“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” – T. S. Eliot

Are you emotionally intense? Do you feel like you’re just “too much” for most people? Do you worry that everything you feel comes in massive waves that are overbearing and weigh you down? Do you keep seeking an intensity in your relationships that you worry doesn’t exist?

If so, I feel you. I get it.

Some days the world feels flat and empty. You go through the motions. You manage your routines. Yet every day you wonder if there is more because you feel so much and the world itself feels hollow and simplistic.

Shouldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t I accomplish more or love more or exist more? Life seems abnormal unless you’re fluctuating between bouts of depression and moments of joy.

Since I was little I craved feeling. I wanted to feel everything. Pain felt better than nothing because at least it was something. But, what if all that need for feeling is just a mask for sitting with calmness and allowing the world to be okay?

Do you get where I’m coming from?

What About The Rest of the World?

Let’s be honest – most people live in a fog of existence. A lot of people live every day but never really live. Actually, they don’t live, they exist.

They live without passion, without feeling, without emotion and without intensity. I think you know who I mean. You know because they try to make you feel bad for feeling all the things you feel and for living your life the way you want to live.

Growing up in my family you were not allowed to have feelings. The only way to cope was on a superficial plane of existence. There was nothing good or bad about this, but, it was not me. I was the emotionally intense child in the midst of an emotionally avoidant or emotionally closed off family.

The problem with the emotionally intense child is they are viewed as the problem child. The emotionally intense child carries everyone’s emotions and everyone’s beliefs and everyone’s fears.

It’s as if those who cannot feel push their feelings onto you so they can disperse them out in some subconscious way. The problem is one person can only carry so much feeling. One person can only bear so much. One person can only handle so much pain, so many secrets and so much emotion.

I know you know what I mean. The weight of feeling can be so overwhelming and so burdensome that you don’t’ know where to go or what to do. Seriously, where do you go with all of that?

Where Do You Go?

I’ve come to realize that with my intense emotion comes a lot of energy. I find that my energy can go one of two ways one of which is internal and one of which is external.

Keeping your emotions internal will eat you alive. Keeping your emotions stuffed down and unacknowledged will kill you, leading you to a slow, torturous death.

If you are an emotionally intense person you need to find a way to let all those emotions out in a positive way. If you allow all those feelings to sit there and fester inside you’ll wake up one day and realize you are completely empty and bereft of all feeling.

For me, expending emotional energy means exercise. Don’t laugh, but I do Tae-Bo and I run every day. But, I’ve come to realize that exercising an hour and a half a day is not enough. I have so much emotional intensity that I need to get it out all the time.

My therapist gave me an exercise to try one day. I figured, why not? I’ll try just about anything once if I think it will help, or make me feel better.

So, I bought a mini-trampoline. Then, I programmed all kinds of music makes me want to dance (all hail old school Michael Jackson!) into my phone. I wrote about something that I wanted to come true (at the time it was moving in with my boyfriend which by the way, has come true).

How would I feel if it came true? What would It be like?

Then, I put a picture on the wall of that apartment I wanted to live in and I put on my music and I started jumping on that damn trampoline.

I can’ begin to tell you how awesome and that jumping was. Not only was I expending emotional energy I was raising my endorphins. I was focusing on something positive. I was focusing on belief rather than distrust.

Be Okay with Your Intensity

So, what does it all mean? It means you are okay just the way you are. It means you may be too much for some people, but who cares. There are more than enough people in the world to go around!

You don’t have to like everyone, and everyone doesn’t have to like you. The key to happiness in life is coming to terms with who we are which includes accepting our faults, our strengths and our uniqueness.

As an INFJ I am one percent of the population which means I’m a rare bird and most probably won’t get me at all.  According to MBTI – 16 personalities “INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life … their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all.” Hence, why I write this blog and try to help others to help themselves.

I’m not proud of a lot of my personality traits. I’m not patient. I can be judgmental and hard on others because I’m hard on myself. I have an excruciatingly difficult time with small talk and I’m never the life of the party, preferring to seek out one person and engage in serious conversation. I get bored super easily, I’m scared of a lot of things and hate, hate, hate being physically uncomfortable (give me a cabin with a fireplace over a tent in the dirt).

But, focusing on those sucky traits only make me feel bad about myself so I try to work on them bit by bit (my boyfriend took me camping and I didn’t complain once because he promised me s’mores) and instead I try to focus on my good qualities. I’m honest and ethical, giving and supportive. I’m always trying to improve myself and put myself in someone else’s shoes. I’m super insightful and highly emotionally intelligent.

So, as for me, as for all of us there is good and bad.  No one is perfect. It may seem like life is easier for some and maybe it is, but you aren’t them and you can’t be (unless you like to skin people alive and wear them like a coat).

You can only be you. So, if someone thinks you’re too intense tough sh**.

Never let someone make you feel bad about yourself and more importantly learn to stop thinking poorly about yourself and watch your life change.