I Feel You.

And that can be both a blessing and a problem. For both of us.

I am an empath with warrior wiring. I can read and feel pretty much everyone’s energy - especially if someone is under duress, in danger, or in a state of despair or depression. This is the sword of intuition; a useful and good gift to have. It allows me to live my mission to “give a word in season to those that are weary”. It makes me calm, stable, and decisive in an actual crisis. It makes me situationally aware and protective.

But I also have a trauma history with an alphabet soup of descriptors (ADHD, HSP, complex PTSD). Trauma history makes you a projector. Or better said, trauma history hijacks the mind’s projection, association, and recall tools with the intention of protecting the core Self and the inner child. So I do what all mammals do: cue off of energy, tone, facial expressions, and words. But, without awareness, I do this through the frequently distorted and highly amplified lens of the neocortex.

Now, being an empath with warrior wiring has an added layer. I still feel what you are feeling but it is covered up by trying to guess what you are feeling about me. This generally falls into two kinds of projections: 1) Are you upset with me? or 2) Are you a threat to me? If I’m close to you, it can be both of these. If a stranger or someone I don’t know well, it’s the latter. So there are your feelings, my feelings, your feelings about me, and how I feel about what you I think you are feeling about me. Are you keeping track of all that? Yeah, me neither.