Last week, I did a mindfulness exercise where I was instructed to pinpoint all the positive and negative emotions I felt the previous week. Once we pinpointed our emotions, we had to think back and try and figure out where they came from – what made us feel what we were feeling? For the most part of the week, I was happy and joyous. It was honestly an unusual happy, but I recognized that it was God just gracefully granting me happiness. However, I did experience some negative emotions that made me question a few things. A lot of the negative emotions I felt stemmed from being hyper-aware of the negative emotions others around me were feeling. Because I knew what they were doing, and what they were going through, I was picking up on emotions that weren’t my own. I didn’t understand how the joy that I was feeling could be so negatively affected by what I was hearing and witnessing from the situations around me. I was so consumed in what the people around me were going through that I allowed it to affect how I was regulating my emotions. Being an empath, this makes sense, but I noticed that other people’s situations were taking away from my joy, and that didn’t sit well with me.
If you’ve read any of my previous editorials, you can probably gather that I have a fix-it spirit. I always want to make things right for other people and do what I can to better their situations. This is not a bad thing, but it can be; and recognizing this was so important for me because it allowed me to step back and realize a couple of things. The first thing I realized is that my name is not “Fix-It Felix.” My purpose is not to go around fixing everyone’s problems, nor am I capable of doing so – that was the second thing I realized. As much as I can try, I cannot change the things I cannot control. Accepting and understanding these things has allowed me to take space from certain situations and ultimately, leave them in God’s hands. I know that while God can plant, water, and grow seeds, He’s only given me the ability to plant them. I cannot make someone, or their situation change, and I can’t want more for people than they do for themselves. I cannot make other people’s business, my own.
There’s an old gospel song by the Williams Brothers that says, “Sweep around your own front porch before you try to sweep around mine.” The song elaborates on how sometimes we tend to mind everyone else’s business without ever minding our own, cleaning up someone else’s situation when we have things that need to be tended to as well. I’ve always loved this song, not only for its soulful nature but because it is a powerful message about only being concerned about what concerns you. There’s so much more we could accomplish if we worried about our situations and what we’re going through. The roles we play in other people’s lives are often the roles we need filled in our own lives. Being a helping hand, and wanting to contribute to our peers’ lives is a natural thing but we cannot let it get in the way of the growth, happiness and productivity in our own lives.
