Singer Joss Stone on being a ‘little empath’

This is a clip of Joss Stone at the 2005 Grammy Awards, singing a tribute to Janis Joplin. My commentary, mostly quoting Stone, is added.

Stone has created three top-selling albums and earned a Grammy. In a recent magazine interview, she talked about being highly sensitive.

“I think I’m just very, very emotional. My mom used to call me her little empath. I just feel other people’s love and other people’s pain very, very easily.

Joss Stone “Which can be dangerous when you set yourself to be that open. It can mess with your own heart.” Stone smiles. “But in another way, it just makes your life fuller to really feel every inch of everyone’s feelings, including your own.

“When you’re singing a song, you have to tell the story. That’s the most important part about love—to tell the story. Otherwise, don’t bother.”

Also acting

The article adds, “Next month, she takes a major jump into acting when she joins The Tudors, Showtime’s steamy historical take on the reign of Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Stone will play his less-than-glamorous fourth wife, Anne of Cleaves.”

“Anne wasn’t exactly a hottie,” Stone says with a laugh. “But I connected with her insecurity because I was just as nervous when I stepped on the set. She was scared. I like doing things that are difficult. I like the thrill of not knowing. Throwing yourself headfirst into the deep end is my kind of fun.

“I had to take out my nose ring,” says Stone. “And the makeup man had to work real hard to cover my tattoos.”

“In 2005, the 21-year-old from Kent, England, was voted the World’s Sexiest Vegetarian by PETA, alongside Coldplays’ Chris Martin. Stone has been a vegetarian since birth.”

From Joss Stone: I Like Being A Free Spirit, by Jeanne Wolf, Parade mag. 03/29/2009.

Dolly Parton

Among many other artists who talk about being highly sensitive, Dolly Parton says, “I hurt real easy and real deep, which is why I think I have to write songs, and why so many of them fit the feelings of so many people that can’t write. It’s because I feel everything to my core.”

[From What are some challenges of being a highly sensitive person?]

Energy psychiatrist Judith Orloff reports when she was growing up, she was “a gigantic sponge, absorbing the emotions of people around me.” [See post Psychiatrist Judith Orloff on coping with emotional overload.]