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Being able to say ‘no’ to those we love can be a tricky task, but unconditional love includes the power of choice too.

Many people think unconditional love means sitting back and letting people walk all over us while they meet their agendas. All may be love, but not all actions are indeed loving actions. Unconditional love does not mean tolerating intolerable circumstances.

We can be unconditional love while still placing conditions on what we are willing to participate in. Conditions are not placed on the love. Conditions are placed on the circumstances. Love includes the power of choice too.

Learning to say, “I love you and…  no.” is an empowering form of what I call true authentic relating. True authentic relating is a compassionate form of relating that enables us to stay centered in the heart and maintain integrity, despite antagonistic or bullying attempts to thwart our true authentic power.

Truly and authentically relating to those we love and/or care about, sounds like this:

“I love you, and if you want to be a part of my life, please stop treating me like I do not matter.”

“I love you and this is not okay.”

“I love you and I do not agree with the choices that you are making.”

If it is not appropriate to show love (i.e. at work or another social activity) or you do not feel loving, then use the phrase “I acknowledge you and…  (for example) speaking badly about me at lunch in front of my supervisor is not acceptable behavior.”

Heart-centered awareness and living as our true authentic selves permits us to stand our ground, commanding love of self while also commanding loving conditions. When we command our conditions from the center of the field of the heart, with integrity and authenticity, our circumstances and conditions will realign to mirror back accordingly.

Sometimes this means choosing to step away from situations, circumstances, people, and structures and choosing to love them from afar.  We have the power to choose. Love never goes anywhere. Only circumstances change.

When we make a commitment to integrity and to living from the heart, then we may also recognize that not opting to step away is a choice. Not choosing to step away when a pattern is abusive, demeaning or unsupportive is a choice.

Heart-centered awareness provides a vehicle for integrity, accountability, and responsibility within family structures, at work, and in relation to community. This follows and expands on the principles of coherency, congruency, and integrity in action – a formula for extraordinary living.

Drop down into the ‘field of your heart’. Consider a social situation or circumstance in which roles are limiting the expression of your true authentic self. Think about the role as a pattern. Ask yourself what this relationship can reveal to you that you have not yet recognized.

Questions to ask yourself

•     What thoughts, feelings, or experiences occur for you as you relate to this pattern from your heart?
•     How might you deal with this pattern to enable you to move beyond the limitations of the role to relate from a space of loving self-completion?
•     What actions, ideas, expressions, or conversations might you engage in from your heart?

For example, my mother expects that adult children be the ones to initiate contact with parents on holidays if not together in person. As a result, it is always up to me to make the phone call. This has been frustrating. If I didn’t call early enough or at a time that was convenient, or if she didn’t get the message, she would be upset with me. This would often lead to nasty emails, disappointing conversations, and missed opportunities to lovingly connect.

The last time this happened, I dropped down into the field of my heart. I could see that this pattern was a form of surrogate control: “Do it this way because I said so,”  and even had a little bit of bullying built in. I could see from my heart that my mom just wanted to talk to me. By getting hurt if I didn’t call on her terms. She had her own ready-made source of feeling empowered as a victim in a distorted way. I could see it wasn’t personal, although it felt personal.

Thus, rather than engage in the old reactive patterns of defensiveness, I chose to tell my mother lovingly from the field of my heart that if she wants to connect with me on a holiday, and I haven’t called yet, then please pick up the phone and call me. I would love to hear from her. This was true authentic relating. It enabled me to move beyond the role of obedient child reacting to controlling expectation into a loving space where the pattern could change. The pattern did change.

All relationships carry with them an inherent desire to remain in a state of love. As love itself is boundless, free, and is always moving and flowing, containing a state of love within the fixed boundaries of a relationship can lead to feelings of restriction and dissatisfaction, rather than growth and satiation. More important, when we look to others as the source for the love we desire, we are forever seeking an elusive state. Seeking love from others to fulfill us, or to fully fill us, will likely leave us feeling empty.

When we stop looking outside ourselves for the level of love we desire and instead realize that we are a source of love, than we can shift how we show up, and then, inevitably, everything shifts around us. When we look to ourselves for the fulfillment of love, we quite naturally attract circumstances that reflect similar states of being. In turn, our relationships become more fulfilling, as they become an extension of that which is already full and whole in us. There is a freedom and an expansion found in loving self that allows for more love to flow to us and through us from all directions. This love is within us and is realized all around us. When we let love out and we let love in, the ripple effect expands exponentially through reciprocal waves of grace. When we let love in and let love out, we flow with grace, in an eternal, rhythmic dance of joy.”

“Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world. … Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy

Concrescence for humanity is possible through the art of letting go. By letting go of preconceived ideas, limiting reality constructs, and rigid notions of reality, we open into the realm of curiosity and creativity where anything can happen. We transform our placeholders to graceholders. By living in our hearts and applying Fluid Boundaries to what appears to be happening, we can move into the gap of the unknown to make new collective heart-prints. There is not just one way to move forward.

Concrescence is defined as “the coalescence or growing together of parts originally separate.” The concept of concrescence originated in biology and was later adopted by philosopher Alfred North Whitehead in his book Process and Reality as part of a philosophical ontology.

Every event in Whitehead’s ontology is thus a unique combination of possibility and actuality. The process of combining the two is imagined by Whitehead to be organic and is consequently called “concrescence.” The term concrescence stands for the process that is fundamental for existence. It can be thought of as the growing together of the multiple entities in the world to one single actual entity, which then becomes the material for new entities. Because of being organic, a concrescence is different from a mere combination where the whole is the sum of its parts. [1]

According to Whitehead, concrescence can occur through creative synthesis where the act of decision merges the already decided past with the not yet decided future. [2]

Human nature is to look to past experiences to create future expectations. We think things will be a certain way because they were that way before. The presence of the past creates the future. But concrescence integrates past experiences not as predictions of the future but as references only to catalyze new potentials, new probabilities, new creative expressions. Many existing perspectives and models working together will build concrescence.

Consider that concrescence is already occurring in many paradigms when viewed from a heart-centered, vertical perspective. None of the models are absolutely true, but all of the models are relatively true for the scale they are describing.

Scale is defined as a range of numbers used as a system to measure or compare things. According to world-renowned Harvard professor of theoretical physics Lisa Randall:

“Effective theories are keeping track of measurable details without getting caught in unmeasurable components. … The speed of light is finite and the universe we know has existed a finite amount of time. This doesn’t mean the universe isn’t bigger. It is just that we can’t make observations beyond that scale.” [3]

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a theory to explain everything? In physics, string theory is currently under development. This model aims to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity and seems to have all the necessary characteristics for becoming a Theory of Everything. It is founded on the principle that matter, energy, and, under certain hypotheses, space and time are manifestations of physical entities below which, according to the number of dimensions they develop in, they are called “strings.” For the theory to be valid, physicists propose that there are ten dimensions.” [4]

A true Theory of Everything would possibly include all theories, as there is not one ultimate reality. All realities are a matter of scale or, more simply, a matter of perspective. Each model often describes the respective dimension it is observing.

Consider that the evolution of physics and science may simply be an evolution of our perspectives based on scales. Current research builds on and is a logical extension of what is previously known. Current research comes from the past and is based on measurable observations. Aspects of string theory known as super-symmetry and Brane models seem to hold the most promise of being able to build on what is already known and linking to the unknown. However, none of these models can get there alone. They rely on a delicate balance between what has been discovered in the past (predictability) and the unexplained mysteries of the universe (probability).

The science of our three-dimensional life is Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics explains how objects obey the laws of gravity. This is the world of physicality and matter. This is a science of predictability.

The science of 4-D is a realm of probabilities. Traditional models consider 4-D to be space-time, which includes four-dimensional combinations of width, height, depth, and time. Because space consists of three dimensions, and time is assumed to be one-dimensional, spacetime must, therefore, be a four-dimensional object. Oxford physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose proposed that space and time themselves are secondary constructs that emerge out of a deeper level of reality. Mathematics professor Andrew Hodges of Oxford University says that “This idea of points of space-time as being primary objects is artificial.” [5]

Quantum physics explores an unknown future of probability states. Quantum entanglement experiments reveal that particles can instantaneously communicate over infinite distances. This is a model of a world in which everything is connected. At the subatomic level, the reason electrons are able to communicate with each other from thousands of miles away is because they are not separate. Quantum physics challenges our basic ideas about space-time. Relativity from a quantum physics perspective reveals a realm of possibilities. This is also a realm of the mind in which probabilities can be explored before they fully actualize as experience. We can traverse the past via memories and explore the future through imagination.

However, moving beyond 4-D is problematic for science due to the measurement problem. But nonetheless, there is compelling evidence that there is more than meets the eye, and portals into infinite dimensions may soon be discovered.

Harvard cosmologist and theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door, posits that there is a hidden fifth dimension that we can’t see. According to her widely recognized model, which dovetails with string theory, “The fifth dimension could be so warped that the number of dimensions you see would depend on where you were. … The fifth dimension could actually be infinite and we would not have noticed it.” [6]

Infinite extra dimensions, depending on our perspective.

Randall has made some astounding discoveries in theoretical physics linking tiny quantum particles to a model of the cosmos. While she utilizes a very pragmatic approach, starting from what science already has proven, her colleagues cite her “amazing nose” in terms of knowing where to look for hidden variables. She has a knowing without knowing how she knows, and her intuitive hunches consistently enable her to follow her nose (knows).

Dimensions are simply the different facets of what we perceive to be reality. We are aware of the three dimensions that surround us—length, width, and depth—because we can see them in everyday life. String theory proposes that beyond these three dimensions are additional dimensions that are not immediately apparent to us but that can be still be perceived as having a direct effect on the universe and reality as we know it.

Consider that that hidden fifth dimension, too small to measure and too vast to quantify, can possibly be found without measuring devices and mathematical computations. This hidden dimension is found in the field of the heart.

The field of the heart is the gateway to infinite potential and infinite expression, as well as infinite dimensions, [7] beyond the realities we can see and measure into the realm of the unknown. The heart-field is where predictability meets boundless possibility.

The heart-field is the timeless transformative treasure that moves us beyond past experiential patterns of linear time into the holofractal realm of new patterned potentials; we are able to move up, down, right, and left, any which way in all dimensions, esoterically and practically, for they are one and the same from the field of the heart. Vertical and horizontal awareness meets perpendicular planes of possibilities simultaneously.

The field of the heart is a counter-rotating torsion field or tube torus. Torsion fields are instantaneous signal transmitters and receivers linking local linear effects with nonlocal, nonlinear reality. Our heart-field enables us to traverse all axes of reality from zero-point to all points of perspectives inclusively.

The heart-field is where infinite potentials meet infinite expressions. Infinite perspectives. Infinite choices. Infinite dimensions.

Curiously enough, the physics of heart-centered awareness, a physics of torsion fields, would conceivably enable scientists to reconcile electromagnetism and gravity and would enable mainstream science to prove the existence of unknown dimensions. More than 4,000 papers have been published by more than 150 teams of scientists in the past 120 years describing what a torsion field is, what function it performs, how it works, and where it may be located. Despite this fact, widespread scientific knowledge of this critical, fundamental aspect of physics and biology has been almost completely excluded from the world of academic scientists and mainstream research institutions. [8]

Torsion fields or scalar waves are still considered “fringe science.” Part of the reason for this is that torsion fields are characteristically supraluminal; they travel faster than the speed of light. Because our measuring devices are based on the electromagnetic spectrum and these tools (based on light) cannot go faster than the speed of light itself, we can’t measure torsion fields. However, we can measure the effects of torsion fields. [9] Nonetheless, mainstream science dismisses torsion fields as junk science. In other words, traditional mainstream science has dismissed the existence of scalar wave energy (torsion fields) simply because current measurement tools are based on electromagnetic frequencies, action, and motion, and these measurement tools cannot seem to measure scalar or torsion waves. As we learned from renowned theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, effective theories are keeping track of measurable details without getting caught in unmeasurable components.

The prevailing scientific paradigm is that which is not measurable must not be included.

According to MIT- and Princeton-educated physicist Dr. Claude Swanson, in his Synchronized Universe model, the new sciences of biophotons and torsion fields provide a bridge between two views of life: the old 20th-century view of an organism as a chemical machine and the emerging view of life as communication and energetic flows. [10]

The physics of torsion fields also reveals how language can reprogram our DNA. Russian biophysicist Peter Gariaev and his team have proven the existence of torsion fields. Gariaev’s work, wave genetics, utilizes the principles of laser light and sound and scientifically demonstrates that torsion fields carry information to the biophotons of the body, informing the body to heal and grow. Despite the fact that he is healing so-called genetic diseases, the dead-end dogma of prevailing paradigms has yet to accept his progressive research into mainstream avenues. [11]

Moving toward concrescence entails our ability to see truth in all models. Moving toward concrescence will entail our ability to occupy multiple perspectives simultaneously. Concrescence at the collective level begins with concrescence at the individual level.

So are things really falling apart, or are they coming together in a new way?

Everything at the collective level is moving toward integration. The historic split between mind and body has melded. Wave particle duality has been resolved. Science and spirituality are merging, and even separate masculine and feminine constructs are evolving in an integrated, holistic manner. There is an emergence of synthesis.

Today, many disparate systems are synthesizing. Nothing seems as separate as it did in the past. The boundaries between so-called opposites are beginning to dissolve, and dualities are transforming into an integrated expression of wholeness.

Scientist Dr. Carl W. Hall considered the 21st century the The Age of Synthesis:

“Synthesis is a way of thinking and doing, of providing a vision, in which an idea or a thing, imagined or real, is seen as a coherent whole; often consisting of parts, from which thought can be developed, action can be rejected or taken, and the thing made, assembled, or constructed; either as a new creation or activity or as a duplicate or substitute of known substances.” [12]

To bridge the gaps between all paradigms, fostering synthesis and a movement toward concrescence, we are invited to leverage Fluid Boundaries in relation to our models and maps to describe reality and the way we relate to others.

The art of limitless living includes releasing the fixed boundaries we may have previously established relative to our models and maps, parameters that create a false sense of control over our lives and reality, but that also create a real form of limitation and segregation for collective humanity.

Fluid Boundaries are boundaries that aren’t predefined in anticipation of situations or experiences. In truth, we never know how a circumstance will present itself before it actually happens. At the quantum level, reality is a series of probabilities that only seem to actualize when we observe them. Fluid Boundaries allow us to move freely among the patterns we encounter in the moment so as to allow for maximal flexibility and flow.

Fluid Boundaries at the interpersonal level are a game-changer. We never know what is going to happen in the very next moment. For example, we never really know how another person is going to show up or respond to us. If boundaries are established in advance, those very boundaries may serve to inform and restrict a situation of circumstance, with the preset limitation triggering a reaction. Thus, boundaries can bind us rather than liberate us. Predefined boundaries create separation rather than connection.

For example, we may create boundaries in advance to withstand an expectation of our spouse becoming angry with us, and subsequently guilt-tripping us when we say we would rather stay home next weekend than go to the firing range. The very expectation of the future behavior may indeed be based on prior reactions. Establishing boundaries based on past experiences may actually serve as the trigger for the pattern we were attempting to avoid. This is because an associative reference for the behavior is encoded in the boundary. So instead of avoiding the anger and guilt, the boundary triggers the very pattern we are trying to circumnavigate or avoid.

Conversely, approaching this same anticipated circumstance centered in an open heart, without preconceived notions, with a commitment to notice when circumstances come up as placeholders that may take us out of our hearts, allows for Fluid Boundaries to be created.

When the tendency to move out of the heart occurs, this can serve as a cue to bring in Fluid Boundaries, moving parameters that honor our needs while still allowing others to have their experiences. Fluid Boundaries without expectations can lead to a softening of the interactions, with others wielding very powerful and often surprising results. Whatever the outcome, the possibilities become limitless when navigating with Fluid Boundaries.

This article is excerpted and adapted from “The Art of Limitless Living”, available in Print, E-book and AudioBook.

REFERENCES:

1. Daniel J. Ott, “Process Communitarianism,” Concrescence 10 (2009): 67–75.
2. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, Corrected ed. (New York: Free Press, 1978).
3. Lisa Randall, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” lecture at Harvard University, November 2011, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FiCNLZMhScI.
4. “Looking for Extra Dimensions,” www.superstringtheory.com/experm/exper51.html.
5. “SpaceTime, Relativity, and Quantum Physics,” www.ws5.com/spacetime/.
6. Dennis Overbye, “On Gravity, Oreos, and a Theory of Everything,” New York Times, November 1, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/science/on-gravity-oreos-and-a-theoryof-everything.html; Lisa Randall, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World (New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
7. Barbara Hand Clow and Gerry Clow, The Alchemy of Nine Dimensions (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 2010)
8. David Yurth, Seeing Past the Edge (Mesa, Ariz.: Dandelion Books, 1997); Richard C. Hoagland and David Wilcock, “The Bees’ Needs: It’s the Physics, Stupid!,” http://www.enterprisemission.com/Bees/thebeesneeds.htm.
9. P. Gariaev and M. Pitkanen, “Model for the Findings about Halogram Generating Properties,” unpublished manuscript, http://tgd.wippiespace.com/public.html.
10. Swanson, Claude. Life Force: The Scientific Basis. (Tucson, AZ: Poseidia Press, 2011).
11. “The Torsion Field and the Aura.” Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine 19, no. 3 (2008): 43–89.
12. Carl W. Hall, The Age of Synthesis (New York: Peter Lang, 1995).

“But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.” — Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

Living from the field of the heart gives us direct access to our innate potential and also provides direct access to our emotional intelligence. Heart-centered awareness does not override emotions. Heart-centered awareness includes emotions and enables us to live fully in integrity as our True Authentic Self.

Consider that some of what you may be feeling at times isn’t even you but comprises the feelings of other people you know. In addition, some of what you may often feel are the emotional/thought fields of the collective WE. None of these emotions are who we are, or who you are. Rather, these emotions are transient experiences we may be having or that may be having us. Indeed, these emotions can send confusing signals, obscuring us from the truth of our core essence as love, often clouding our perceptions and experiences of self, others, and all that we relate to in our lives.

Living as our True Authentic Self in a personal undivided house of consciousness opens us to living cohesively with others in the WE experience. Being able to discern our True Authentic Self, our thoughts and feelings from the thoughts and feelings of others, including the collective, is what empowers us to embody the Integrity Effect in the WE experience.

I define the WE experience as balanced living with an equal emphasis on service to self and service to others. The WE experience is more than uniting with others in the name of community. The role of the individual in the true WE experience is not diminished for the overall whole. Rather, the role of the whole individual is pivotal and is directly proportional to the role and value of community cohesion. There is an ebb and flow in this symbiotic dynamic; at times the individual is more self-driven than community oriented, and at other times the individual is more service driven and focused on supporting others. Service to self is what enables service to others to sustainably occur. Compassion for self is what allows for true compassion for others. Love for oneself, as an individual, is what allows for love of others to ripple sustainably into community.

The WE experience honors the role of the individual as the catalyst for creative action, imagination, and collective evolution. The “I” matters. Individuals foster Imagination, Ingenuity, Invention, and Infinite potential. While there is no I in WE, there is no true WE without I. Individual I is not separate from WE. Rather, individual I is an extension and expression of WE, and WE is an extension and expression of I. The two are symbiotic and synergistic. Equanimity is a necessary facet of the WE experience and is key to the physics embedded in the Integrity Effect.

Consider that humanity cannot truly thrive together without the unique contributions of the individuals. We must be whole unto ourselves first and foremost and not look to the WE experience for validation or completion. Validation and completion are our individual birthrights. Completion is innate to True Authentic Self, and the truly authentic WE experience reflects this inherent truth.

So how do we recognize our True Authentic Self amid a sea of emotions that are often Wemotions (other people’s emotions)? We can leverage heart-centered awareness to attune to emotional intelligence.

What are emotions? The Oxford English Dictionary defines an emotion as “a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others: Instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.” So an emotion is defined as a feeling, but what does that really mean?

According to Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience and director of the Emotional Brain Institute and the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research at New York University, “it’s been said that there are as many theories of emotions as there are emotion theorists.” (1)

So, what is the difference between an emotion and a feeling? While the two terms are often used interchangeably, some scientists propose they are not the same. Antonio R. Damasio, renowned neuroscientist and current director of the USC Brain and Creativity Institute, has spent the past thirty-plus years striving to show that feelings are what arise as the brain interprets emotions. Emotions themselves, he posits, are purely physical signals of the body reacting to external stimuli.

Damasio states:

“Emotions are more or less the complex reactions the body has to certain stimuli. When we are afraid of something, our hearts begin to race, our mouths become dry, our skin turns pale and our muscles contract. This emotional reaction occurs automatically and unconsciously. Feelings occur after we become aware in our brain of such physical changes; only then do we experience the feeling of fear.” [2]

Consider a feeling of “having butterflies in your stomach,” the sense of excitement you may feel when you anticipate something great is about to happen. The “excitement” is a description of the emotion flowing through your nervous system, followed by a thought of “excitement” that you have labeled as a feeling in response to your physiology by virtue of associating that response to an anticipated event.

However, the emotion and the physiology of excitement are virtually identical to the emotion and physiology of nervousness, which, if consistent, can be labeled as anxiety. Our bodies do not know the difference between excitement and nervousness. Rather, it is our mind that interprets the emotion through thought that is then labeled as a feeling of nervousness/anxiety. Next time you are feeling nervous or anxious, ask yourself if you are really nervous or anxious, or perhaps you are excited about the unknown possibilities that await you beyond the label.

We are wise to flow with our emotions and closely discern our thoughts and assigned feelings. We are wise to limit our labels, for labels limit us. Emotions can serve as powerful placeholders in our awareness. When we identify with the emotions through habitual thought, feeling, and labels, we may miss the opportunity the visiting emotions may be there to present. Our emotions are gifts of awareness that can unwrap our True Authentic Self.

Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”

We are all empathic. Some people are more aware of this aspect of the human experience than others.

Often, when growing up, children feel the emotions of parents and family members without knowing they are not their own. If a parent is often angry, then the child may take on that emotion and assume it is his or her feeling. The child will feel angry without knowing why. If a parent is very fearful, then the child will receive the fear signals and run these emotions through his or her own physiology.

Children are naturally and noticeably empathic, as they have not placed filters on this innate nature. Over time, children may develop strategies to cope with untoward and unidentifiable emotions. They may revert inside themselves, taking on a shy filter or persona, or they may act out the angry or fearful behaviors at unpredictable times. They become victim to their physiology rather than developing a strong sense of their own individuality, with the ability to discern which are their emotions and which are the emotions of others.

For many years, I was unaware of my empathic nature. I did not know where my emotions ended and others’ emotions began. This created a lot of confusion for me growing up, as I would often feel moody and required a lot of alone time. My parents thought there was something wrong with me. I actually remember making a choice to hide this empathic part of myself, so that I didn’t have to see a doctor. I can only wonder how many children are inappropriately medicated with neuroleptic and mood-stabilizing drugs simply because they do not have a language and structure for understanding their emotions and the emotions of others.

There is an emerging awareness of a new class of people being labeled/diagnosed with HSP (highly sensitive person). It is estimated that 20 percent of the human population would test positive for what Carl Jung called innate sensitiveness. This innate sensitivity has been well researched, and the term highly sensitive person was coined in 1996 by Elaine N. Aron, PhD, and explored in her book “The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You”.

According to Aron and colleagues, as well as other researchers, highly sensitive people process sensory data more deeply due to a “biological” difference in their nervous systems. This is a specific trait that was previously mistaken for innate shyness, inhibition, innate fearfulness, introversion, and so on. The existence of the trait of innate sensitivity was demonstrated using a test that was shown to have both internal and external validity.

Are these people innately shy, or is shy a patterned response, a schema to cope with the overwhelming emotional signals affecting the nervous system? Are only some people highly sensitive, or are we all empathic, with differing coping mechanisms for dealing with the bombardment of emotions? While I am very compassionate to the perceived pain and suffering of HSPs, as one myself, I offer the following: empaths are not victims. Empathy is a gift of human connection. We can learn to mind our state. We can learn to distinguish our emotions, thoughts, and feelings from the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of others. Furthermore, we can also function at a very high level, without the need to protect ourselves from life. Minding our state is a facet of living as True Authentic Self, and is a tremendous benefit of the Integrity Effect.

When I first started teaching large seminars with several hundred people, I would experience emotional overwhelm. As I was rather adept at “feeling” what other people were feeling, I would track and experience the emotions of the entire group each day and assist people in moving longstanding patterns that were hindering their perceived life experiences. Then, at the end of each day, I would feel pummeled. I wouldn’t know if I was depressed, elated, excited, scared, suicidal, or on the brink of stroking out. I had so fully immersed myself empathically in the emotional pat- terns of group members that I neglected to mind my own state.

For this reason, I developed a very useful distinction between empathy and sympathy. Furthermore, I developed a strategy that enabled me to track other people’s emotions without negatively affecting my own inner state.

Many people confuse empathy with sympathy. They are not the same. Thus making a distinction between sympathy and compassionate empathy is relevant and helpful.

As I often share in my teachings, sympathy is entraining in the resonant charge of whatever experience another person may seem to be having or how he or she is behaving. When we are immersed in the experience of what the person seems to be experiencing, there are no other possibility states available. When we are resonating in the person’s misery, drama, pain, rigidity — whatever the placeholder is — when we are in the placeholder, that’s the only place we can hold. Thus we experience exactly what that person is experiencing too.

Compassionate empathy is a Spaceholder. In compassionate empathy, we coherently connect to another through the field of the heart. We then align our awareness, noticing whatever it is that someone may be experiencing as a pattern of information as a placeholder in awareness. This placeholder experience exists simultaneously alongside other possibility states.

As a placeholder for another (connection from the heart), we are able to reflect back to the person an expanded awareness that includes the experience he or she is having in the moment. Furthermore, through compassionate empathy, we do not fully immerse ourselves in the person’s feeling states. We only sample the patterns of experience.

I have learned that one of the most useful ways to mind my state while still honoring empathy is to run the patterns in front of me rather than through my own nervous system.

How is this accomplished? I create holographic replicas of my self in front of me, where I can sample the emotions of the other persons. In these holograms, I have access to the exact same information in my own nervous system without the challenging impact to my physiology. In any given moment, I am able to calibrate the patterns others may be in resonance with without taking on those patterns as my own. I have shared this strategy with many highly sensitive people, creating new paths for empaths everywhere. If you suffer from the gift of empathy, try this. It can change your life.

Empathy is not a weakness. Empathy is a strength that does not require protection. When we know how to mind our state, leveraging compassionate empathy, we become a vehicle for emotional intelligence and a catalyst for humanity. Heart-centered awareness enables us to access compassionate empathy, while maintaining our center, power, joy, and personal perspective, no matter what emotions surround us.

Excerpted and adapted from the recently released book The Art of Limitless Living, available in Print, E-Book and Audiobook, narrated by the author.

References:

1. Julie Beck, “Hard Feelings: Science’s Struggle to Define Emotions,” The Atlantic, February 24, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/hard-feelings-sciences-struggle-to- define-emotions/385711
2. “Feeling Our Emotions,” Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/feeling-our-emotions