There are days where we’re standing in the eye of our own storm—this storm of our empathic lives.

Yes, of course we understand why so many people leave. It’s dark and complicated. It feels dangerous, to us more than anyone.

But by the goddess, the storm is part of us! It’s who we are and how we feel, and it enables us to be capable of great love. And when we can understand that, when we can embrace it as the superpower that it is, we will learn to love it rather than simply ride it out.

Sometimes we sit in the eye of that storm, awed by its power and beauty. And sometimes, we’re simply overwhelmed that such a thing comes from within us.

Today is one of those days where I’m sitting in the eye. And maybe on the outside this looks like calm, but if I’m sitting this still and this quiet you can be sure that the storm is raging around me, because while I can think words and write words and feel the hell out of everything, I can’t speak the words.

Every single one is like the sharpest of daggers, and I don’t feel strong enough to endure the pain of speaking them into existence.

There is a pain that is too heavy to be spoken aloud.

Recently, I sat there, feeling the pain of every single aspect of life. It felt like nails scratching across my skin, a weight on my chest, a pressure in my heart. Every feeling in the world made tracks down my face while I cursed my lack of waterproof mascara—and the fact that I can’t seem to stop feeling so much.

I can’t say that it was one event that triggered it. One comment. One criticism. One rejection. It was the whole weight of being a divorced, single mother, an empathic soul in a chaotic world.

Sometimes, when things are difficult, we just need someone to sit with us while we deal with the onslaught of everything that we feel. Someone to keep us afloat when we feel we might drown inside of all of the feelings. It’s an isolating feeling to feel so much, when everyone else seems unaffected by it all.

We’re not simple creatures. We’re the complicated ones who get left behind, being told that we’re too much and not worth the time and effort it takes to stay by our sides. We have wild souls, and we have hearts filled with a love that no one seems to want.

We stand inside the onslaught of our feelings and your feelings and the feelings of complete strangers, longing for someone to stand with us because, while we are complicated and filled with the deepest of emotions, we’re also human, and we long for love and companionship like anyone else.

And it’s lonely here, even with all the feelings—ours and everyone else’s—surrounding us at all times. We are more alone than you could ever imagine. And stronger. More capable. But still human and with an innate desire for connection.

We’ve heard you when you’ve said that we’re more than you can handle. And even though we want someone stronger, your words are another source of pain. So when you encounter our empathic hearts, be stronger for us. Know that we’re protecting everyone else from what we feel so it’s no threat to you. And we’re able to handle it so much more easily when we don’t feel isolated.

So stay a little while. Just stay.

I wonder sometimes if we’ll burn ourselves out or burn ourselves up if we don’t find a way to focus all of that love that hasn’t found a place to land. Self-care becomes essential when we operate at this level of intensity in our lives. So we find ways of focusing it, allowing it to be our power and not our downfall. Allowing it to feed us and not destroy us.

We find outlets for a power that we can hardly explain, and on the difficult days, days where even words escape us and all we can do is feel, we just ask you to do this one thing: just stay. Be there. Be present. Don’t let us sit in the eye of the storm feeling more isolated than we need to be. Offer a listening ear or a quiet presence, whatever the situation calls for, but please don’t make us ask you to stay in that moment because it’s taking all of our resources just to hold on.

We don’t have enough words left over to ask someone to stay. But please do.

The storm will pass. We know that it always will. It’s tough to feel everything, but it makes us who we are. We experience joy as intensely as pain, and the pain will pass. So when you love an empathic person, learn to love us completely and embrace our hearts just as they are.

And when the worst comes for us, please just stay.

 

Author: Crystal Jackson

Image: Niell Kumar/Unsplash

Editor: Emily Bartran