Not everything I feel is mine

For a long time I worked with an idea that seemed solid: what the other person does is theirs, what I feel is mine.

It's a good idea. It takes me out of the victim position and hands responsibility back to me.

But it has a flip side I only saw recently. If everything I feel is mine, then everything I feel has to be analysed, understood and resolved by me. And there are things I spent years trying to resolve that quite simply weren't mine.

I'm permeable

This is a characteristic of mine and one of the oldest I have. It only clicked last week.

If I'm reading a book I'm enjoying, I go so far in that I become the character. If she's irritated, I'm irritated. If she's in love, I'm in love. And it isn't only while I'm reading: it's for the entire time the book lasts, whether that's a day or two weeks.

With people it's the same. If I'm surrounded by agitated, fast, stressed people, off I go with them. If I'm with calm people, I tend to settle.

It isn't linear and it isn't a hundred per cent. There are things genuinely happening that are mine. But the influence of what's around me is far greater than I assumed.

What this means

It means the environment matters. A lot.

And it means what I consume matters too. Not just food: books, films, series, social media. Everything I let in ends up reflected in me for a while.

This isn't good or bad. It's a characteristic.

The other side of it is that I have more empathy, I'm more attuned, I understand things that would otherwise pass me by. The same permeability that lets me swing is the one that lets me perceive.

Where I went wrong

The mistake wasn't thinking I'm responsible for what I feel.

The mistake was turning that into control.

If it's all mine, then I can deal with it, I can fix it, I can analyse it until I understand. And that's comforting, because it means there's always something to be done.

Except there isn't. When what I'm feeling didn't start in me, analysing leads nowhere. I go round in circles looking for the origin of something that has no origin in here.

Power isn't the same as control

This is the distinction I'm making now, and it's changed a lot for me.

I don't control being permeable. That's how I am.

But I do have power over my energy. I can notice what's happening, I can clear, I can give back what isn't mine, I can choose environments and choose what I consume.

And above all, I can stop identifying immediately with everything I feel.

The question that changed

Before, when I felt something uncomfortable, the question was: what does this say about me?

Now the first question is different: is this mine?

Sometimes it is. And then it's worth looking closely.

And sometimes it isn't. It simply isn't.