Universal guidance from a stray cat
Three posts ago, I told you about a cat that came to our home and wouldn’t leave. While the cat was with us, I kept seeing the angel number 333. I believe the universe sent this cat to me so I could embrace my natural state as a hyper-empath.
Hyper-empathy is something I have struggled with since I was a little kid. As a child, if I saw an injured animal, I would take it to my apartment and try to save it. I still remember the day I found a glue trap with a mouse stuck on it.
I was 8 years old and I could feel what the mouse was feeling. It was panicking, trying to break free from the glue but, by struggling, it only made things worse. I took the glue trap to my apartment and tried to gently pull the mouse off but it was no use. I knew that the mouse was going to die and I felt like it was my fault. I started sobbing.
As the mouse stared up at me, there were so many emotions coming through its eyes. That mouse’s face is forever embedded in my mind - it still haunts me that I couldn’t save it.
I found many things overwhelming as a child and I now realize that it’s because I am a hyper-empath. Hyper-empathy is also the reason I struggled with low self-esteem. I was so attuned to the feelings of other people that whenever I picked up on something negative (which was all the time), I associated it with myself.
As I got older, I made an intentional effort to shut off this part of myself by building emotional walls. My husband told me that when we first met (I was in college at the time), I came across as cold and aloof. But, because he’s highly intuitive, he knew that this was just a front.
In my 20s and 30s, I struggled with how to balance my hyper-empathy. When I let it flow, I was overwhelmed by other people’s emotions and by the thought of large-scale suffering of animals and people. When I built walls, it was hard for me to emotionally connect with other people. However, building walls made my life easier (especially in corporate America), so that’s how I operated for many years.
This changed once I became a mom in my late 30s. After my daughter was born, the walls broke wide open.
For the first six months of her life, I was a mess. I struggled with post-partum anxiety and found myself obsessing over all the negative things that might happen to her. I was convinced that my daughter would die if I didn’t stare at her 24/7 (which meant I didn’t sleep).
My mind was a whirlwind, and I had no control of my emotions. I needed to rebuild those walls but I found it much harder to do now that I had a baby.
So, for the past few years since her birth, I have struggled once again to find a balance.
I believe the universe sent this cat to me to show me how to embrace my hyper-empathy.
We named the cat Tenny and when he first showed up in our backyard, I ignored him. After a day of hiding under our patio furniture, Tenny came out, walked over to our glass door and wouldn’t move. He kept staring at me with his beautiful eyes. I had no choice but to bring him inside our home to care for him until we could find him another home.
In the week that Tenny was in our home, I became deeply attached to him. I saw the angel number 333 throughout the course of that week.
After spending days driving back and forth to the Humane Society (three times!) and dealing with other shelters, the Humane Society finally agreed to take Tenny. I felt relieved so I was not expecting to be overwhelmed by emotions. And yet, I started sobbing - I felt like a child again. I couldn’t save that mouse but I saved Tenny.
When I arrived at the Humane Society with Tenny that afternoon, the time on my iPhone was 3:33.
The universe succeeded in teaching me its lesson.
I’m still going to limit my exposure to things that I find overwhelming (like social media, news, drama, negativity) but I want to start viewing my hyper-empathy as an asset rather than a liability.