Many’s a time I've felt like a misfit, almost an outlaw, as if something was wrong with me: being able to pick up people's emotions, not read their minds, but share their feelings. The term for a person with this intuitive ability is “empath.”
While empath is a strange word, cluing into people's feelings enables me to relate to others. Being a highly sensitive person can also toss you away -- it often led me astray in my younger days, getting involved with toxic, emotional vampires who sucked the lifeblood out a of me.
Becoming aware of this inner power and establishing boundaries has been a product of maturation. That empathic energy is also the heart of intuitive writing. I'm not certain who coined the term, but intuition is the wellspring of my work.
Personality Typing 101
Though skeptical about psychology, I’ve delved into personality typing of late to further comprehend this empath business. Labeling people can be tricky, because there are many factors that drive our behavior.
From what I gather, however, there may be something to the various type assessments such as MBTI, even if their scientific validity has been called into question. Also, these assessments don't account for soul…the life force that sparks our existence.
At the same time, we all may very well have an innate set of characteristics that drive how we respond to the world, how we learn, and how we love. The key word here is “respond” which is not the same as “react.”
Here too, moving from reacting to responding is a product of maturation. Of course, humans are highly adaptable, and thriving in society dictates that we evolve, if not modify our behavior. But to some extent, we are hardwired when it comes to external stimuli.
The Intuitive Introvert
For what it’s worth, my personality type is INFJ, an intuitive introvert, an advocate or a counselor as it were. Apparently, INFJs only comprise one percent of the population, about as rare as Unicorns, only we are hiding in plain sight.
Not sure how near or far afield this assessment may be, but the insights into my personality I’ve gleaned from this exploration have been illuminating. Whether by choice or circumstance I’ve always spent a lot of time alone, sometimes using it effectively to create, others just to roam around in my head.
At times, sadly, I've also stumbled into some pretty low down places, chasing rabbits. But I pulled through.
Just the same, alone time also allows me to recharge my psyche, which gets drained when I’m surrounded by too many people, for too long, mainly because I absorb their energy-- the good, the bad, and the ugly.
At this juncture, I’ve come to accept my place on the introvert/extrovert spectrum, if only because the ratio (according to one assessment), is 57-42, which means there’s a fair amount of extra helping me pass through the world unscathed…lol.
I remarked to someone recently that writing, and performing back in the day, helped make me more extroverted, which is a good thing since spending too much time stuck inside of my own mind is not a good idea. More on that some other time.
Then again, why is it that introverts are often pressured to be more extra?
The social conditioning begins in our early school years and expands outward from there. Anyway, while I may verge on being an ambivert (people often mistake me for an extrovert), my natural inclination is to turn inward to process the real gone world, to borrow a phrase from Ferlinghetti.
On Intuitive Writing
That said, writing and expressing my thoughts in a public forum such as this also breaks down barriers, even if my cadres of readers is small and my words are sometimes misconstrued, most likely because I am an intuitive writer, relying heavily on insights born of energy emanating from within.
Intuition in this realm is akin to improvisation for a musician or an actor. Kind of hard to explain, but when I’m really onto a good thing writing wise, it's as if a vibration flows right through me. My best jams are free style riffs that I sculpt into final pieces after they’ve cooled on the shelf a bit.
Talk about introvert power.
But to bring it all back home, intuition often goes hand in hand with being an empath. This is not to time to take a deep dive into the differences between being empathetic, which many can be, and an empath – that’s an emotional trip on a whole other level.
On Being Authentic
This all may sound farfetched to some, and it’s possible I’ll lose a few readers and friends here. But there’s no point in writing if you’re not being authentic, the internet is filled with pretension aplenty.
Anyway, being an empath also manifests itself in my work at times -- I have on occasion written songs and free verse about the experiences of others after hearing their stories and relating those emotions. It’s a fascinating thing to be able to do, to say the least.
So too is picking up other people’s emotional vibrations, strong ones hit you right in the chest…thump!
Intuition, on the other hand, flows from within like the wind...
The point of this muse is that it’s time to take my work to another level, tie it into my true, introverted-intuitive nature, maximize my gifts, and manifest positive vibrations in this sphere. If that means being more open and honest, so be it.
Until next time, keep on the sunny side.
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