The morning of a quiz, I put my earbuds in and strut off to class with an aura of confidence around me, as my favorite playlist blasts in my ears. However, as soon as I step foot into the classroom, my feeling of determination dissipates because I see the rest of my peers talking about the class material, shuffling through papers, and checking the time to see how much they have left to cram.
In that instant, I absorbed the emotional noise around me and felt overwhelmed, worried, and tense.
Moments, such as these, make me feel like a magnet for emotions that are not just my own, but also the emotions of those around me. Regardless of the situation, I can easily sense the emotional environment and I latch on to whatever others feel. Because I am a perceptive individual, I not only struggle with how I let others affect me, but I also struggle with how I impose my emotional reactions on others.
According to a 2017 study by the Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews, catching the feelings of others by observing their facial expressions and body language encourages empathy. However, can feeling other people’s emotions take away from our own experiences? Although this increases understanding between individuals, it can also cause us to neglect our own feelings as we lose ourselves in others and carry the burden of people’s emotions.
A 2015 article by the Greater Good Magazine claims empathy, which involves the sharing of feelings, helps create an optimistic and a better world since it helps us understand one another.
The ability to sense emotions is useful, since it shows we can be in “someone else’s shoes” and experience whatever positive or negative state one is in.
This makes sense because in my own life, when I express my emotions to others and they not only listen to me, but also take on my feelings of stress and anxiety, I automatically see my situation in a different light. Because someone takes the time to connect to my emotions, I am reassured everything is going to be okay because another person cares for me and understands the difficulties I am facing. I realize I am not alone and that together, we can both survive through my worries.
However, isn’t it not fair that the people I express myself to then have to absorb all the emotional noise I project? Granted, these people are usually my family and friends, so it is understandable they empathize with me because they love me and are willing to help me out.
Still, it seems unfair for me to communicate my feelings, only to have them experience my emotions, in addition to acknowledging their own. They are their own individuals and my fears and insecurities should not affect them because they have their own experiences to tend to.
The ability to feel people’s emotions makes us empathetic and it can help us relieve the discomfort our loved ones, friends, peers, and even strangers are experiencing, but then we may take on the emotional noise of others to the point their feelings become our own.
Because of this, we lose our own sense of selves.
I lost my own sense of self that morning when I walked into class, which was filled with my stressed peers. In the process of taking on their emotions, I lost my own self-assurance.
Although it is uplifting to bear what others experience, since it helps us empathize and provide support to those in need, the emotional noise around us can downplay our own inner processes.
So, next time you are in a situation where you need to provide empathy to someone, recognize their emotions, but also acknowledge your own emotions and remember you are your own individual and that it is not your responsibility carry someone else’s burdens.
We should be resilient when faced by a plethora of emotions because we have our own unique experiences to live out and our energy should be exerted on ourselves because after all, we only have ourselves.
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