Empathy, synaethesia, energy and not protecting yourself

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I realized a long time ago that it is possible to experience people’s pain. I often talk about it on social media, or with my patients, and because of that, I realized it is a relatively common thing. Many craniosacral therapists and osteopaths have reached out to me to discuss how they tend to go through the same.

Surprisingly though, this is not discussed during our studies, which leaves some room for explanations that lead to some beliefs regarding what to do when it happens. I believe it is time to address this topic. This is my first article on the topic, and more will come.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Litany against Fear, Dune, Frank Herbert

Feeling people’s pain

So in my case, this is what it looks like:
A patient, or someone at a party, would tell me they have lower back pain for example, and I would start to feel a pain in my right sacroiliac joint. I can tell if it’s deep or superficial, if it’s the size of an olive, or if it’s 10cm large. I can tell if it’s pulling, throbbing, if it’s sharp or sore. The more a patient talks to me, the more precise the perception of pain will become.

Because of that, it would be very tempting to say that I feel people’s pain in my body. But how could that even be possible, since my patient is separate from me?

That’s energy. Or is it?

When you feel your patient’s pain as yours, you are often left with very few explanations as not many people talk about it. Still, some people do, and those people are usually talking a lot about energy.

Very often, people who work with an energetic modality will have this idea that energy is moving around and that pain is a form of bad/disturbed/stuck energy. I’ll keep it short here because my point is not to talk about those models, but to explain that this idea leads to thinking that energy is a bit like a cloud floating around and that it can be absorbed by people. Pain can be absorbed by practitioners, and pain becomes theirs.

It feels pretty logical then that one should protect themselves in order not to absorb people’s “bad” energy. And that’s precisely what I was offered to do when I started to mention that to some of my mentors, which made me regret talking to them about it: “You need to visualize a bubble of light around you, otherwise, you will get sick.”

I know, scary, right? Who would like to get sick?

But hey, I am a bit very stupid. And it felt very natural to me to do that, just like breathing. It’s not something that I do by the way, it is something that happens to me. Imagine if you were being sad and someone would just tell you “No, protect yourself, don’t feel sadness”. How can I just pretend this doesn’t exist? How can I just pretend it is not happening?

Hence, I decided to forget about the energetic model for a while and just dive deeper. We will talk about it in our next issue, but for now, let’s discuss another model to explain what might be happening.

Another model for people who need models

I was lucky to connect with a few people online who introduced me to synaesthesia, and this is what Wikipedia says about it

Synesthesia or synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.For instance, people with synesthesia may experience colors when listening to music, see shapes when smelling certain scents, or perceive tastes when looking at words. People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes.

There is an almost infinite number of synaesthesia, but the ones we are interested in today are not the ones that make you see colored waves in the air while listening to some music (true story, happened to me once only though). No, the ones we are interested in today are called mirror-touch synaesthesia, synaesthesia for pain, or pain empathy. Not everybody agrees on the name we should give it, and whether those 3 are different, or at least I don’t believe there’s a consensus on that.

But the point is that it is discussed and accepted that it is possible to feel people’s pain, and that it doesn’t necessarily mean you are absorbing a form of dark-clouded energy, or a demon-like entity that will make you sick. My point is not to go against the energetic model, but if this model prevents you from feeling more, then maybe a different model could become useful. Still, if you ask me, no model at all is just as good, but I don’t want to scare you for now, otherwise, you’ll feel like protecting yourself..

Pain is a protection

One last thing about protecting yourself against people’s pain. If you are an osteopath, a manual therapist, a doctor, etc., and work all day with people who are in pain, you are supposed to realize at one point that pain is a defense mechanism. If your nervous system believes you are in danger, then pain might be experienced.

So let’s say you feel some pain that “doesn’t belong to you”. Pain is a protection. And you are telling me that your answer to protection is…more protection?

Just think about it.

Do not protect yourself

I am only sharing my journey with people who kind of experience the world the way I do. And I know my shit. I know my shit because I put it to test again and again, day after day, patient after patient. I quote no author but experience. And let me tell you something: Do not protect yourself.

Of course, you can meditate, you can limit the amount of hours you work, you can walk in the woods. But this is just about finding your balance. What I mean is please, do not run away from your perceptions. Do not be afraid of it. They are just perceptions. They don’t belong to your patients or you. They are just there, to be perceived.

When you knock your small toe on a piece of furniture, do you have time to wonder if the pain is yours or not? You just feel. You feel the deep pain that arises, the pins and needles on the face, the nausea that appears. There’s no time and no space for you to question your perception.

When you are gathered in a stadium with 60000 other people to listen to your favorite artist and everybody goes bonkers at the same time, do you wonder if it’s your emotion or theirs? No time for that. It is just felt.

And you go through your life like that without any problems.

But feel a pain in the knee while your patient describes their pain in their knee, and you go “NOPE, I need to protect myself otherwise I will be sick”.

Your only option, the only one that isn’t based on fear, is to listen. Your pain is my pain, my pain is your pain, in an eternal loop until finally, pain becomes just pain, without the need for an individual to own it.

That’s all for today. Should you like to receive my newest articles via email, you can subscribe here.

Love,
Jules