You look into people the same way? Really? That's interesting. Be careful. I had an unpleasant experience sometime ago that definitely shook me up. I did it once with one of my friends. He looked unusually sad one day. He looked so sad that his facial expression became etched in my mind. A few days later, I recalled the image of my sad friend as I meditated. As I meditated, I visualized the memory of my sad friend's face as a projection on the wall I was facing. As I continued to meditate, I caused the projection to grow in size to fill the entire wall. I then visualized myself walking up to the wall and asking; “Why are you so sad?" Before I knew it, the visualization of me fell into the projected image and I experienced his thoughts. It was an incredibly scary experience. It felt like someone just pulled away the floor away from beneath my feet. I felt like I was being wildly tossed about in a massively violent storm of over whelming guilt. I then saw flashes of images; a man coming to his home and asking to see him. He turned the fellow away because he didn't have an appointment.

The experience was so powerful that if I hadn't grabbed a hold of the table in front of me, I would have fallen to the floor. When I was able to regain my composure, I knew what happened.

I was later able to confirm that my friend was a therapist in San Francisco. A client with AIDS came unexpectedly to his home to discuss the results of his latest blood tests. For a number of reasons, he had to turn his client away. However, in doing so he felt incredibly bad about it. Not just bad, massively guilty.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's nice to be blessed with these gifts. It allows us to truly share in other people's experiences. However, like with the other five senses, we can experience the intense beauty of life as well as its intense unpleasantness. I've learned to be more careful.

Really? You too? Aren't you worried that you might fall into the experience and not be able to climb out of it? For myself, when I experienced that therapists thoughts, it took me several days to tease myself free from those feelings of guilt. While I was clearly not the therapist that pushed a terminally ill client away, stepping into those thoughts made me accept the burden of his guilt. Even though it was a moment, it really made me feel responsible for what he did. It took several days of repeating to myself like a mantra: "I am me; I didn't do that, to really separate myself from the expereince.

Come to think of it, I need to be around happier people. I know that therapists actually need to see other therapists to help keep their head on straight. I'd shudder to think that befriending a therapist would neccesitate that I need a therapist to help me rinse out the feelings of another therapist.

Azazeal