The Art of Empathy (26 page)

When I was a hyperactive and emotionally volatile little hyperempath, I was fortunate to have artistic parents. My dad was a writer and musician, and my mom was a painter and singer. Art and music, wordplay and singing—these were normal parts of every day in our home. We had a piano, and when I was completely overwhelmed, I'd sit at it to try to learn a song I had heard somewhere. I'd play parts of the melody over and over again,
training my fingers and my ears to memorize the song—and once I got it, I'd play the entire song over and over again to get the right cadence and emotional expressivity. I'm talking
hours
on one song. It must have been excruciating for my family, but no one made fun of me or complained, because artists understand that practice—and that being bad at first—is a part of the process.

Although my early music was probably a form of water torture for any listener, the process of creating music was magical for me. I was able to train my hands and my ears to hone in on specific sounds and actions, I was able to exercise my memorization and sequencing skills, and I was able to express emotions in many different ways as I played and replayed my songs. I was also able to spend significant time away from the needs of others and to focus on the exact ways that I wanted to express myself. Art gave me a way to use my intense Einfühlung capacities in safe, intentional, manageable, tangible ways. Art and music helped me learn about myself as an individual, and they helped me develop grounded intrapersonal empathic skills in the way that animals in my neighborhood helped me develop safer and more grounded interpersonal empathic skills. Artistic expression is a specific healing practice for empaths, and it's a wonderful way for people with currently low emotional and intrapersonal awareness to engage with and develop their interior lives and their emotional awareness.

As you observe your home, look for your artistic practice, which can be as elaborate as having a large weaving loom in your front room or as compact as the special journal you use to write haiku. Your art form can be movement based or it can be located in your meditative practice. Your art can be cooking, baking, or home design. It can also be your mathematical or scientific activities, because both of these fields can engage you completely as you work to organize, describe, and express your understanding of natural phenomenon. When I speak of art, I'm looking for something that allows you to express your thoughts, emotions, ideas, dreams, hopes, and visions in an intentional and tangible way. I'm looking for a practice that helps you express your entire self, honestly and ceremonially. We already have expressive practices for your emotions—we have Conscious Complaining, Burning Contracts, and Conscious Questioning—but those practices are specific to situations that trouble you. You also need an expressive practice for things that delight you, for things that puzzle you, and for the wordless concepts you can't quite grasp until you see them expressed in your favorite art form.

Artistic expression can deepen and coalesce you. It can expand and focus you. And it can embolden you so that you can take the joys, excitements, pains, and troubles in your life and immerse them in the beauty and depth of your soul. Art can be a sacred, alchemical healing practice—and, as such, it's a specific practice for empaths.

As you search through your home for your artistic practice, don't be too upset if you don't find anything except some old art supplies at the back of the closet, covered with a layer of dust, hope, and faint shame. Very few of us were raised by artists, and very few of us have ever been able to set aside time for an artistic practice. Even my heavily artistic friends have unfinished projects that collect dust for months or even years. Modern life is busy and hectic, and there's always something dragging us away from self-care, from interiority, and from our art.

Fantasies of perfection are also a big impediment, because many people don't want to do art unless they can do it perfectly. If that's what's stopping you, then please burn your contracts with art as perfection. Unless you're out there trying to make a living as an artist, you don't have to be concerned with perfection; the point is to use art as a supportive expressive practice that is uniquely healing for your empathic self. You need as many forms of healthy expression as you can get, because empathy is a highly receptive process. Expressive practices will help you create balance, and they'll help you avoid (or heal from) burnout.

If you don't currently have any art or craft that engages you, take some classes. Supporting other artists and helping them make a living is a wonderful way to perform empathic activism, and it's a great way to meet people who share your interests. Of course, classes are social activities where you'll need to be empathically receptive for at least part of the time, but gaining artistic tools and skills will help you embark on your own artistic practice. If you can't make time for a class, then try a simple expressive art form and discover what you like and what speaks to you. Even if it's dancing around the living room to your favorite song, writing a short poem, or creating an interesting display on your refrigerator, find a way to express yourself through art and movement, and find a way to make time and space in your home for art. Art heals.

MOVEMENT AS AN ART FORM

Movement is another expressive art form that is specifically healing for empaths. It is also a way to become more aware of your body and your
emotions if your empathic awareness is currently low. If you don't have time for a traditional artistic practice, you can work with your existing movement or exercise practice to bring some of the specific healing aspects of art into it. Besides improving your muscle tone and your metabolism and warding off the diseases of inactivity, movement practices can provide you with the opportunity to get away from everything, so you can let your mind and your emotions wander freely while you express yourself physically. Of course, if your movement practice is highly social, like team sports, exercise classes with blaring music, or gym workouts in front of a television, they'll tend to be too activating for our purposes. Instead, see if you can bring some of the flowing, expressive, and intentional movements of dance and martial arts into your existing movement practice. If you can, you'll create a three-for-one: good exercise, artistic expression, and a specific healing practice for empaths. Score!

I want you to notice that I'm not exhorting you to exercise. You know and I know that exercise is absolutely imperative. However, the busy, hectic pace of modern life often means that self-care, relaxation, and movement get pushed to the back of the closet, right next to those dusty art supplies. Sleep also gets thrown into that closet and I'd like to take an empathic look at what many of us do with whatever extra time we have. If we're not relaxing, exercising, doing our art, or sleeping, what
are
we doing?

I notice that many of us use entertainment as a relaxation and self-care activity—TV, movies, or the Internet—and those can certainly be a good way to wind down. However, all of these entertainments are interactive, visually stimulating, and somewhat noisy. They also require that you stay in a receptive mode—even though watching TV and movies can feel relaxing, it's activating for your brain, and the lights, movement, sudden sound shifts, and action on a monitor can keep your fear-based orienting skills activated. As such, screen-based activities can be more distracting than truly relaxing. Distraction, which is a form of emotional repression, is a nice skill to have—it's a nice thing to be able to do every now and then—but if it's a regular practice for you, I'd like you to take an empathic look at it.

If you spend a lot of time in front of a screen, and if that's your central relaxation technique, just check in with yourself. When you're engaged in screen-based entertainment, is it grounding for you? Are you able to let go of the tensions of the day and refill yourself with calm and focus? Is your screen time truly rejuvenating? Does it fill you with delicious, full-bodied beauty in the way your rejuvenating practice does? Do you come away feeling refreshed
and refilled? If not, can you think of other relaxation activities that would refresh and replenish you? Would movement work? Would artistic expression work? Would a short nap work? Would your empathic mindfulness skills work?

Entertainment and the Internet are central to many of us, and I'm not suggesting that you banish them. However, if you notice that they take up the time you could spend on movement, relaxation, art, and home tending, then I want you to gently ask yourself why. If you scan yourself empathically when you're in front of a screen and you notice that your screen-based activities keep you activated or even hyperactivated, it might be good to set some boundaries around them. This is especially true with interactive electronic activities such as texting, social media, and checking your e-mail continually. On one hand, this kind of interactivity is awesome for your empathic skills, because it keeps you engaged with many people. On the other hand, this engagement—especially texting and IM-ing—can become a type of addictive distraction that is actually overstimulating and ungrounding for you. As we see every day in online commenting flame wars, people can get so riled up and ungrounded by social media that they completely lose their social skills and their Emotion Regulation skills.

As you work to create a life that will nurture you as a healthy and happy empath, take a close look at your electronic interactions. If they're supporting your emotional awareness in a welcoming and healthy social environment, then hooray! But if your social media interactions are troubling or conflict based, or if they're pulling your focus to a screen pretty much every minute of the day, then it's time to set some time limits on social media so that you can have some privacy, reduce your receptive activities, and restore your equilibrium with healthy, intentional expressive practices like art, movement, or your empathic mindfulness skills.

It's especially important to be aware of your social media and screen-based activities in the hours before bedtime, because the social engagement, the sounds, the visual stimulation, and the flickering lights can tell your brain that it's still daytime and that you should be up, active, and fully engaged. For many people, screen-based interactions and entertainment can actually interfere with healthy sleep. The suggestion from many sleep researchers is that you should shut down your electronics at least an hour before bed (two hours is better, but I'm being a realist here).

So, as we create a healthy home environment for you, let's look at possibly the most important contributor to your health and well-being (and of course, your empathic skills), which is the quality of your sleep.

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM

When you observed your bedroom, what did you find? Did you find a private, comfortable, quiet, peaceful sanctuary where the primary activity is sleep? Or did you find an entertainment space, a family space, or a room where the clutter gathers? Your answer will describe what sleep researchers call your
sleep hygiene.
How sleep-supportive is your bedroom? How sleep inducing is your bed?

In the past few decades, research into sleep has blossomed, and new findings about the importance of sleep seem to appear every week. Good sleep has been found to increase your cognitive skills, help you integrate knowledge, strengthen your memory, help you heal from injuries, help children grow, help you reset your circadian rhythms and regulate your hormones, and help you regulate your mood. All of these positive benefits of sleep are necessary for your whole and healthy life, but for your empathic skills specifically, the mood and cognition benefits of good sleep are particularly important. Good sleep helps you think clearly, and good sleep helps your emotions stay balanced and well regulated.

In his book
The Promise of Sleep,
pioneering sleep researcher William Dement focuses on the essential benefits of good sleep hygiene so that your sleep architecture (the process of falling into sleep, sleeping, and waking) will be ideal. In his book, Dement asks these questions to help you decipher how sleep smart your lifestyle is:

1. Do you carefully avoid caffeinated drinks in the evening?

2. Do you typically schedule your evening meal at least three hours before you go to bed?

3. Do you have a regular bedtime, which you follow with rare exceptions?

4. Do you have a bedtime ritual, such as a hot bath and perhaps reading a few pages, relaxing, while drowsiness sneaks up on you?

5. Is your bedroom generally a quiet place all night long?

6. Is the temperature of your bedroom just right?

7. Do you think of your bed, particularly the mattress and pillows, as the most comfortable place in the world?

8. Are your bedclothes (blankets, quilts, comforters) exactly right for you?

These questions help reveal how you approach sleep. Is sleep a thing you do because you have to, or do you treat sleep as one of the key contributors
to your physical, mental, and emotional health? Is your bedroom primarily sleep-focused, or is it a catchall room? Do you take your sleeping life seriously and practice good sleep hygiene, or is sleep an afterthought for you?

Although Dement doesn't suggest that you have to answer yes to all of his eight questions (we all have different sleep needs), these are questions to ponder seriously. Is your bedroom a sleep-focused room? Is it dark? Dement also asks about the light pollution in your bedroom. His book was published in 1999, but recent studies
⁴²
have suggested a link between light in your bedroom, poor sleep, cognitive depletion, and depression—and that idea has certainly caught on, because you can now buy room-darkening blackout curtains in almost every home store. The relationship between sleep and health is something we're now more aware of, and a tremendous amount of research suggests that sleep is beneficial for your memory, learning, heart health, emotional health, blood pressure, weight control, and endocrine balance.