The Emotional Aspects of being an Empath

It has only been the last few years that I’ve known the word “empath”, but it is something that I’ve always known was a part of me.

As a young child I would leave the room when a scene on tv would include embarrassment for one of the stars. It would make me feel sick to my stomach. If I was forced to stay in the room and watch (like at a movie theater) the sick feeling would linger for a significant portion of the movie.  

I was extremely sensitive to any sort of scary event/movie. I’ve always hated Halloween. I would only need a slight provocation to have incredibly disturbing nightmares. And they were so detailed and extreme that I still remember them clearly. In fact the first nightmare I remember specifically was probably from 6 years old. 

I’ve always unknowingly mimicked body language and immediately will tear up when someone shares a difficult experience with me. 

Any discussion involving cruelty to animals, children, the vulnerable, has filled me with such horror that it is hard to move past it. 

Almost all of these examples create physical symptoms that can last a very long time. And most of them are exclusively events happening to those outside of myself. And all of these examples are true to this day! (I like to fast forward embarrassing moments during movies, or leave the room even still!)

I feel extremely deeply about the concerns of others, but more often than not am considerably apathetic about things pertaining to my concerns. It feels strange for me to say that because I obviously (if you’ve read my blog at all) feel very deeply about my losses, but beyond that, I’m struggling to think of something that would also qualify as caring deeply about my own concerns. 

In fact, I’m not feeling well today, but I’m exceedingly more upset by the whimpers coming from my pup who had shots today. It kills me to know he’s in pain and I can’t fix it. 

I have often wondered why I am an empath, and truly where the line is between controlling the tendency and the tendency controlling me. Am I doing myself a disservice by allowing myself ways out of this discomfort? Examples being skipping movie scenes, or making MMM take Thor to the vet. Would I become stronger personally if I forced myself to work through those emotions? Or would the effort be too much and lead me to becoming more cold and apathetic to others in order to protect myself? I honestly don’t know. 

I do think there’s great advantages to being an empath though! I believe that being an empath allows me to see the needs of others in ways others struggle to do. This is truly an honor! Nothing is more satisfying to me than to know that I lightened someone else’s burden by taking some of it on myself. 

I believe that being an empath has played a huge role in my heart for adoption! What an amazing privilege to give children a home where they are loved no matter what.  I believe it has influenced my great desire to adopt a sibling group! Fewer families are open to adopting siblings, and I can think of few greater horrors than being separated from the only family you have left. I am so blessed to have a husband who has an open heart for these little ones too! 

Over all, I think becoming more aware of my limitations as an empath will help me be the best empath I can be. 

Coming next: the Spiritual aspects of being an Empath

Our New House!

Well, it finally happened! After 6 months of looking at probably somewhere around 60ish houses, we actually own one! We moved in right at the end of July, and I'm happy to say we're almost all the way unpacked.

It has been an interesting adventure to be sure! There was one house we thought for sure was the right one, but God had other plans. I'm so glad that we have this house. It is so much better than the other houses we looked at. It's so wonderful to finally feel at home.

I'm hoping to do a video tour for you all, but it may take a while before my house is in fit condition to be seen. :P

We've been extremely blessed with some newer furniture and having the freedom to arrange things as we want! We also have a lot of plans to fix up the place the way we want. The longer we're here, the more I think we won't accomplish everything we set out to do, but I'm finding that we just might not need to do it.  I had big plans to remodel the kitchen to make it more open, but now I don't think it really needs to be more 'open'.

The one project we can't delay on is the horrid peach/pink bathroom. Unbeknownst to us before buying the house, the horrid bathroom had some water damage. This means we'll have to replace a portion of the floor, and since we will already be fixing the floor, we'll need to buy new flooring, and since we're doing that we should buy a new tub/toilet to replace the horrid pink ones we have..yup, they're pink too. And then to finish it off, we'll make the tub into a shower! So that is our biggest project to undertake. I'm hoping it won't take us too long.

Thor has adjusted very well to living in the new house and is loving having a big back yard to play in all day. We've even been able to leave him outside for short amounts of time. It would be great if eventually he'd be able to stay outside all day!  I'll leave pictures/video for another day. Thanks to those who have been praying for us in our efforts to buy a house, we really appreciate it!

Earning Points

I have been working on my 'domestic goddess' points lately. Mostly just for my own fun. So I have been working on my projects, which I've already showed you. I finally finished Thor's sweater!! Hurray!

Here he is proudly wearing his new sweater. When I first finished it the sweater was way too big. So I altered it for my little guy and it fits perfectly.

I've started on my third blanket because I just enjoy it so much.

Yesterday i was given the opportunity to gain some more points. I invited two guys to come and eat supper with us! So, I made two soups:

Vegetable Beef (ooh so yummy!)

and Pureed Carrot.

 ( I experimented with this by putting cabbage and rice in before pureeing it)

I also made a lemon cake. I did experimenting with all of the food for yesterday, but the cake was the only one that didn't turn out for the best. It ended up being a bit too dense. So I called it my lemon pound cake! I added a lemon glaze and some blueberries.

It didn't end up being terrible, but I am hoping next time will be better.

I had fun setting up the table with nice napkins and all ready for a nice meal together.

I had a lot of fun playing Susie homemaker. It was a great night with great friends.

We ate good food and played fun games. I hope to keep hosting friends as we continue to make new friends. Oh this is so much fun!

Me in my cute apron.

A Trip Gone Wrong

Today has been very interesting! We had scheduled a trip to the vet to get poor Thor fixed. Whether or not little Thor had anything to do with our adventures or not I'm unsure, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have subjected himself to that either. We got on the road and were about half way there when we noticed the car seemed to be skidding and not accelerating.

MMM pulled off to the side of the road and there we ascertained that there really was something wrong. Out of the way of traffic, he found out that it was definitely our transmission. We had to hang out in that parking lot while we waited for the tow.

Naturally, our car had to break down on such a bitterly cold day. We hung out in the car while I was holding shivering Thor in my lap wrapped in his blanket. I was grateful to have Thor to help me stay warm and MMM was smart enough to put some extra blankets in my car once winter hit. So we did our best to stay warm. It only took a few minutes before it was cold enough to see our breath. It was an interesting time.

The tow truck came and Thor and I went to warm up in his truck. Thankfully the auto shop was just a couple blocks away. Almost as soon as we drove there, a friend made it there to pick Thor and me up. She brought us home so that I could take our other car and go pick Hubby up. It was such a blessing to get my friend's help.

So, my brilliant plan of leaving the blizzard's snow on that car so that MMM could scrape it off..well, it back-fired. I literally had to shovel the snow of his car! There was so much snow on it. :P Unfortunately, after all that work, the car wouldn't start. I tried to ask our neighbors to help my jump it, but they weren't at home. :( So, I made several calls to friends to figure out the new plan, and with no luck. Why do all my friends have to be normal and have a job? :P

The one good friend we had who could have picked MMM up wasn't able to because HIS car wasn't starting! :P So MMM just waited for the car to be fixed (which went faster than expected). He then picked me up, went to buy a jump starter, and then picked up our friend. Lunch was consumed at a yummy buffet. And then we went to get his car started.

After we made it home, he got our other car started and then worked to clear out our driveway some more. My poor guy must have been so cold. But now, we are all inside (including Thor) and dry. The cars are working, and the driveway has been shoveled. I guess it is not such a bad day after all.

Projects

My hubby has been pretty busy with work lately. With all the extra time by myself, I have been working on projects! My first project was painting the top on our dining table. We had already painted the legs.

I decided to use the main color as my base coat. I had a lot of problems with texture. It took many coats to get it how I wanted it.

Then I taped out the outline for my red boxes.

I have found that red paint requires a lot of coats to make it look truly red.

Here is the finished table with the gloss. And you even get a sneak peak of another project!

My second project is knitting Thor a sweater! I definitely admit that knitting is not my best skill, but, I am doing my best. Poor buddy is out-growing the sweater we bought him, so I need to hurry up! I'm nowhere close to being done with it. Unfortunately, knitting is a chore for me, so I'm finding it hard to be motivated. But I have been bringing it with me to friend's house to knit while watching movies.

This here is my third project! I finished this blanket a couple of days ago. It took me somewhere around 20-25 hours to complete. I enjoy crocheting a lot more than I do knitting, but it's not nearly as portable.

And here is the beginning of my next project. (Yes, I started this before finishing Thor's sweater. I'm such a mean mommy.) I'm doing another blanket with the same pattern as the first. The first blanket is for my nephew, and this is for my youngest niece.

A couple years ago I did a post about my baby gift for my eldest niece. It was a quilt that I'd made. And just a couple of weeks ago I got to thinking that it's just not fair for only the eldest child to get that from their Aunt Lizzie. So now I'm making up for lost time. I'm going to do my best to crochet a blanket for every future baby in my whole family. I'm also hoping to continue learning new stitches so I can make each blanket unique in some way.

It has been so nice for me to have these projects to keep me occupied. I love to be working on them while watching movies or listening to sermons. It makes the day go by so quickly, and I really feel like I accomplished something. I really enjoy working with my hands.

I've also really enjoyed teaching MMM how to both knit and crochet! He's done quite well, and I'm very proud of him for learning it. He has been helping me with Thor's sweater the most (hurray!), so hopefully we'll get it done soon.

What kind of projects have you been working on?

A Year in Review

The Christmas letter we should have sent out. =P

Dear Friends and Family,

                It has been quite the year! We decided that for our first year together, we would like to start a good habit and write a Christmas letter every year! (Hopefully.)  The year began very well with a deepening relationship with each other which eventually led to a proposal in February! The day after MMM proposed, he left for a two week trip for his job. That gave me the great opportunity to get a start on wedding planning. 

                A short three months later came our wedding day. It was a perfect day in June and we are both so thankful for that! It was so much fun to have that day with so many friends and family to celebrate with us.  The day went perfectly and that was largely due to all the wonderful help we received. Thank you so much to all of you who helped us.

                We had a few shorts days after the wedding off before MMM had to go back to work full time and I went back to work part time.  Life continued on for about two months where we had to learn how to be married and how to live with someone new.  And then at the end of those two months, we packed up and headed to Ohio for a three month training.

                Dayton, Ohio was an amazing experience for us both. Having the opportunity to spend those months relatively alone really gave us the time to get used to being married, and learn how to work through issues as they came along. It was a time of great growth for both of us.  We were extremely blessed in our church family there, and learned a lot from them about how to be a blessing to others.

                Coming back to the Windy City was quite the ‘adventure’ (read as ‘stressful’) because we still hadn’t found a place to live. But, we learned again and again how important it is to trust the Lord for our next step. As we trusted Him He provided us with a place to live at the very last second!  We are so grateful we were able to move in just a few short days after arriving in the city.

                It has been so much fun making our little house into a home! We are enjoying the area and the convenient distance from MMM’s job.  We had just a short time to settle in before heading down to Arizona for our belated honeymoon. It was a great time just getting away from the stresses of moving and being back at his job. We had a wonderful time there and were able to visit with some great friends and family.

                Immediately from Arizona, we went to Iowa for our biggest family Thanksgiving ever!  What a joy it was to have the opportunity to be with family. In all likelihood, we won’t have everyone back  together again. Our family is spreading out and growing, so that makes it so much harder to coordinate!

                Speaking of growing families, we do have an addition! His name is Thor, and he is the most cuddly puppy I’ve ever known. He also has been the source of much frustration, laughter, and joy. MMM and I have been learning more and more how much work it is to have a dog, but the rewards are more than worth it. We both love him so much already, and he’s only been here a short while.

                This year was probably the craziest year in both of our lives, but it has also been the happiest and most fulfilling. We have been very blessed. And now I sign off with a very Merry Christmas to all of you! Wishing you all the best.

Simple Dog

A long time ago, I saw this post about the blogger's attempt to prove her dog was not simple minded by performing some tests. I have always thought the post was hilarious...until we got our own dog. =P So, after many frustrating moments of Thor not listening, we decided to do the same tests for him as Allie did for her simple dog.

What we found is that Thor can manage the tests of getting out from under the blanket, and he always knows how to get his treat. So, we were relatively confident that Thor was not a simple minded dog. That is until we saw him do this.

We have been continually entertained by him chasing his tail! He goes for a good while and then stops only because he is dizzy. So he stumbles around for a minute or two and then starts up again. It is so funny.

It's nice to have something to explain some of the difficulties in training our dog. He is slowly getting it, and he is truly learning. I'm just thankful we didn't have as many issues as Allie did. At least Thor does know how to use stairs. :P

Meet Thor!

We got home from Thanksgiving with my family and the next day I was making the rounds on Craigslist when I saw a posting for a free puppy! Gasp! They gave a short description and told us it was a Chin-Pin mix. I'd never heard of Chin-Pins before, so MMM and I sat down, did some research and had some discussions. About 30 minutes later we decided we'd like to meet the little guy and see how it went.

I emailed the woman who put up the posting and set up to meet him the next day! It took forever to get to 6pm the next day, but it finally arrived and we met our little dog! Everything went well and he came home with us that very night. It was quite an adjustment for him and he ran around our house like a crazy little guy.

We have already had some adventures with Thor (that's what he was already named). The first one was this gem.  -->

We've learned to dog-proof the bathroom completely (including blinds) before leaving him in there alone. Coming home to a mess in the bathroom has happened enough for us to get the picture.

It didn't take long at all to figure out that he truly is a lap dog. If you so much as squat, he will be there jumping into your lap. It doesn't matter how difficult you make it, he will find a way.

Isn't his sweater cute? Unfortunately he's already scratching a hole in it. =(

One of the funnier adventures was when MMM was playing with him using this old blanket and Thor managed to find the hole! He was walking around with his "cape" and it was so adorable!

I'm sure I'll have many more Thor adventures to share later on, but that's all for tonight.