My heart has been blissfully asleep for so long. Only now, I am opening up a little. It has not been easy, often move into my indifferent shell, letting my mind take over. Let’s see.

Thanks.

Blessings to you
Roland

It’s so difficult to be a sensitive person in such an insensitive world, and it sounds like your housemate is just too toxic for you right now. Especially after a traumatic accident, you may need to spend more time alone as you heal.

There are a good series of books by Elaine Aron about The Highly Sensitive Person. Aron has discovered that highly sensitive people like us make up about 15% to 20% of the population, and that our sensitivity is an important part of our individuality. She feels that sensitive people should take their sensitivity seriously, and not try to change themselves to fit into a loud and insensitive world.

I haven’t been in an accident, and I’m feeling pretty good right now, but there’s NO WAY that I would live in close quarters with a person like your housemate. It would wear me out! There’s nothing wrong with me, or with you, if we don’t want to deal with chaotic people who can’t manage their own emotions.

Think of it this way: If you had perfect pitch, would you want to listen to constantly flat or sharp notes all day long? No. So look at your sensitivity as a plus — as a skill that you have — and don’t make yourself miserable just to prove that you can be around insensitive and emotionally chaotic people. I’m sure you can, but why should you?

You know that your home should be a sanctuary for you. I suggest that you see if there’s a way to make distinct separations between the housemate and yourself as you heal. Trying to force yourself to become less sensitive is a losing game. You’re not a regular clown who can ignore pain and suffering around you, so make sure that you don’t ignore your own pain and suffering! Take care of yourself, says one highly sensitive empath to another. Some people are just going to be toxic to you, and that’s not a failure on your part.

Bless you!
Karla

I feel blessed, but gosh it’s hard sometimes

And Katrina, great story. Acting is wonderful training for empaths, and body language is so powerful. There are a lot of studies out now about how body language actually creates emotional states. So we can all learn better body language and fake our way to good boundaries!!

But it’s not fake if other people believe it and it tricks our brains into specific moods. Hah!

Let’s all sit up straight, puff out our chests, smile widely, and feel proud and strong!

Then I returned to acting as an adult — and discovered just how completely I had shut myself off from my body and from my emotions. It took years of self-work (with books and audio series by Julia Cameron, Dawna Markova, Elaine Aron, and others, including some of your earlier work, Karla) and classes and workshops in dance, acting, and stage combat (imagine … learning how to create the illusion of violence on stage helped me to become more emotionally whole, more connected with my body, and more comfortable in my own skin!) … but I now feel like a whole, balanced human being — intellectually, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and creatively.

But it has been very scary and very difficult opening back up to my emotions — because that meant dropping some of the “armor” I’d used for so many years to keep myself protected from other people.

I can’t wear that “armor” and still be a good actor (because good acting requires a very deep level of empathy, a willingness to be emotionally available and emotionally vulnerable … in front of complete strangers!).

So I’ve had to learn other ways of keeping myself emotionally healthy while living and working every day with other people (I’m an actor with a “day job” at a small daily newspaper, so I deal with people in the “business world” on a regular basis.)

But what I’ve learned about body language as an actor really helps. When I want to make it clear that I have strong boundaries and I’m not to be messed with, I sit and stand and walk in strong, no-nonsense ways — and most people get the message immediately.

When I’m with someone that I want to “let in,” I “soften” my body language and “invite them in”; I let my body language reflect my desire to be gentle and accepting and welcoming — and as a result, people usually feel very comfortable around me; they relax and “let me in” a little, too.

It’s hard to explain exactly what I do physically, though — because I’m usually not thinking about the specifics. I just think, “tough, no-nonsense,” or “gentle and accepting” … and my body language shifts accordingly.

People think of acting as “pretending” … but I have found that the best acting really comes from being more authentically human and real and vulnerable than most of us are able to be in everyday life.