Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - Am I TOO Emotional?

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Calling all fellow empaths - you're going to want to tune in to this. Not sure if you're an empath? You'll do well from listening too!

This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships and sex. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. This is the Sex in Singapore City podcast and I'm Nick Salina-Watson. Hello and welcome back to my podcast. How you all doing? Happy Monday, another start to another awesome week and this episode I decided to do off the base of my own little journey which I know is a cliche but sailor fucking V which is also another cliche. I thought it might help someone anyone in fact even if it helps just one person that is fantastic. So this episode is called Am I Too Emotional? Now this subject comes up a lot between my relationships not just with my

current partner but a partner but my ex-partners with my family members with my friends it comes up with my girlfriend's relationships it comes up in people's dms to me on social media it's a very strong reoccurrence theme so I thought let's try and address it together I guess and I'm gonna chat firstly about like I guess my own personal experience and then along the way as you're listening perhaps like you can resonate with some of it or maybe all of it and hopefully it might help someone or everyone kind of come to terms with am I too emotional question mark and if you are how do you handle that I'm not gonna say stop because you shouldn't be able to stop anything like that it's not a case of changing who you are or stopping or holding something at bay it's a

case of accepting. I have accepted. I am a crazy bitch. And that's for my partner because he tells me all the time I am. And if I keep saying, yeah, I know, then you got no leverage anymore, motherfucker. Okay, let's kick off. Am I too emotional? Firstly, I think it's good to take a look at, I don't know whether you guys have heard of these phrases before, but take a look at narcissism and empaths. So what happens a lot in relationships, couple relationships, I'm not talking about family or friendships, is narcissists and empaths find each other because each one fulfills what the other one needs. So having dated a few narcissists, I kind of then started to search into empaths because I realized that that's my role.

And what I am as an empath is a very highly sensitive person. So I feel a lot of things that other people feel. So for instance, let's take an example. There's a really sad advert on it's a charity for animal welfare and there's an animal chained up and being abused. right? That would, that I would feel that in every step of the way. If there was, I was watching the news, and there was a case of, I don't know, a child kidnapping, and the parents are there crying, you know, please, so the child, I would feel what the parents are feeling, even though I don't have a child myself. I just feel everything, you know. So I kind of spent a long time thinking, okay, I'm just hypersensitive. But I actually realized that empath is a thing. It's a personality

attribute, or it's not all of who I am, but it's certainly parts of who I am. And it kind of started to really explain to me how I interact with other people, how I behave and things I feel. So empaths have this tendency to absorb other people's emotions and feelings. This can be an amazing high and it can also be a really negative low and you feel like if you go into a room you have like this gut instinct and you feel what people are going through it's a really odd thing it sounds like I'm a superwoman and yeah I fucking am my superpower is feeling that's it that's the end of this episode though um so yeah empaths we're highly intuitive we're highly sensitive we absorb other people's emotions and feelings and moods

and ironically I don't it's not ironic at all but we get replenished by nature and I'm like if you go on any of my socials I'm like animals nature animals nature because it replenishes us I didn't realize this is an empath thing until I started searching into it and I was like wow I'm like every possible point is me. Empaths have a huge heart, but they give too much often, right? To give until you're saturated with other people's emotions, until you're saturated with nothing left in you to give, you know? It's just like you've almost become the other person, so to speak, in a relationship. But this can also be in friendships as well. I mean, the whole thing is pretty exhausting, right? So being an empath, it is almost by definition, yes, I am too

emotional, right? So in a lot of the relationships, I'm going to concentrate on couple relationships because hashtag sex in Singapore city. I've always been, you're too much, you're too emotional. you know I can't keep up with you or you're either like really high or really low and I've always been a little bit embarrassed with that when I was early 20s I was like oh what's wrong with me and then as I kind of grew up and grew on I realized actually it's part and parcel of my kind of creative spirit and how I am so loving so I one of my huge traits which my current partner absolutely adores is how loving I am he said he's never in his whole life felt love like I give him I think I just make really good coffee if I'm honest because he makes really shit coffee and

we make it the same way but it always tastes a bit shit and I think he's confused good coffee for lots of love anyway so he always says you know you the love you give is just I can never match it it's just like not too much I adore it but it's just an insane amount I've never felt this way before. I've never felt this doted on. I've never felt this needed. I've never felt, you know, you're so attentive. You're so, I mean, and I'll do stuff for him that he hasn't even asked for. You know, like he'll say, example, oh, I kind of, I think I need a facial. He might kill me for saying that bit. Hey, it's the 21st century male. He looks after his skin y'all um yeah so he wants a facial he'll just put it in passing conversation and then

I'll spend a lot of my time looking for the best place for him to get a facial for his needs he's not asked me to um I don't feel obliged to it's just a natural thought process you know like I I guess I I've tried to turn it off before and people have said to me like just careless you You know, like, put yourself first and care less and all this jazz. And I could never do it. But whilst this all sounds very lovely, it's actually not so fucking great. I went to see a therapist in March this year. This is no biggie.

I mean, I don't know if you guys listened to my episode with Hanley Hofer, who is a fucking babe, by the way, and has her own podcast, Just So We're Clear. and they've just launched season two. So do check it out. But Hanley and I were talking about therapy and like how we feel like everyone should have a therapist. And I said, yeah, my therapist is literally the bomb. I just don't want to be without her. And ironically, she's I think now leaving the country. It sucks. But I found her in March and I just wanted to like, I guess, find someone not within my friendship circle, not my partner, not my family to talk to. And I really am a huge advocate for anyone in that situation with anything on your mind career babies marriage relationships sex family issues worries health issues whatever a therapist is you know wonderful

and this should really be sponsored by a therapist I'm just saying if anyone wants to pay me for my blog go for it and my podcast um so yeah I went and found her and long story short we've been working together since March and she's really really really unpicked this am I too emotional empath side of me and what we kind of started to learn is that I don't have any boundaries so within my relationship all of them it's like she said if someone says I love you that's it that's all you want I just I love you and you don't have any values beyond that as long as someone loves you, you will put up with anything and you will go through, you know, rings of fire for them because you don't have any boundaries or values beyond I want to be loved. So for me,

I've grown up confusing this I'm loved, I guess, as a validation for myself, that then there's nothing else really to worry about or to think about or, you know, to say, hey, I'm not okay with that. So my emotional needs are often not really met because I don't have any hold or values or boundaries on those emotions or what I feel I deserve or need as a partner because I just give, give, give, give, give, give, give because I'm an empath, right? So then if I don't feel I'm appreciated or I don't feel that I've, you know, been looked after in the way I deserve or I've been given back anything in the way I give, I then react in a really emotional way. So what she kind of started to make me do, and you'll see now why I'm going through this episode

with everyone, is because it was like, what are your values? We really had to strip it back. To kind of hone in that emotion, I had to like, right, what do I value in a relationship? What do i want okay do i value trust do i value honesty connection do i value gifts do i value time spent together do i value open communication do i value dinners out you know like it could be anything so we went through this whole process and it was boundaries put up like okay my needs are not met i need to have a communication thing like with my partner it doesn't have to always be you know a conversation in person it can be letters it can be text or whatever but i need to say hey look i'm not okay with this right so we started to realize that my empathy side was

actually detrimental to myself because i just gave and gave and fucking gave and my partner love him to death is the narcissism scale he's not a narcissist i'm going to put that very clear but he's on that scale when i'm on the opposite that's why we're so connected he obviously took took took took because it's part of who he is so we started to establish my own boundaries and not only that we also on the next major significant breakthrough was we established i don't have a grey area. I am black or white. You're wrong or you're right. On or off. There's no murky grey shade. There's no, oh, you could be wrong, but I think I'm also wrong. Or there's no need for on and off. Let's have it halfway. I am not like that. I am an extreme. And it's

also as I keep bringing it back to the main point part of my empath background I'm very highly sensitive so when I'm really happy or excited I feel it like so much you know it is like you want to take my Duracell batteries out because I'm annoying the fuck out of you but then when I'm sad oh dear god like I can cry a fucking river do you know how many movies Disney movies I've cried to particularly when i'm like it's my time of the month like fucking hell disney stop killing things for once why did simba's dad have to snuff it bambi i can't even turn that one on and dumbo dumbo kills me i will not watch that again i think the last time i watched that was when i was about six no fucking more not doing it oh stop killing things disney it's not funny we're over it

anyway I just I have an extreme extreme personality I don't know if any of you out there can empathize with any of this with me are you like yeah this is literally she's talking about me this is how I react this is me one minute I'm super high and the next I'm super low and is that does any of you relate to that I hope that it's not just me the sole human on the on the planet without a dial so my therapist basically said look you kind of don't have one so we're gonna have to give you one so what we had to do was sit down and discuss the idea of gray area of a middle dial what would you do if you know you drew out this line one side was on and off one side was right and wrong and then you're trying to work out how it would take to

be in between I was like oh my god this is such an alien concept but I'm gonna go with it so the next time I'm really happy or I'm really sad or I'm angry or the next time my partner does another fucking annoying thing then I need to sit down with a dog and go right this is how I want to react immediately am I too emotional this is how I would emotionally act right now this is what I want to say. This is what I'll probably do. You know, this is what I would have done in the past. And then on the opposite end, go, OK, what could I do instead? What would be the opposite of that? So my reaction is I heard screaming or crying or calling and calling. And then he picks up and screamed down the phone. So that's my initial reaction to what he's done wrong. I don't know

what he's done. This is all hypothetical. And darling, you've done nothing wrong today, sweetheart I promise tomorrow though fuck so he's done nothing wrong that's my hypothetical situation and then the opposite end okay I don't kick off I wait maybe give it an hour maybe give it two hours go for a walk do some exercise and then come back to the door and say hey what's that middle option what perhaps have I misinterpreted what he's done perhaps he's done what he's done without impending any hate or harmfulness on me but I've took it that way perhaps it was a mistake uh perhaps you know and basically use that kind of ideology by drawing your own dial to look at the polar extremes of how you would normally react and then look towards a

middle ground and it kind of it's really working for me because it's made me realize yeah I am too emotional but that's not a bad thing and this oh my god you're so emotional throw out comments that I'm sure a lot of us especially all our empaths we've heard that throughout our relationships like it's a really bad thing you're too much you're too emotional you're too sensitive no it's not actually a terrible thing it's a very good thing if you can harness it in the right way because what this am I too emotional saying now means to me and I bet when you tuned into this you thought oh my god this is like how to not be emotional with men that's not it at all I'm saying yeah I am too emotional, but it means a good thing to me. It means I'm very loving. It means I'm very

loyal. It means that people can come to me and they do with their open hearts. I mean, strangers message me their utmost secrets. I think, wow, this person has entrusted this to me. And I would never tell a complete stranger on the internet these kind of things. So there must be an element of who I am that allows that to happen and yeah okay so I feel in extremes but damn at least I feel I'd rather that than have no empathy I'd rather that than apathy right nothing so yeah am I too emotional yes I fucking am and I'm extremely proud of it as well what I want to do and that's what I've been working with my therapist is realize that I don't have to react in that emotional thing that my emotions are not who I am just a part of who I am and I can choose

should I so wish to control that bit so whenever I do react emotionally often afterwards I say oh I shouldn't have said that I shouldn't have said that oh I shouldn't have text that you know and have a lot of that like panic and worry and guilt and shame about any kind of interaction to eliminate that because that's not very good for me it is actually better to step away from the situation and calm down and then always try and find that gray area on the dial okay which if you're anything like me you don't have built in yeah it's not easy is it kids but what i will say for anyone who has resonated with everything i've said today's episode um one of course message me but two a therapist will work wonders three google empaths you will see

how connected you are to any of the topics any discussions any panel board about empaths four make sure if you are in your inner relationship you google empaths and narcissists just to check in. Maybe there's two empaths. Maybe, you know, your partner's neutral or maybe they are a narcissist. And that will also give you a nice grounding to take a look at how you both behave and make it better as well, because that's also always a takeaway. How do I react better? How do I make my relationship, you know, happier, positive, like a better day for both of us? It doesn't have to be bad for you to want to keep progressing. You don't have to feel bad about yourself for you to want to keep progressing either when I went to my therapist I wasn't like

you know in despair I just had some stuff I wanted to talk about and this is what kind of what we unpacked together this emotional thing I didn't even go in with that conversation that wasn't even on my mind at all and yet I was like wow this is huge so yeah do message me do do your research if you're thinking of getting the therapist go for it do not under any circumstance say am I too emotional yes I am as a negative thing I think it's worth embracing because without all these emotional people the world would be a really scary cruel place it's not about you know dialing that down to it's nothing it's about understanding your emotional spectrum and reacting in a way that doesn't cause any damage to you or someone else or your relationships but

actually says okay yeah I am too emotional but I'm going to harness it in the right way so that everything is actually a bit better and more to the point I feel like it's very important for you to set boundaries for yourself which I obviously as I've said earlier never had yeah I'm too emotional this will hurt me this will hurt me okay what doesn't hurt you that's fine but that hurts me okay you don't that doesn't bother you you think that's okay that upsets me and put boundaries down so that I can live a much more comfortable I guess peaceful life so that I don't then feel in any situation where that I guess extreme emotional explosion comes from be it happy or sad with my partner she's usually angry oh I love him anyway I hope I haven't waffled on

too long I hope that's kind of given you guys some food for thought and as always get in touch um let me know any future episodes you want me to tackle if you want me to do an episode on narcissism I'm quite happy to I think that'll be a very interesting uh thing to discuss as well opposite end of the spectrum so yeah just let me know and that's it for today have a great week everyone bye Thanks for listening to the Sex in Singapore City podcast. This episode was produced and hosted by me, Nick Salina-Watson, and recorded at the Splice Car Studio in Singapore.

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