The Ignorant Empath

Energy can be a difficult source to identify.  Everything itself is made up of energy, so one would not think that it would be a hard concept to understand.  The truth of the matter is that identifying the energy of a specific thing is rather challenging when an individual absorbs the energy of others and does not realize it.

I am what might be labeled as a thought empath.  Other people’s thoughts tend to stick with me for quite some time after they have been expressed.  This also means that I absorb a lot of the negative energy from others.  This happened a lot when the house from my childhood was up for short sale.  I was still living in the place at the time due to having nowhere else to go.   Most of my family kept worrying about me becoming homeless.  That was also a worry of mine as well, but I did not think the bank would be too quick to claim a property that was so run down that it was not even worth half the amount of the loans taken out against it.  Instead of having more of an optimistic outlook on the situation, I began to absorb all the negativity my neighbor would express about the whole housing issue.  Since I had my own worries about housing, I did not realize how much of an impact he was having on my thoughts.   Then one day, my neighbor came over to have me sign some papers in regards to the short sale, since he was also the realtor trying to sell the place.  I was feeling generally happy before he showed up.  After my neighbor left, thoughts of homelessness kept coming back into my head throughout the day.  I could not shake them whatsoever. 

Energy from others can also have an impact on the speed at which I receive thoughts as well as the mood I am currently experiencing at the current moment.  I tend to have quite the imagination.  When I am around a whole lot of noise, my imagination goes on overload, and my mood skyrockets into a level of euphoria unknown to most people.  Even after I leave the area where all the noise was occurring, it takes me a while to get back into a balanced mood.  Thoughts keep coming and the laughter never stops.   Sometimes I can get this way when I am all alone, but the euphoric mood is usually more prominent when I am in a room with a lot of people or noise.  In other words, the euphoric mood strikes when there is a lot of energy moving around. 

I always believed that all the thoughts I ever had were my own, but it turns out that this might not be the case.  I just have to learn how protect myself in the future from rooms with a lot of energy flowing back and forth.  I also need to realize that maybe not every thought that pops into my head is my own.  The seed of a certain line of thought might actually be from someone else, and has nothing to do with me at all.  Only time will tell how much truth there is to this new knowledge I have acquired.    

A Fragment in time that Changed my life Forever

Author's note:  (I just wanted to share something that I wrote a little over a year ago.  I recently have been a little down and out, but then I realized how far that I have come.  My thoughts are a lot more coherent now than ever before.  This is because of all of those who have taken time to read what I have written.  If no one read what I have posted, then I would have never gone anywhere.  Thanks goes out to all that have stood by me all of this time.)  

A person’s career is one of the most important aspects in his or her life.  Choosing the right path in regards to employment can be rather hard task due to pressures from the outside world.  A closer look at the personal traits of an individual will reveal the career that is best suited for him or her.

I am a heavily introverted person and tend to be receptive of the world instead of active.  I am slow to process information while evaluating the world around me before I come to any conclusions whatsoever.  I have a constant barrage of thoughts going through my head every second of the day.  I am a very imaginative human being despite coming off as mechanical in everything that I do.  Unordinary thoughts pop into my head at times when they shouldn’t.  I used to get angry at myself for being this way.  I wanted to be like everyone else and focus on the task at hand as it is presented to me.  However, I was not meant to be this way.  My inner world will always be a lot stronger than my outer world.  My inner world will dominate me even if I am in a room with hundreds of others.  When I lose my voice within my head due to sounds from the outer world, then I get frustrated and want to leave the area.  This is because I tend to pop in and out of existence when my inner world is threatened.  Without my thoughts, I am just a corpse, and I cease to be a human being. 

Working in call center poses huge problems in regards to my personality type.  I take calls back to back with no breathing room in between.  The loud beeping gets annoying quickly each time a call comes through.  The cell phone reception these customers have is complete garbage.  The volume of the static is unbearable in a lot of cases.  This means that my inner world is taken away from me.  This means that I pop in and out of existence while on the phone with other people.  This can create confusion in my speech, and so I will have to end up restating information multiple to customers due to my inner world and outer world competing for my attention.  My mind does not know which one to pick, which results into speech that can sometimes seem nonsensical. 

Break times are also a huge deal for me within the confines of the call center.  We have two fifteen minute breaks within an eight and half hour period.  There is a half hour time slot for lunch that can be taken away if calls keep coming through at an alarming right.  In situations such as this, everybody works through lunch.  The company provides, but what is the point when no one has time to eat it?  A person can only pack so much food into his or her cheek.  Everyone is also required to work mandatory on call on weeks assigned to them.  If a person has an early schedule, then he or she could be working up to four hours extra without any extra break.  People need adhere to the schedule that is given.  There is a bit of leeway regarding the time someone’s paid break begins and ends due to how long the last call runs before that individual can use his or her break time.    Going to the bathroom twice in ten to twelve hours is not enough for anyone with a sensitive pelvic floor.  I am sure others with a standard functioning pelvic floor are suffering as well, but to a lesser degree. 

The way the call center operates with sick days is flat out ridiculous.  If a person calls out sick, then he or she has to call three different numbers.  The employee needs to call his or her supervisor, the attendance line, and the human resources department.  The human resources department should not have any say on sickness whatsoever.  I had a few issues regarding potential gingivitis and pharyngitis.  I also had a few doctor appoints and a meeting with a lawyer that I needed to be present for during the winter months of 2016.  Because the company was in the middle of high bill season, I was not allowed take off for any reason.  I used sick time in order to go to all of my appointments.  It turns out that the company no longer offers the option to use the floating holidays everyone receives on a yearly basis as sick time.  I was formally written up for being sick too often.  One of days I was sick was due to the company encouraging me to go home due to coughing up a storm for a week straight.  The reason that this issue transpired is because the departments within the company that I work for do not communicate with one another.  Every time I have called down to another department to ask a question about a process for a customer’s account, the person on the other line has no clue what needs to be done.  No one talks to one another about anything or anyone.  Once an individual moves from the call center to another department, then he or she forgets all the knowledge that was learned during his or her time taking calls.  An employee should carry knowledge from one department to another even if the knowledge learned does not relate directly to the workload that the employee will be responsible for.  What is the point of doing a job if you are not going to learn anything from doing it? 

All of these events have led me to contemplate about embarking on a new career path.  It is clear that a highly sensitive individual such as myself has no business in a call center.  This call center is for extraverted who react to situations quickly without any kind reflection.  I do not know how to smooth things over in a nice way.  I am not overly blunt with the customers that I talk to everyday, but I do not know how to say things in order to alleviate the angry emotions that the customers are experiencing.  This is because I have to stick to the “script” that I was given in training.  If I cannot interact with the public in an honest and fulfilling way, then what is the point of my job other than to appease people?  If I cannot apply the skills I have learned throughout the entire company, then how can I take my career seriously when all I am doing work to keep myself busy. 

Because of all of the hustling that I have been doing, my health has declined.  I do not eat or drink the way that I should.  My lower back arms hurt from being leaned over a desk all day.  The door to the bathroom is also ridiculously heavy, and has definitely hurt my arm.  Eight hours of sleep is not enough for a person with a dominant inner world.  I will sleep for eight hours and wake up feeling drained.  My throat is dry and scratchy all the time.  I actually was diagnosed with adult allergies.  I am not one to question doctors too often, but the diagnosis I was given was not correct.  I think my issue is that my voice and throat gets tired of yelling at people because no one understands me when I speak at a regular.  This constant yelling has caused me to have throat issues.  The lack of sleep probably contributes to my sinus problems.  Eight hours of sleep is not enough recharge my body.  The customers steal every ounce of energy that I have.  This means that I have no energy to engage in any extracurricular activities on the weekends.  The weekends are spent sleeping or listening to music in order to build up the strength for the following work week.  When I finally took a vacation, my health improved in just three days.  I no longer had pain in my back or arm.  My mental energy could be used in a productive manner.  I did not feel like I had to rest up for two days in a row just to be able to survive.  One might say that almost every person does not like his or her job.  While that may be true, not everyone has a job that impacts their well-being so much that there they cannot do anything else.  These issues go beyond not liking my job.  It is destroying my essence as a living creature.  A highly sensitive introvert like me needs a career path that meets my need to create while also allowing me time alone to recharge my energy.  Everyone has to face obstacles that go against who he or she is as a person at some point, but no one should be forced to act the opposite way to how he or she actually is every day of his or her life.  I need a career that allows me to put my best foot forward.  Anyone can do anything for a short amount of time and be fine.  For example, suppose that someone is great at working with appliances and electronics obtains a job as an editor for a publishing company.  He or she might be good at the job for a while, but his or her extraverted needs will not be met sitting inside a room at a computer not talking to people on a regular basis.  This person will eventually feel as though he or she is wasting his or her talent editing papers.  This individual would most likely feel more actualized working as a plumber instead of remaining locked in one room all day long.  Who you are will eventually catch up with you.  A person has to choose what is important to him or her.  Should a person sacrifice his or her health for financial security, or should he or she feel good about him or herself from a mental perspective and sacrifice material perks to feel healthy on the inside? 

The answer is pretty clear in my situation.  I need to leave the extraverted life of the call center in order for my health to improve.  I will have to worry about money for a while, but in the end, I will feel better about my mental state.  I will be able to be creative and feel as though I have enough energy to finish things to completion.  There will be some tough times ahead, but I have weathered through the employment storm before, and I can do it again.  I need to find my purpose in life.  The universe is not going to put me through sixteen surgeries and a gender transformation just so I can sit inside of a call center and not be able to interact with others as an authentic human being.      

Learning how to show Compassion

The world can sometimes be a very scary place to be.  A good part of the population is still stuck in survival mode, and this can lead to circumstances that would be very unpleasant to deal with.  On the other side of the coin, compassion is something that a lot of people seem to have forgotten about.  I also forgot about compassion as well during last night’s conference regarding getting a name or gender marker altered. 

The conference started inside a small room within the Chase Brexton healthcare facility in Baltimore City.  A person by the name of Monica stated that she does not trust any medical institution.  She thought that the medical was talking about her when she was unconscious from anesthesia.  Another individual who identified as a trans man told his story about working a job in the medical field.  He made sure that the doctors gendered people correctly.  A non-trans female lawyer also explained that she was at the conference in order to obtain information to serve her clients more efficiently.  Monica decided to start arguments with both lawyer, and the trans man.  She asked them both what they are doing here.  The lawyer explained once more that she was there to gather information to help her clients.  Monica did not like this answer.  She felt as though she was being observed and did not feel that was equal to the lawyer.  Monica also had an issue with the story the trans man gave regarding his experience in the working world.  In other words, the only thing Monica would have accepted for a legitimate answer would have been someone saying that he or she was at the conference to help takes steps to get his or her name or gender changed.  Back stories did not matter to this woman. 

I began to lose my cool on the inside as Monica berated these two individuals over and over about why there were at the conference in the first place.  I wished the host of the conference would have stood up and told Monica to stop, but she just sat there instead.  I could have voiced my opinion, but I did not want to add insult to injury.   The host probably thought the same thing. 

After the arguments were over, the conversation then turned to gender identification on medical forms that one receives in the waiting room of an office.  People were complaining about forms stating “female” and “trans female” instead of “cis female” and “trans female.  Certain people felt that this was an injustice to the transgender population.  One person thought that the different boxes on the forms forced people to indicate how they perceive their bodies.  It just amazed me that no one brought up the fact that transition is more of an internal movement than an external one.  No one talked about what they learned from transition so far.  It was always about others people’s perception of who they were.  Transition is about the journey to express one’s inner nature.  I felt like I did not belong at this conference.

After the conference was over, I went to the diner in my neighborhood to try to raise my spirit.  This helped a little bit, but it took about five more hours before I was able to get the whole incident out of my head.  I did not sleep at all during the night.

 

I thought the whole conference was about helping others with changing one’s name or gender marker.  I came to the meeting to tell my story about changing both of these things.  I hoped to inspire others with my words, but this did not happen.  I was the one who was taught something in the end.  I did not see the conference this way immediately after it was over.  The universe was teaching me how to have compassion for others who were less fortunate than I was.  If someone told me three years ago that transition was a journey from the inside out, I probably would not have paid attention to a word that this person was saying.  I too was stuck on physical and vocal changes for a long time, and I would not have been able to see the bigger picture.  I have to remember that I was once where some the people at the conference are now.  I wish I would have had this in mind before I went to the conference. 

The reason that I had no knowledge of being taught a lesson was because I absorbed the negative energy that Monica was sending out.  I let her rampage on two other people affect my mood.  This in turn lowered my vibration.  I began to think solely of my needs just as she was doing.  This is why I was not able to see what was really going on in the conference.  Monica controlled everything, and no one did anything to stop it.  This includes me as well.  If I would have stood up to her and changed the topic, then I might have been able to raise the vibration of the rest of the room.  I was somewhat of being physically assaulted, so I did not say anything.  I had an opportunity to change things for the better, but I decided to give into fear instead. 

Now that I realize that I actually do absorb the energy of others, I can then take more constructive measures to protect myself in the future.  I now know how to handle myself in an environment where low vibrations are dominant.  I also understand that I need to show more compassion to those who cannot see the good in the world.  I need to remember that I was not always as optimistic about my life when I was younger.  I was able to pick up on Monica’s vibration right after she opened her mouth.  I should have showed compassion towards her from the start.  I guess the night was not a complete waste.  I might have failed to inspire others, but I learned something about myself in the process.