empath

I had the strangest dream as I napped this afternoon.  In it I was shown a book that was handmade at the time for an as yet to be born infant.  The author of the book, a grandmother, had died before the child was born.  The book now discovered some months later brought both joy to the mother of the infant child (the dead woman’s daughter) and also a profound grief that her mother hadn’t the opportunity to see the child born. 

Quite suddenly I was the one experiencing it all.  The pain of this moment became so intense and overwhelming it burned deep into my chest and I began to choke on my own sobs.  Somehow I was feeling her grief just as intimately as though it were my own.   It was the sort of overwhelming anguish I had when my own mother passed years ago.  The kind you think you could not possibly live through because the pain is so great. 

I began to gasp for breath, so choked was I from the sobs erupting within me.  I struggled to awaken so that I could breathe.   It was then that I felt a loving hand on my chest that pushed me back.  It was the firm comforting hand of someone very dear and precious to me.  I wondered if perhaps it was my own mother but I do not know.  I was told that this grief was not my own; that it was another’s to bear.   I was then able to release it.  And when I did I awakened fully. 

I began to search my mind for the owner of this pain.  Could it have been the coworker whose mother is dying?  Perhaps it was a neighbor somewhere close.  It could possibly have been someone I have never met.   What was very clear to me though was that I had just shared a very intimate personal experience.  With whom I do not know.   It was not simply a dream in which the details evaporate shortly after awakening.   The vivid Technicolor experience remains still…as does the soft ache in my chest. 

I am a nurse.  It is my calling.  I suppose because I am, it is possible I am somewhat of an empath.   I believe that to be a healer, one has to be to a degree.  I can’t say that I am or that it is what this experience truly was.  What I do know about myself is that I am quite intuitive.  If I pay attention and stay tuned into the universe, I can pick up very subtle cues.  I find it interesting that the older I get the more intuition I seem to possess.  It is not for an effort because it just seems to come.   Maybe it is just life experience.  

When I was a flight nurse especially, I had to be keenly aware of my environment at all times.  I was so honed in that I frequently had what I consider ESP type of experiences.  This was in truth a finely honed intuition.   When I became more confident in it and myself, I trusted these experiences more.  It was interesting to me that when I was no longer flying and thus didn’t need to stay as dialed in, this ability left me for quite a long time.   It returns when I need.

There is so much of our world that we cannot see with our eyes.   We disregard it because it otherwise cannot possibly be real.  What we experience as our reality is not exactly the same as another’s.  Whose to say the shade of green that I see is the exact shade that you see?  Perhaps the veil that obscures our vision to the universe beyond is more delicate and fragile than we perceive.  I wonder if when we are open, in those rare precious moments, it parts for us to see.