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emotions
November 2009 
Are you energetically sensitive?
Posted on Sep 8th, 2009
by 
Ted
Ted
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for September 08, 2009:
I wouldn't use that term, and I think the answer is yes.
If not actively aware I am amazingly suggestable.
I find that if I am not fully conscious, I "go with the flow" of what is going on around me.
The first time I really noticed it was speaking to a group of about 2,000 unionists about 25 years ago. Over a two hour period I found myself responding in ways and saying things that I would never ordinarily have said.
It was such a shocking experience that I withdrew from politics for several years, until I understood the effect.
After that I studied with a hypnotist, and taught myself how to counter the effect.
In some circumstances I find it quite appropriate to empathise with others, and mirror their emotional state, in other situations it is quite inappropriate. Gaining some control of the effect has been an interesting journey.
If not actively aware I am amazingly suggestable.
I find that if I am not fully conscious, I "go with the flow" of what is going on around me.
The first time I really noticed it was speaking to a group of about 2,000 unionists about 25 years ago. Over a two hour period I found myself responding in ways and saying things that I would never ordinarily have said.
It was such a shocking experience that I withdrew from politics for several years, until I understood the effect.
After that I studied with a hypnotist, and taught myself how to counter the effect.
In some circumstances I find it quite appropriate to empathise with others, and mirror their emotional state, in other situations it is quite inappropriate. Gaining some control of the effect has been an interesting journey.
Access: Public
I'm in a mood today, Ted, and found that your answer was the only honest and authentic one here so far. All the others smacked of self-serving “ooooh, yes, just listen to how sensitive and amazing I am!” (probably a hormone deficiency on my part). The effect you describe above has led entire populations to do things they never would have dreamed of all alone.
Ted, thoughtful blog here. Ah, could you share the mood Barbara ? Yes, people can be led into doing things they would not do normally unless they go within and check it out with higher self, being true to self, and authentic.
God Forgive me, but what does possess people to suddenly all turn to the blind, mob mentality? I myself have witnessed this countless times and never fail to marvel at the “spirit” if you will, that grabs up crowds of rational beings and turns them into formless entity with a single purpose. Whether it is a revival meeting, political rally, or watching the Beatles de-plane in the New York City, I know it's called Mass Hysteria but what brings it on? Well, too much for me this morning, I've got good stuff waiting outside. Thanks, Ted, this was very interesting.
Ted, this was the most likely honest answer to the question. I too have been swayed by groups of people and “go with the flow” to my detriment as well. I wish I could read people better and know when it's appropriate to empathize and when not to. Perhaps I'm not sensitive enough.
Thank you all for your comments.
I think we come genetically pre-disposed to going with the group.
I think we can all stay with our higher selves with a bit of practice.
The best analogy I have comes from my pilot training, and learning to fly on instruments. When doing that the key is to keep scanning from one instrument to another, and not fixate on any one. That way we canuse the information from each different instrument to keep our “situational awareness” up to speed.
In a group situation I now use something very similar. I keep scanning my awareness:
What am I saying/doing?
What is the group saying/doing?
Where is this headed?
What context am I evaluating this situation from?
Is this the most powerful and most appropriate context for this situation?
Am I being the best contribution I can be?
And keep scanning. If I notice I am fixated on anything, return to scanning. No more than a second on any one thing.
If in a conversation, the scan may have to go back to the conversation after each step.
Can produce quite amazing results.
This was fascinating, Ted. (And what term would you use instead?)
I love your practice of awareness scanning; to my mind it both means you'll be more prone to picking up on what's going on around you and mindful of your own boundaries and internal impulses as distinct from those others. That, and your final question about how best to contribute to a situation. Were that I could be so conscientious! You give me something to aspire to. :)
Hi Siona
Thanks for the comments. Rather than “energetically sensitive” I would use the term empathic; and do so from a rather strict scientific perspective. For me it is about allowing my intuition to use all the cues available to me (the tone of another's voice, subtle nuances of stance and expression, dress, and any other knowledge I have of their history) to create a model of what life might be like for them, and to immerse myself in the experience of that model, as far as I am able - keeping an awareness that I can only ever eperience my model of reality, not anyone else's; and sometimes the models seem to be quite close.
Sometimes, it seems that when we match models very closely, there is a feeling that in normal terms we would describe as “magic” where subtle cues pass far more information than anything verbal, and we experience massive synchrony and emotional feelings of connection, awe and wonder. We experience what seems like total connection to another, where we seem to mirror another's experience.
Most use the term “energy” to explain such things, for me energy has a different meaning. For me it is a pattern, a “software” things, modulated on the amazing holographic processor that is the human brain - a piece of hardware that can connect any input to any stored experience in less than 1/10th of a second. Quite fast enough to keep our predictive model of reality, within which our awareness resides, informed, and feeding back to the hardware circuits of our neural networks and our chemically mediated emotional centers, and thence through our actions to “reality” (whatever that actually is, as distinct from our models of it).
We are such complex entities. Our conscious awareness sitting atop at least 20 layers of other complex systems, all doing their thing in their own complex and interactive dance with reality, and via that with our awareness. No suprise that so few people have much idea of the systemic structure of it - it requires so much integration of so many different fields. And that understanding is of no use in predicting anything in real time. The only way we can predict anything is to fully trust the holographic processor itself - we couldn't consciously understand even 1 second of our own existence in a lifetime of study and contemplation - it is far too complex.
So we all get to be, who we are, when we are; and we choose from the choices that we are able to see, with the awareness that we have. Which, whatever our level, is all we can ever do.
In my world, I am acutely aware that there are, in all probability, almost certainly an infinite series of levels above the level of awarenes that I have reached, and that at each of those levels, the choices available will quite probably appear quite different. And right now - we each have the choices we have - none of us can see what we cannot see.
That is neither right nor wrong, just how being is - or at least - as it seems to me.
Arohanui
Ted