My softness to my armor,
"You don't need to protect me from the war. You only need to allow me the space to compassionately take the war out of myself."
This is a blog post about soft people. This is a blog post about how soft people are often discredited in the world. Over the years, we have come to define soft people as "empaths." Consequently, in my personal opinion, the societal definition of an empath has led to more confusion than it has led to a deeper understanding.
I believe that it has seriously dislocated the empaths farther away from their true, essence selves. (The tiny bit of a conspiracy theorist in me goes, "Hmmm...maybe that was their plan all along? To confuse us about who we are?" But alas, I digress...)
I am one of those soft people who learned that I fit the definition of an 'empath' several years ago. At first this knowledge was helpful--even liberating!
Over the course of time, the gift started to feel more like a curse when all of the hype about empaths turned into us needing to become more like Athena's or Xena Warrior Princesses or King Titans in order to survive in this world.
This description of an empath was the exact opposite of how I felt guided to move in this world. I mean, don't get me wrong, empaths are true warriors on the inside but we move differently on the outside. The empath is like the dancer. On the outside, they appear to be moving gracefully. Yet, on the inside, they are a weaving a turmoil of emotions from the collective through their bodies. The dance is the freeing of those trapped emotions as they are given to a higher power for trans-cen-dance.
Empaths are made gracefully and soft on the outside because we want to actually appear as the blanket to you. We want to blanket you with the reassurance that this human life is incredibly hard. We desire for you to know that you are not alone and we would even love to share our blanket with you!
The empath's dance is not always one of grace and ease. What happens when the empath reveals his volcanos or her earthquakes? Minds are shattered for anyone on the path of the empath's dance. Either way, the message of the empath is always the same: feel your feelings, above and below, and observe the shift in your consciousness when you do.
I recently learned that my Mayan sign represents the "earthquake." In other words, I create earthquakes that become emotionally visible and are meant to bring new ideas to the collective consciousness but these shifts in mental tectonic planes will not always be smooth-- and therefore, I am prone to conflict in relationships. Oftentimes, this conflict comes from a place of feeling deeply misunderstood. Both my partner and I laughed when we read that description. My partner has witnessed one too many of my "earthquakes" over the course of our time together!
Though I may feel an earthquake in my own body or unknowingly create them for people on my path, I still abide by the feeling of a fluffy, soft, loyal dog laying on your lap instead. There is no misunderstanding there for me. Like the volcano that erupts, I am simply just "doing my job" by expressing myself. This is to say that I prefer to be more like the rich, fertile soil that you can lay on rather than the earthquake that rips your foundation apart. Unfortunately, I have always felt like I am MORE heard when my earthquake erupts. Simply put, it often feels as if I have been communicating my needs softly for eternities now but it is not until I "lose my shit" that I am finally heard.
What I have learned is that I am a soft person but I often carry hard truths for myself and hard truths for others. I wish to deliver them softly but sometimes, because they are so intense and stir up the subconscious realm (traumas, past, addictions) so viscerally that my deliverance has a way of rattling bones. Living in this duality is not for the faint of heart, that is for certain but I know that I am not alone in this type of collective work.
Soft people often avoid conflict because they feel as if they are not able to be heard in their truth--which is a compassionate, communicative, and forgiving one. We often feel like we are deliberately silenced unless the volcano or the earthquake erupts. The thing is, we have so much to offer in our soft nature that it is literally painful to feel as if the earthquake is the only way for our thoughts about life to be heard. We want to be taken seriously.
I believe that if soft people are encouraged to respond as their true selves in conflict, rather than get a bow and arrow out to attack, then empaths would really be a crucial gear in conflict resolution.
I have set out this year to unlearn my bow and arrow tactics and return to responding through my true, compassionate ways of seeing the world. I deserve to be heard in my softness and not seen as "weak." What I have to offer is serious "fluff."
There is a contradicting 'marching order' out there that empaths need to constantly protect themselves from 'negative energy' or their energy will be drained or they will be taken advantage of. I believed this at first. I mean, I actually felt physically drained from giving so much of myself only to "get nothing back in return."
But then, the light of day hit me last year with some hard truth to integrate. For me, this light of day I am referring to is God, and God impressed this truth upon me,
"You get nothing in return because you are expecting to be filled back up by people who are already drained themselves. Come to Me when you need to be refilled. Stop relying on the physical realm and commune with the Spirit."
For me, God is the word that I choose to use on this journey to describe "that which I cannot see but is with me." You are free to determine what word suits you best but to make matters simple, I am going to continue to use the word God in this two-part blog post.
In part two, I will share my thoughts about how my relationship to God and space has been my greatest protection in this feeling-filled, quaking experience of being a soft person with a hard truth.
Stay tuned! Thank you for reading!