feel is very real. From a spiritual perspective, I believe that people like Josh and Simon have never lost their connection to the divine, or to other people. This is a good thing. Unfortunately, many of their peers have lost their own connection. When Josh and Simon witness the physical and emotional pain that their peers inflict, it may well be a deeper sign that their peers are in fact disconnected from Source energy.
Logically, we know that everyone and everything is connected; quantum scientists have been studying this phenomenon for years. Still, some people are so disconnected from Source that they are immune to (or at least unaware of) other people’s pain. Others have learned to place boundaries around their own physical body to protect against “bad vibes” that hover just outside of their conscious awareness. For example, I see many health care professionals who carry around an extra layer of fat as their means of protection.
I’ve presented examples of two boys who experience intense connections to their intuitive and empathic consciousness states. I believe that their connection with others is so intense that they are not always able to separate their own experiences from the experiences of other people.
I would never encourage intuitive people to shut down or close off their intuitive abilities. But I do teach people like Simon and Josh how to have better control over their choice to connect with other people’s experiences – and how to protect themselves from the physical toll that a constant connection with others can take on their own spirits.
Research shows that meditation actually reduces symptoms of stress, depression, and physical pain. By teaching the combination of meditation, visualization, and grounding strategies, I find that young people like Josh and Simon can find just enough separation between themselves and others so that they can lead happy, healthy, intuitive lives.
If you want to learn more, email me (robyn.mckay@mac.com) or call: 913.220.7391
Love,
Robyn
