Recently I have started to appreciate the energetic changes in myself, and how I work with people. I was reflecting on my career in health and social care and thought back to the days I used to absorb everything. I was literally a human sponge for any emotion that was flying around; the more intense, painful and heavy the emotion, the more I seemed to attract it!
I often was in deep sympathy with my clients and would want to take away their pain; this meant I jumped in the well to save them, leaving us both stuck in the mud.
When working at hospital I would feel absolutely exhausted, drained and often sad. After work I would think of the patients I met that day, often waking up in the night worrying about something I said, or how I could have made it better for them.
This absorbing of emotions did not just happen at the hospital… I used to absorb the bus driver’s frustration, my friend’s distress, my parents’ expectations, the anguish on the news, the angst in the shopping center the list goes on… no wonder I was a nervous wreck!
As you can imagine, having all these emotions flying about the place and me acting as a sponge absorbing them left me quite confused as to who I truly was. The boundaries of who I was and who was another would become foggy – I would be left feeling out of sorts and agitated. Sometimes I even came away with the symptoms of my patients.
All this absorbing of others’ emotions was leading to a path of illness and disease.
I could sense this and could also see this in many of my colleagues who were stressed and burnt out. Thankfully I made a stop. I knew if I continued the way I was going I would end up mentally, emotionally and physically very ill.
So what happened?
I was introduced to Universal Medicine and it was here I learnt about the Gentle Breath Meditation™. I learnt about energy and how to discern it – that is, how to still feel it, but to not let it in and affect me.
“Taking other people’s stuff on creates 80% of illness and disease in this world – absorbing others people’s stuff is poison, which you cannot debase so easily to heal.” By Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings and Revelations – A New Study for Mankind, page 486
This has been life changing and a true miracle for me. I care deeply for all those I meet and now to the best of my ability live by the principle ‘observe and not absorb’: this allows me to be a 100 million times better carer, reflecting true love and healing rather than emotionally wanting to save someone (= exhausting!).
This is of course a constant work in progress and sometimes I still find myself absorbing the energy around me, but thanks to Universal Medicine I have an array of tools I use to help get me back to me.
The Gentle Breath Meditation™ is a fantastic tool to help keep me centered, in touch with who I truly am, and focused on the present moment. This allows me to give the best to those I work with without draining myself in the process.
By Anonymous
Further Reading:
Gentle Breath Meditation in Daily Life
The Gentle Breath Meditation™ & Discovering my Inner Self
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
I grew up in a religious family where it was encouraged to forgo your own feelings and support others because life was not about you but about helping others and the more you supported others the ‘better’ person you were and that God would love you. I understand now that this particular religion has taken one of the ancient wisdom teachings and barstadised it, in such a way that it is close to the truth but actually isn’t true at all. It is impossible to ‘save’ another, what we can do is walk beside them and reflect a different way to be, it is then their choice if they want to make the changes to their life or not.
When we absorb it is like taking the pieces of everyone else’s jigsaw and muddling them up with yours but when we observe we work side by side with everyone realigning their own jigsaw.
Wow do I understand about this ‘absorbing’ instead of ‘observing’ more and more. It is far from perfect and I know then, I am in constant reaction, so of course I’m going to be pooped every day. What a marker of truth when you wake up and the body is tired yet your being is awake and ready to go.
The body continues to signal day to day, and when we focus on allowing the body to lead the way, well our lives will be very much different.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is the key to bringing us back to ourselves, and it isn’t hard to do once you add it to your daily rhythms, it’s just like brushing our teeth.
All I can say is thank God for the Gentle Breath Meditation, it has supported me countless times and no doubt will continue to do so, so I am not forever humanity’s sponge anymore.
“I learnt about energy and how to discern it – that is, how to still feel it, but to not let it in and affect me.” Absorbing or observing is a huge topic, it’s one of my current weaker points which I’m working on daily. I have recently felt how damaging ‘helping’ energy is, that is the bastardised version that comes from a source of energy that is not loving. It might sound odd that to help another is not supportive, but it’s more the kind of help that’s being offered, one that comes from reaction and sympathy and wanting people to have the picture of a good or better life, or the help (I prefer the word support) that comes from love and is a quality that may or may not do anything in terms of taking action, but offers the energetic truth that we are all souls by virtue of what we live and then reflect.
Growing up in the health care profession, I know the art to helping or sympathising. It is the biggest killer to empowerment. The most loving thing anyone can do for another is to give them space to do it themselves, in however or whatever way they want to do it. That is ‘observing’ and definitely not ‘absorbing’ or ‘helping’.
Melinda Knights, what I find fascinating is how we can now talk about energy and how it affects our bodies. No one I knew had such a true understanding of energy and the two types of it, or how energy behaved until I met Serge Benhayon. The Ageless Wisdom through Serge Benhayon has gifted to the world a way to discern energy so that we do not get caught up in it, but can just observe it. This gives us all such freedom in our bodies because we are not owned by it.
Just re-reading this blog reminds me of how I too used to be a sponge for all that was happening around me and how easily I would absorb things and let myself get affected, run down, depressed etc. But thankfully I too have learned tools such as the gentle breath mediation (as taught by Serge Benhayon) that have helped me to be more aware of the differences in energy that abound around us and how to hold myself steady in and amongst all of this – with no perfection of course, but such a vast support to how I can now live.
I used to absorb so much, and made myself really ill as a result, now I am learning to stay observing. Going into sympathy or trying to fix another are ways we can absorb another’s energy, ‘I often was in deep sympathy with my clients and would want to take away their pain; this meant I jumped in the well to save them, leaving us both stuck in the mud.’
Sometimes I find it is hard not to react to what we see around us – either in anger, frustration or sadness etc. However, whenever we react, then what we see or feel around us then has permission to affect us. The answer is not of course to shut down or harden up or to ‘protect’ ourselves energetically so to speak because all that does is simply numb us from the effects of the energy. But it is about asking us to understand the situation deeper which we are all capable of but often resist doing.
Henrietta I find it hard not to react too, especially when I see someone suffering, I want to jump in and save them. For me it’s a huge learning that we are all where we are in life because of the choices we have made, and let’s face it, many of us have made some really unwise choices that have led us down a path of consequences that were unforeseen. Understanding is the key, to understand that we all have lessons in life that we need to learn and move on from, to understand that if we jump in to support another person then there’s two of us in the mud and no reflection that there is another way.
Taking on another stuff has to come with comparison and judgement otherwise we would be in the position of the observer and not be taking another stuff-erence on.
One of the things this blog reminds me of is how sensitive and aware we are, and how much energy there is around us that we can be affected by if we don’t have the steadiness of our inner connection to our soul and to our body. I also find appreciating my inner qualities has helped me to form a relationship with me and establish healthy boundaries, this has been a great way to support myself after getting a bit lost in everything going on around me, absorbing it and losing me.
Melinda I feel this is a great comment because I have also found that by building a relationship with my soul this has changed how I am with myself and other people. And now I wonder if the jumping in and helping people was a way to stop myself from feeling lonely as by helping others I felt needed and wanted which is a completely false way to live because it is centered on others and not my connection with myself hence the feeling of loneliness I was trying to relieve.
I used to absorb loads of stuff including what was on the news, tv shows and films!!!!! The thing is if we do not have an absolute awareness of this or know how to change it then how can we? This blog is great to bring the awareness to the fore and start the discussion .. and yes I agree The Gentle Breath Meditation https://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/free is the perfect tool and support in supporting us to stop absorbing and start observing.
I practised acupuncture for many years, and during my training was never warned that we can potentially absorb another’s energy. I became really ill from absorbing all this poison from patients and people in general, and was finally brought to a stop when treating a patient who had had electric shock treatment and was on very heavy medication for depression.
Vicky you raise a very important topic that we without fully understanding how it happens we absorb so much from the media, films etc., especially at the moment when there is so much happening in the news. So many people I talk to say they have stopped listening or watching the news because they feel it is so negative and that this constant negativity is affecting their health.
I can relate to your words about not having clear boundaries, or knowing yourself clearly because of being attuned to what’s going on around you and absorbing it all. I have found the Gentle Breath really does help with this as it supports a reconnection back to our essence and establishes a sense of self.
I can really relate with what you share here as I used to be the same taking on others emotions from family, friends and even the TV!!! The Gentle Breath Meditation is such a simple tool to step away from that and back to who we are. Also how can we ever truly support another if we are burnt out, a nervous wreck and sick!!! This is a real eye opener: “Taking other people’s stuff on creates 80% of illness and disease in this world – absorbing other people’s stuff is poison, which you cannot debase so easily to heal.” By Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings and Revelations – A New Study for Mankind, page 486′
Absorbing another’s poison will cause illness and disease in self, ‘All this absorbing of others’ emotions was leading to a path of illness and disease.’
“All this absorbing of others’ emotions was leading to a path of illness and disease.
I could sense this and could also see this in many of my colleagues who were stressed and burnt out.” So many in the caring and helping professions suffer from burn out. Learning how to observe and not absorb would be a major turn around in their training.
Taking on other people’s stuff is often not considered to be harmful because the harm is not always immediate or obvious. We seem to negate that we are energetic beings. This quote below makes sense and give us a better understanding of why someone who looks super fit and healthy could still experience illness and disease. “Taking other people’s stuff on creates 80% of illness and disease in this world – absorbing others people’s stuff is poison, which you cannot debase so easily to heal.”
Love what you have shared here Chan – and I agree that much of what we carry is not ours to carry but is our responsibility to lovingly hold ourselves steady and support another in a true way so that it is clear what is ours to deal with and what is another’s to deal with.
“I often was in deep sympathy with my clients and would want to take away their pain”. It’s such a common and seemingly innocent thought to want to help others and take away their pain, but unfortunately it’s often sympathetic and leads to absorbing. I’m still learning this one, and learning how to observe, give space, and offer genuine care and understanding without enjoining the problem. It’s a loving detachment.
This is a big learning for me too Melinda wanting to take the pain away and make everything better. But I am realising this is the catch because by trying to help, the person doesn’t get to truly feel the consequences of their actions and this is our learning that all our choices have consequences positive or negative.
Yes, absorbing instead of observing is a big habit to break, and important we all understand how damaging it is, ‘Taking other people’s stuff on creates 80% of illness and disease in this world – absorbing others people’s stuff is poison, which you cannot debase so easily to heal.’
We think it is caring to worry about someone else, but having been the person people have worried about, it is odd, but it doesn’t actually feel very good because there is a sense the other person does not consider I am equipped to deal with what is ahead of me. Not very empowering.
We want to do the best work we can, or be the best friend we can. Listening, understanding and trying to help another fix their problems was always considered part of being a good friend. The worries are taken on and shared. But I have noticed something changes when this happens between two people and I have started to realise that the person with the issue in their lives is the only person who knows the movements they made to get there, why and how they made them, therefore they are equally the only person who can truly know how to unravel it and move a different way to ensure it does not happen again.
Yes supporting the other person to find their way to deal with the situation feels very different from taking it on and sorting it – which leaves the other disempowered.
This is so true Lucy, ‘the person with the issue in their lives is the only person who knows the movements they made to get there, why and how they made them, therefore they are equally the only person who can truly know how to unravel it and move a different way to ensure it does not happen again.’
If we have sympathy or pitty for others we basicly judge them. This way we take on their stuff.
When we realize that all have their own issues And creations we Can just hold them as equally powerful brothers And having comparision.
Great point Sylvia, I didn’t realise sympathy is a form of judgement until a few years ago. I thought sympathy was being loving but it is, in fact, the opposite.
‘this meant I jumped in the well to save them, leaving us both stuck in the mud” – how many of us do this, with our kids, partner, family, friends, colleagues etc. How do you help someone out of predicament if all you do is join them in it?!
And how funny is it to realise that many of us make exceptions when we know its ‘our mother’ or ‘our partner’ or ‘our child’ etc – it is not about being cold of course, but it is about realising that we are all beings and one is equal to another, regardless of it being a blood tie, close friend or a stranger. Family is our biggest test of true love.
When we become a sponge to other’s emotions, we can no longer support them.
Anonymous , like you The Gentle Breath Meditation supports me to stay connected and not be drawn into other’s emotions or try to fix them. We cannot truly support another if we enjoin with them in their emotional state. To stay present with ourselves, loving, clear and steady offers patients and clients the opportunity to come back to themselves.
The more we enjoin others in their emotion the harder it is on our body and the more exhausting it becomes, yet when we observe what is going on we are able to support someone without getting hooked into the emotion, and we retain the ability to see things clearly.
Life is not perfect and we all get caught by and in things sometimes so it is great to have tools and techniques like the Gentle Breath Meditation that support me to come back to a steadiness and connection with my body.
Sympathy is so exhausting or draining on the body, it offers no true way forward for another and it is an arrogance on our part for assuming another is ill equipped to empower themselves to move through their situation.
Life became so much more fun after I was able to observe life more than I to absorb it as I did in the past. I do now read the situations and see what there is to learn for me and for humanity. So observing puts me in a place where I can evolve in life, a quality of life I do not remember to have since I was a little child.
Letting emotions of others in is like a poison for our bodies and will dull and exhaust it so much so that we can feel ourselves at the end of our life wrecked like an old shipwreck at the bottom of the sea.
I could easily call myself a sponge because I was very good at absorbing people’s emotions and easily jump in to try and rescue people out of their emotional dramas or whatever they were going through. I would think about their issues and sometimes I would get so caught up in it. This, I now realise stopped me from dealing with my own stuff and also made me feel exhausted, disconnected and not myself. Now, I have more space to contemplate and reflect on my relationships with people, my day and how I feel. By not taking on other people’s stuff, I am more steady, clear and have clarity to truly support without imposing on others. These changes within me has been incredible and I too have Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to thank for showing me how these tools for life are so practical and always accessible to every single one of us.
Chanly88, I agree the changes you’ve made are incredible, without them we self imprison ourselves and become exhausted by our own confusion in not discerning what is ‘ours’ from what is ‘theirs’. Like you, many of us used this to distract ourselves away from our own ‘stuff’. Learning to clear our own stuff and become a clear mirror really is a breakthrough for self and supports us to offer much more to others.
I can relate Chan, thanks for all you have shared here. It’s made me realise that sympathy negates the essence of the person by only seeing the problem, and it doesn’t offer the opportunity to observe or discuss how or why someone left their essence to now have their issue, and the possibility of supporting someone to then know how they separate from their true selves and how to instead live from their power.
I found the Gentle Breath meditation life changing too, I take so many breathes I’m not aware of and the technique has helped me see how easily our breathe changes in certain situations and how easily with this awareness it can be changed back to my natural way of breathing.
Like we made ourselves unaware offer breathing we also made ourselves unaware of our movements which can keep or bring us in a certain vibration that after a while becomes our normal way.
Learning to observe and not absorb leaves us free to feel love and not get caught up in the drama.
Beautifully said Mary, you are spot on and there is nothing more supportive than love and for us to reflect who we are (love) to the rest of the world.
To not get involved in issues and dramas is such a wise choice.
In the past when I have taken on other people’s stuff I have ended up feeling really drained, and lethargic, and now when I listen and observe what is going on I get a much clearer picture and it is no longer clouded, and most of all I don’t feel drained or exhausted.
Observing, and not absorbing supports us to support another.
“Taking other people’s stuff on creates 80% of illness and disease in this world”. That is huge, especially as we do that a lot. It has become almost ‘normal’ to sympathize or feel responsible for otherone’s emotions and try to solve their emotional problems. What is offered here, is a turn-around: by breathing your own breath and observe what occurs with the other, there seems to be more space to truly feel what is needed and can be of support. Often, just being and listening with loving ears.
Observing and not absorbing serves us all greatly, it is a true support to be with each other and evolve together.