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Wounds and Wisdom

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , on January 2, 2014| 2 Comments »

I saw a quotation some time ago on Facebook, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I’d decided to blog about it for my first post of 2014. Then a week or two ago, it popped up again, shared by someone different, a sign of the resonance of the idea.

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” -Carl Jung

I don’t believe that we can unilaterally leave our pasts behind us. We carry them with us, whether we’re aware of it or not, whether we want to or not, no matter how far we travel. The past happened, and we can either deny that fact and muddle along in blindness, or we can work towards knowledge and acceptance. What happens to us does change us.

But.

We still have choices. We get to choose who we’re going to strive to become. We get to choose how we’re going to move forward. We can choose to let our pasts define us OR we can choose to define ourselves on our own terms.

Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney via Compfight cc

I used to be afraid that my experiences would cause me to close myself off, that I would become bitter and jaded. But because I was aware of that possibility and decided I didn’t want it for myself, I worked hard to ensure it didn’t happen. I got to choose which way to send myself. And now, more than a decade later, I might occasionally experience a touch of cynicism, but that’s it. No overwhelming bitterness, no hatred of the world, and in some ways I’m more open than I’ve ever been.

We can’t always control what happens in our lives. We can’t control the decisions of others. But we can make choices about how we’re going to act and what we’re going to try to focus on. We can’t always prevent unproductive thoughts, but we can notice that we’re having the unproductive thoughts, recognize them for what they are, and deliberately replace them with more helpful thoughts.

The past has given us wounds and wisdom. It has given us strength and scars. And now every moment is an opportunity to use that wisdom and honor those scars and take control of our personal stories.

I’ll leave you with another quotation that feels right for this year:

“There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.” – G.K. Chesterton

May you all have beauty around your next corner, as well as the mindfulness to enjoy the radiance before you reach it.

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Looking Forward, Looking Back: Goodbye, 2013

Posted in Life, tagged , , , on December 31, 2013| 2 Comments »

New Year’s Eve.

I’ve been waiting for this day for what feels like a very long time.

If 2012 was a year of internal change for me, then 2013 was the year of actually making that change happen. A year of logistics. A year of stress and uncertainty. A year of trial and error. Sometimes lots of errors. Learning isn’t always a graceful process.

It was a hard year. But I did what most needed to be done. I tried out some paths I wish I hadn’t taken, and was tempted by more that I wish I hadn’t been tempted by, and had more difficulty making different choices than I wish I had to experience. But in the end, I made those different choices. That is what really matters.

As a result, I’m moving into 2014 with my life perhaps as clean as it has ever been. Not spotless, no, and frankly, I don’t think it ever will be. But clean, with plenty of space. I’m no longer squashed into the corner. It’s a good feeling, and it brings with it the happiness from having accomplished something.

Nala is excited for 2014, too.

Nala is excited for 2014, too. Especially now that she has TWO dragon squeaky toys.

In 2013, I:

  • Received several partial and full requests from agents for Academy

  • Completed a fairly sizable rewrite of Academy

  • Wrote 75% of a science fiction novel that I ultimately determined wasn’t working as it was

  • Began conceptualizing the next novel on my slate

  • Attended five writing events and one World Domination conference

  • Continued regularly blogging (WordPress tells me there were 95 posts this year)

  • Moved

  • Traveled to France!

  • Read 50 books and 16 plays

  • Played several games of BSG, several sessions of Spirit of the Century, and a short Exalted reunion campaign

  • Made new friends and became closer to old friends

  • Went to several plays and musicals and attended a fabulous New Works festival

In 2014, I hope to:

  • Continue to query Academy until I reach my target number of queries

  • Write my next novel

  • Put that novel through a few revision cycles

  • Continue my blogging here

  • Attend at least five writing events (ConFusion, the Rainforest Writing Retreat, FOGcon, the Nebulas, and WFC)

  • Either travel to London for a dose of my favorite city and Worldcon, or travel somewhere else exciting (I’d really like to go to NYC this spring, for example, to see a bunch of new shows coming out. Or Iceland. Or Harry Potter World. Or Japan. Or have a lovely Seattle writing retreat. Or go to some other conventions. Or who knows!)

  • Spend lots of quality time with my friends. See non-local friends I haven’t gotten to see in too long. Make new friends.

  • Strengthen my pesky left ankle

  • Go to a few local museums (the Tech, the Exploratorium, the California Academy of Sciences, the Walt Disney Museum)

  • Throw a party or two

  • Get back into singing shape

  • Continue having adventures

What do you want to do next year? Have any goals or hopes?

Here’s to a wonderful 2014!

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Seven Holiday Survival Tips

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , on December 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I love Christmas, the Winter Solstice, and the end of the year because it’s a time that can be filled with joy and gratitude and renewal. It is the darkest time of year for those of us in the northern hemisphere, and we hold onto the knowledge that things change, that the world around us is  in constant motion, as are we. We think with hope of longer, warmer days and the blooming of spring.

But sometimes the holidays can be quite challenging. For many, it can be a time of loneliness, missing people who are not here or not being involved in the hustle and bustle of the masses. We might be confronted with people and patterns that are difficult for us to deal with gracefully. We might be overscheduled, overcommitted, or overburdened with expectations, either our own or other people’s. We might be tired from the year that’s ending.

I’ve come up with a list of tips for my own personal sanity this year, and I’m going to share them with you. Your mileage, as always, may vary.

1. Prioritize and let go. Let go of as much as you can. Figure out what is truly important to you, and be flexible about everything else. This might include letting go of what other people might want from you, too.

2. Treat yourself. For me, this often means yummy consumables: pumpkin spice chai, hot cider, cookies, ice cream, holiday treats. For others, this might mean a massage or a trip to the library or window shopping or playing a video game.

3. Give yourself time. If you’re really busy, maybe this is five minutes at the end of the day to sit and do nothing. Maybe it’s time to take a bubble bath or time to take a walk or time to watch a favorite movie. For me this year, it’s time to read, and it’s truly blissful.

4. Let yourself feel how you feel. There can be so many shoulds, especially around the holidays when you “should” be perfectly happy and want to do all the things. But give yourself space to feel sad or lonely or angry or anxious or whatever emotion comes up. It’s fine to have a multilayered experience. It’s fine if the holidays are hard.

5. Make health a priority. Do your best to get enough sleep, to eat healthy foods, and to exercise to the best of your ability. (With a healing ankle, that means a five minute walk for me, but hey! Five minutes are five minutes.) Wash your hands. Stretch. Dress warmly if it’s cold outside.

6. Reach out to your people. Take the initiative to make plans that make you feel happy and safe. If you’re not able to spend the holidays physically with your people, remind yourself of their existence. Text, call, comment on Facebook. Surround yourself, either physically or virtually, with people who you like and who like you.

7. Hold onto hope. The future is full of possibilities.

This year's TREE. :)

This year’s TREE. 🙂

I hope you all have a peaceful and happy End of Year. But if that isn’t your experience, that’s just fine too. The wheel keeps turning, and the days keep going by. 2014 will be here soon enough.

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21 Things I Learned in 2013

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , , , , on December 19, 2013| 1 Comment »

Oh, 2013. How glad I am that you are almost over. You had your moments, many of them, but you sure didn’t spare the punches either. You taught me many new things and reminded me of many things I already knew.

Photo Credit: MomMaven via Compfight cc

Here are some of the ideas I’m taking with me into 2014:

1. Things often take longer than you think they’ll take. Especially things you really care about or that are particularly unpleasant.

2. Stress takes its toll on the physical body.

3. Perfection is frequently impossible. Doing one’s best is a more realistic target.

4. Meaning in life is created by relationships, engaging work, and an ability to reframe adversity.

5. Feelings are always okay. It’s what you do with them that you have to be careful about.

6. The gift of true and unconditional listening is rare. Shower those who give it to you with affection and appreciation.

7. The temptation to lie is data about you and your relationship with the person to whom you want to lie.

8. Sometimes pretending you belong even when you feel like you don’t will get you pretty far.

9. Knowing who you are is magic akin to knowing a true name.

10. Sometimes other people are wrong.

11. Learning to recognize the difference between things that are true about yourself and things society has told you are true about yourself can help you achieve things you never thought were possible.

12. The food in France is really, really good.

13. Home is a little white dog, a piano, a place to create, and good times with friends.

14. Asking is a good skill to cultivate. So is saying no. So is generosity.

15. Being imperfect makes you more approachable.

16. Failure is a part of life. Sometimes it feels like it is a larger part of life than you would like. That is the time to embrace it even more strongly. You are learning, you are growing, you are taking risks, and you are the active driver of your own life story.

17. Change takes a long time and is often uncomfortable and difficult. You will need all your courage and belief in yourself to pull it off. Including the courage to fail and pick yourself back up to try again.

18. I can listen to Moonface’s new album Julia with Blue Jeans On over and over again and I never get tired of it.

19. Repeat after me: You can’t make everybody happy all the time. No, really. You can’t. Nobody can.

20. In times of darkness, it is the ability to find the pinpoints of light that keeps you going.

21. Sometimes I am lonely. But I am not alone.

What have you learned this year?

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When Friends Become Family

Posted in Life, tagged , , , on December 17, 2013| 4 Comments »

At the end of each year, it is my custom on this blog to reflect on themes of the year: things I’ve learned, things I’ve been working on, things that keep coming up until they achieve a resonance with the year that’s gone by. And this year, as with last year, I find myself wanting to talk about friendship.

My friend Rahul wrote a blog post back in July that has stayed in my mind ever since: “Your friends probably won’t be there for you when you most desperately need someone’s help.” I was very bothered by this post because it put one of my fears into words and presented it as truth. Boiled down, the idea is that in your time of need, your family is all you have.

I completely disagree with this idea. And I think understanding this idea is not the only possible truth is perhaps one of the most important things I did this year.

This is not to say that I don’t think family is important. I do, absolutely. But sometimes we might not have very much family, or they might live far away, or they might be dysfunctional in a harmful way. Some of us end up without a lot or even any family. It can happen. And what then?

This is also not to say that all friends will be there for you at all times. More casual friends might not be there for you at all. Or you may surprise each other as the friendship deepens. And friends aren’t operating under an obligation that is the same as the familial obligation we are familiar with in our society.

Friendship. Photo Credit: Pensiero via Compfight cc

But it is possible to build a chosen family, a family of friends. It is not as straightforward, perhaps, as having blood ties. Different friends are willing and able to give each other different things, and this giving can’t be forced the way it sometimes can be in traditional families. Friendship has to be built over time, and because there isn’t one template, one correct way to do things, friendship has to be negotiated in a way that both people are ultimately comfortable with.

Just as with relationships with family or significant others, deeper relationships with friends are not always easy. Sometimes they need more time and care, sometimes they need some space. Sometimes your friend lets you down, and sometimes you let down your friend. Mistakes are made, feelings are hurt, things that need to be said aren’t said. Sometimes tough circumstances can be communicated through, and sometimes such efforts prove to be too difficult. Sometimes you are left with the thin hope that the passing of time will work some magic to allow renewed understanding to pass between the two of you.

This is what I AM saying. There have been times during the past two years when I have desperately needed someone’s help. And collectively, my friends have been there for me. They have shown generosity and caring in a thousand different ways. They have stood by me and let me learn what I needed to learn and most crucially, they have reminded me, over and over again, that I am not alone.

They are my family.

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For a Writer, Intense is a Compliment

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , on December 3, 2013| 2 Comments »

“How well I know with what burning intensity you live. You have experienced many lives already, including several you have shared with me- full rich lives from birth to death, and you just have to have these rest periods in between.”

― Anaïs Nin

Recently someone was describing me and they used the word “intense.” At the time I was nonplussed, incapable of completely escaping the negative connotations of the adjective. Pursuing my interest in reclaiming those personal characteristics that are less easy to sit comfortably with, I began to think more about what it means to be intense.

There is no arguing with the accuracy of the language. I am, in fact, intense. I feel things strongly. I care. I invest myself. I get excited. I throw myself into the heat of the fire. A perhaps “nicer” way of saying this is to say I have depth, but at some point we are just splitting hairs while trying to avoid the judgments of a society that values being laid back except at the workplace. (At the workplace, as far as I can tell, society wants us all to be relentless workaholics who are still somehow able to meet family responsibilities, maintain our health, and have free time in which we can consume.)

Many writers of my acquaintance are at least somewhat intense. Maybe you have to be in order to be willing to shut yourself up in a room and create a world solely in your imagination for months at a time. Maybe you have to in order to have something worth saying. Maybe you have to in order to brave the convolutions of the publishing industry. I’m not really sure, but intensity does seem come with the territory for many of us. Musicians too. Perhaps artists in general.

Put “intense” into an image search, and you get photo after photo of roiling colorful skies. Photo Credit: Stuck in Customs via Compfight cc

What I love about living with intensity is this: it makes the moments of my life mean more to me. The possibility of slipping into complacency becomes much less likely, and complacency is the kiss of death to an artist. Intensity pushes us onwards. We need to be out there in all the mess and glory of life, sleeves rolled up, ready to soak up whatever is there to be experienced. Some artists experience intensity in austere solitude; Emily Dickinson comes to mind. Some find it in observing society, social mores, and customs. Some find it through adventuring. Some find it through pursuing la vie boheme. What matters is not so much the content of the experience as the depth to which that experience is pursued and savored.

Intensity can be uncomfortable at times, both from the inside  and as witness. There are feelings! And not all of them are what we consider to be positive! And our culture still encourages a certain kind of insouciance, a fetishization of the carefree state: “Don’t worry, be happy,” we are exhorted. Intensity, though, doesn’t usually land on only one side of the emotional spectrum. Happinesses might be more richly enjoyed, but sorrows will be more deeply felt as well.

The challenge, then, becomes to harness the intensity and steer it towards something meaningful. We are generally encouraged to suppress the intensity, deny it, drown it out and numb it, but it’s when we learn to work with it and channel it that we can create our best creative work and fully inhabit who we are. Intensity, then, is neither good nor bad. It can be a difficult challenge, a useful tool, and a motivation to examine life and ourselves more deeply.

The next time somebody tells me I’m intense, I’m going to thank them for the compliment.

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Asking for What You Need

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , on November 27, 2013| 2 Comments »

There was no post on Tuesday this week because I sprained my ankle, and my head was too boggled by dealing with that to have extra room for other thoughts that I could write about. So I’m just going to have a single post during this holiday week and call it good. And it’s going to be about something I spend a lot of time thinking about and practicing: asking for what we need.

Asking for what I need is most immediately on my mind because of the sprained ankle. I live in a building on the third floor. There is an elevator, thank goodness, but it is a long hallway down from my condo, and then another medium distance from there to a car or a dog-friendly outside area. Not the easiest. And Nala demands being taking outside a minimum of three to four times a day, so…yeah. There is going to be a lot of asking for what I need, namely help, in the immediate future.

The sprained ankle as personal growth exercise. How’s that for a silver lining?

I’ve been practicing asking for what I need for some time now. I often find it uncomfortable, but I am convinced it, along with setting boundaries and taking care of myself, is the only way to leave my people pleasing past behind me. I sometimes even put myself before others now, and I feel only somewhat guilty about it. Go me!

But after a lifetime of putting others first, smoothing things over, and prioritizing others’ comfort above my own, it certainly is unsettling to ask for what I need instead. It’s not as if these new behaviors I’m using meet with universal approval and warm, fuzzy feelings. Sometimes they cause conflict! And using these behaviors in an appropriate and kind way is surprisingly tricky. Sometimes I screw up! And other times I really don’t know what to do, only what I would have done in a past that is no longer relevant. So sometimes I can’t make up my mind!

Yeah, change is hard. I’m like a toddler learning how to walk. Well, really I think I’m slightly more experienced now, so maybe I’m more like a four-year-old who can walk but falls and skins her knee a lot.

Maybe next year I can graduate to being able to run, only I’ll sometimes forget to pay attention or get too excited and wham into the door frame instead.

Learning to walk. Photo Credit: cindy47452 via Compfight cc

I’m writing about this because I see people struggling with similar issues all around me. This is difficult stuff. I talk about it with my friends all the time. And I think it helps to know that it’s hard for other people too.

If you’re struggling to set boundaries or to ask for what you need or to take care of yourself even when you’re under pressure not to, I want to tell you I believe in what you’re doing. When you’re able to go for it, I want to cheer and applaud. And when you try and just can’t do it, I want to hold out my hand to you and help you back up so you can try again later.

We are none of us alone in our quest to better understand, express, and take care of ourselves.

Enjoy the rest of your week, and if you celebrate Thanksgiving, have a great one. I’ll see you all next week! 

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How a Character Flaw Saved My Life

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , on November 21, 2013| 2 Comments »

“You’ve got to love the house you’re in.” – Moonface, from the album Julia with Blue Jeans On

So many flaws, so many mistakes, so many unfavorable comparisons just waiting to be made.

We don’t get a free pass for our choices.

But loving ourselves has to come first. And not just the good parts either, but the ugly, dark, and nasty bits. The things other people have been most critical of. The most unloveable aspects need the love the most of all.

Most of those shadows inside ourselves exist for a reason. Some of them, maybe even many of them, are not all bad.

When I was a kid, I heard all the time about how stubborn I was. Certainly I wasn’t being stubborn on purpose, but it seemed to be built into my character. Apparently my stubbornness caused my family no end of irritation.

I was stubborn just like this mule. Photo Credit: giuliomarziale [www.maurizioagelli.com] via Compfight cc

You know what else my stubbornness did? It kept me alive. When I was a neglected adolescent, it would have been so easy for me to become a statistic. But I watched the chaos around me, and I would not make the choice to join the downward spiral. I dug in my heels in my most stubborn manner, and I would not. So here I am.

Now, I know that my stubbornness can make things unpleasant or difficult for the people around me. I try to rein it in when I notice it or when it is pointed out. But I love the hell out of my stubbornness. I love that it kept me safe when I needed it most. I love that it’s helped me finish a musical and three novels. I love that it keeps me going when the chips are down. I love that it’s kept me focused on the things in life that are beautiful and magic and good instead of only seeing the grim and the difficult and the painful.

My stubbornness has shaped the person I am today in ways for which I am most profoundly grateful.

Let’s pick a harder one: anger. Who among us has not done or said something out of anger that we wish we could undo or unsay? It is so difficult sometimes to handle anger with grace.

But what is anger? It is a warning system. It is a red flag that something is wrong. Maybe it is telling us that we aren’t being treated well. Maybe it is telling us that we are unsafe. Maybe it is telling us that this person has no interest in helping us. And knowing these things is important.

That doesn’t give us a pass for learning to deal with anger in a productive way and learning how to read anger’s signals so we know what it’s really saying. We are still responsible for our behavior. But knowing that anger is just trying to keep us safe makes it a lot easier to love. And that love, in turn, makes it easier to control the anger instead of allowing it to control us.

So when we talk about loving the house that we’re in, we’re talking about all the parts of that house. Sure, we appreciate the sunlight and the counter space and the gas range. But we’re also talking about the leaky roof and the inadequate closet space and the way the circuit breaker overloads when you run the microwave and the hair dryer at the same time.

It’s our job to learn to love it all.

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The Difference Between Who We’re Told to Be and Who We Are

Posted in Life, Society, tagged , , , , , on November 19, 2013| 3 Comments »

Once in a while, I wish I wanted to be an accountant.

In this alternate reality, my life is quite simple. I am a good accountant, diligent, dedicated, and detail-oriented. I probably work too much, and this fact probably occasionally causes a little bit of angst, but I’m probably mostly too busy to think about it.

I do the standard things society has taught me to value. I consume. I nest. I go to the gym several times a week, or else I jog. I follow the most popular TV shows. Maybe I even follow a sport. I am a somewhat brainy accountant, so I bet I read a newspaper, although probably not quite as often as I secretly feel I should to be up on current events.

I have an actual cleaning schedule for chores around my house. I cook balanced, healthful meals, and I freeze leftovers for later. My furniture mostly matches, and I don’t need a ridiculous amount of wall space for eight plus bookshelves and a piano.

I wear slacks on a regular basis, or maybe even smart blouse and skirt outfits, and pointy-toed heels have magically become not a torture punishment to wear. Also, I am not allergic to almost all perfumes. I remember to get my hair cut at regular intervals. I might actually wear makeup almost every day, and I wouldn’t be caught dead outside without sunscreen on.

I go to happy hours on a regular basis. I drink wine with dinner. I host formal dinner parties. The last book I read was Shades of Gray because all my friends told me I had to read it. I receive women’s magazines in the mail. I send out Christmas cards to everyone I’ve ever known, every year, without fail. And I remember to call them holiday cards.

My edges are all rounded off.

***

I am not that woman. She only exists in my mind, an amalgam of television ads and eighties sitcom wives and Good Housekeeping covers and mostly overlooked comments and the fifties sensibilities my parents were raised in. Add in the power woman of the workplace with oversized shoulder pads and the collective obsession with female appearance and a good dose of social norms and common hobbies and belief systems that allow us all to coexist with less friction than otherwise.

And there she is, this imaginary woman. Her life isn’t actually simple at all; it sounds quite challenging to be good at everything she is good at, and to keep on top of everything she keeps on top of. Add in a family and a house, and I wonder if she has any time for herself at all. Maybe she is also unlike me in that she doesn’t become a shell of herself on less than eight (seven, absolute minimum) hours of sleep.

What does seem simple about her, though, is that she is exactly what society has told me I should be.

***

I am who I am, and I live the life I have chosen, and most of the time, I am not just fine with that, but grateful. I mean, yes, I should wear sunscreen more often. And perhaps there would be a kind of comfort in living the life that seven-year-old me was led to expect. But even seven-year-old me wasn’t on board with that life because that’s the year I both started studying the piano and decided I wanted to be a writer. Being a serious artist didn’t ever really fit into the picture I was given.

(Not to say you can’t be a serious artist and also be an amazing cook or be good at keeping the house clean or wear killer blouse and skirt outfits or watch basketball or read three papers a day or be an accountant. People can, and they do. They’re creating their own amazing pictures.)

***

Here is where I spend most of my time.

Here is where I spend most of my time.

Here is my picture:

My apartment is filled with books: YA and science fiction and literature and fantasy and travel guides and research materials and sheet music. I can’t imagine living without a piano. The little white dog lies curled up by my chair. I probably need to vacuum.

When I go to happy hours (maybe once a year), I go for the cheap food. I will probably never drink wine with dinner. I have friends over for board games and role-playing games instead of dinner parties, and sometimes I bake brownies for them. I eat out a lot, and I eat frozen dinners a lot of the rest of the time.

I’m wearing jeans, a sparkly sweater, and no makeup. I spend most of my days reading and writing and thinking. I’ve been trying to make more time for practicing music. I love to read novels. I am horrible about sending anything to anyone via post. I’m not athletic and I never go to the gym, but I do love walking my dog and soaking in the world around me. I don’t know the right way to clean a variety of stains, and I don’t know how to use a sewing machine, but I do know how to sew on a button.

I wear glasses, and I have a weird sense of humor, and I’ve never had a traditional salaried job. I like the Vampire Diaries, but I am more than half a season behind on it, and right now I’m rewatching The Gilmore Girls because I like watching Lorelai create her own picture for herself, plus hers includes the really nice blouse and skirt outfits. I daydream about London and New York and Seattle, and Disneyland is still one of my favorite places on the planet.

I try to figure out what it is I actually care about, as opposed to what I’m told I should care about. Sometimes these things are the same, and sometimes they aren’t. Making the distinction can be difficult.

***

What is your picture?

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Hold Tight While I Feel You Bleed

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , on November 14, 2013| 2 Comments »

I’ve been thinking a lot about empathy lately, and then today I saw Stina Leicht’s beautiful post about empathy and the fine balance required in remembering that everyone is simultaneously different and the same. So I decided I’d write about empathy, and then I surprised myself by how vulnerable I feel writing about the topic.

Heart in hand

I’ve realized lately that I have a high amount of empathy. This is not something I’ve known about myself all my life, so I still don’t feel completely easy with the knowledge. It makes a lot of sense, though. One of my strengths as a music teacher was my ability to make my students feel comfortable and supported, even while they were exposing themselves with their singing. As a writer, I enjoy delving deeply into the heads of my characters. And certainly for my adult life, it’s generally been fairly simple for me to put myself into other people’s positions and to see many sides and perspectives of an issue. It’s comfortable like slipping into a broken-in pair of shoes.

Having high empathy is a very mixed experience. My empathy has brought me many of my greatest joys and also many of my hardest challenges. At its best, it truly is a gift without compare. Being able to create connections and be truly present with people is a deeply meaningful and satisfying act. On some level we all want to tell our stories, and there’s a powerful resonance that can be achieved by being a loving witness to that.

But high empathy is tricky to manage. I’ve talked to other people with high empathy, and it appears that many of us have a chameleon-like ability to be who is required. We are the people who can figure out the right thing to say. We are the people who know how to smooth everything out. We can turn our own emotions and needs off like a switch if that’s what we think is necessary. We are the people who can sit quietly and reflect the other person back at themselves without the judgment that would make that too painful.

Unfortunately, we are the people who need the strongest boundaries, and we are the people to whom those boundaries come the least naturally.

Without those boundaries, we become people-pleasing, codependent, or emotionally drained. We can see the other side so clearly that we can accidentally neglect our own perspective or place less value on it. Being so aware of different options and viewpoints can paralyze us into indecision. We can lose ourselves in trying to be who someone else wants us to be. Nothing good lies down that path.

I’m going to tell you a secret about highly empathetic people. We want what we give. Sometimes we want it desperately. We want other people to see us the way we see them. We want other people to listen to us the way we listen to them. We want people to slip into our shoes sometimes too, and we want our experiences to be validated the way we’ve validated so many other people’s experiences.

In the end, we’re just like everybody else. We all want to be recognized for who we are.

The blooper photo: Nala really wanted to be involved.

The blooper photo: Nala really wanted to be involved.

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