LISTEN: What does it mean to be emotionally permeable?

Publish Date
Tuesday, 4 April 2017, 9:45AM

Do some things just cut you to the core, effect you deeply and stick with you for a long time? You may be "emotionally permeable".

This morning Sarah, Sam and Toni spoke to psychologist Galia, a friend of Toni's who had told her about what it means to be an emotionally permeable person.

Toni opened up about her battle with the potentially fatal auto-immune disease, Churg-Strauss syndrome, and how it now means she can't afford to take on a lot of emotional stress.

Churg-Strauss syndrome is a rare disease that causes the auto-immune systems to overreact, which can lead to allergies, tissue damage, restricted blood flow to vital organs and in some cases, death. Symptoms can vanish and reappear suddenly, making it hard to diagnose.

Galia - a "fellow sufferer" - went into detail with the crew about how to deal with stress when it won't just roll off like water on a feather. 

"Some of us feel things really strongly," Galia says, "which means we can really feel the great stuff about life, the joy and empathy, but we also feel things that aren't so nice really, really strongly and they hurt us.

"But the thing is telling us to harden up, it doesn't work like, because it's like telling a plant 'stop letting water through the membrane'.

"We can't actually change who we are, but we can actually put in place some strategies to work with that."

Listen to what Galia had to say about stress, strategies and emotional permeability above. 

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