Resonating With Suffering

 Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others.  When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile.  When we witness someone who is in pain, we suffer in  resonance with his or her suffering.

Matthieu Ricard

So much suffering around me.  Sometimes I fear it is going to break me. I get to the point where I feel so saturated with other people's suffering that if I absorb just one more drop, I imagine I  will explode.

 For the most part...when I am there in the moment witnessing and supporting...I feel okay.  I feel I can handle it. I can support, empathize, stay calm and open, provide a little wisdom and presence if required and do some good.  My gut takes over guiding me as to what to say or telling me when to shut up and say nothing. A wisdom often comes out of this presence that would never come out of a reactive mind. 

But...and you knew there was going to be a but, right?...when I walk away from whatever was shared with me or what I observed or was the target for...I feel so much heavier. I feel like I sucked up every bit of negative energy in that experience.  I visualize parts of me dripping out behind me to make room for what I just absorbed as I move on to another crisis ( and for some reason...in my experience of life ...these  "suffering" manifestations  always come in clusters...just like my chest pain does with very little reprieve between one attack and the other.  I never seem to have time to fully process, regain my balance or catch my breath before I am confronting another whammy.) And just like I feel during an angina attack my chest gets heavy and shrivels up and my gut gets tight when I feel their suffering. .  I am completely exhausted afterwards like I was the one that broke down. I feel it so physically. Some times it is hard to distinguish between an empathy attack and an angina attack. Sigh!

And the sad thing is... there are times I absorb all this only to have the person tell me it didn't help. Even when I can almost see the heaviness sliding off of them, the darkness lifting from them, they may turn to me and say that not only am I not helping, I am making it worse. It is like WTF? Why do you need me here then? Why am I doing this if it is not helping you and hurting me? Sigh.  My inner guidance  tells me at times I can listen though that it did help them, but not their ego. 

I can respond clearly and calmly for maybe the first two individuals that "need" me that day, depending on their level of emotion and the circumstances (dealing with a slip in recovery or the unfair treatment by a narcisstic partner is easier to deal with than witnessing the terror that comes with a paranoid delusion of someone having another psychotic break in which you are the source for suspicion or the expression of another not wanting to go on living)...but as it is in my experience... there is usually a number three and a number four, sometimes a number five to deal with that day.  And anyone from number three on is going to have a soaking wet sponge , already oversaturated to pick up their pain with. I am , by no means, a "Bounty Man Sponge" like in the commercials. I may look like them around the middle these days...but that's about it. I have four biological children, a step son and a grandaughter...with two more grandchildern along the way.  With the exception of the grandchildren, each of these individuals have a very significant amount of suffering in their lives and they look to me for support, guidance, and empathy. I am just one very broke, less than healthy. far from perfect mother. There is only so much of this imperfection to pass around. 

  There are times I have nothing left to give.  I'm done. Then I feel so guilty...I feel so sad when I get to that point I cannot absorb another drop as I watch myself close down.So, ironically,  I am always very grateful for the universe, as I plea for forgiveness, for prioritizing for me when it offers me the most needy things to deal with first. I also get angry and frustrated at times, looking up and calling out, "Why can you not just stop it with the onslaughts? Why can you not give us one thing to deal with at a time...or at least make the things we have to deal with a little less challenging?Why can you not provide enough other support for us so we can deal better?   Or  if  we are not meant to have more support, why can you not wrap me in more bounty sheets making me a more effective "quicker, picker upper!" so I have more room in me  to absorb at least some of the pain from them?  

I will also cry out at times, "It is just too much!!!" I know as soon as those words levae my mouth that that isn't true. This is simply as it is...not too much even though it feels too much.  It is what it is and it is all meant to be.  I had recently prayed for an acceleration in this awakening process. Maybe just maybe...this is all part of the acceleration for all of us to become more concious at a deeper level. I don't know.  I don't know much...but I will trust that Life has all our backs. 

So...yesterday was a challenging day...started out feeling good providing small services for others and then I walked into one suffering experience after the other.  By the evening I was toast...completely burnt out. 

I woke up this morning after a hard sleep with so much grief, worry, concern  as well as all those residual emotions I absorbed yesterday that are not my own. So I sat down to meditate over this and  I felt I had a choice...I could do one of those meditations that would make  all the energy that was not mine  slide off...or I could do a meditaion that opened up my heart more and created more space in me or around me so I could absorb more (Tonglen).  I wonder if you can guess which one I chose.

All is well.