As I often say to clients: “The good news is that you are an empath. The bad news is that you are an empath.”
Merriam-Webster gives the following definition for the word “empath”: one who experiences the emotions of others : a person who has empathy for others.
As a child, I would frequently experience life in a natural, openly joyful and excited way that children have the capacity to do so well. I can still feel the excitement of going to a birthday party, or waking up on Christmas mornings and going out to see what Santa had left for us. Getting to spend time with my grandparents was an especially coveted event. I would wait in anticipation of the next fun event in my life.
Feeling with such depth and zeal is without a doubt, absolutely wonderful. Then there was the other side of my ability to feel. There were times when I would find myself feeling overwhelmed with sadness and just start to weep for no apparent reason. Someone would come into the house and I would find myself going in the other direction because I could feel this edge of surliness and agitation about them. Feelings would just come to me and I didn’t readily understand them. I often did not know why I was feeling a certain way when nothing was going on that I could identify at the time. There were times when I would go to a new place and feel like something awful had happened to someone there but did not know why. World events on the television offered a whole new set of feelings. Sometimes I would feel like I was out of breath, as if from a sucker punch when seeing how people were treating each other. Why were we treating the Earth Mother with such disrespect? Did no one care about the quality of people’s lives, or the plants and the animals that lived in places that were being decimated by pollution and other forms of destruction?
Another piece that was baffling for me as a child and young adult, was not understanding why others around me showed no concerns about things going on (adults and children alike) Were they all just uncaring or not paying any attention to the world around them? Children my own age would look at me as if I was from a different planet if I brought these subjects to their attention. When I was a little older, a wise person told me that being able to feel things around me would allow me to experience things in life more fully. .
It wasn’t until I was much older and began to study with the subtle fields of energy that I began to realize that I was picking up on the emotions of other people around me, both in close proximity and from afar. It took some training and practice before I was able to check into the energies and emotions coming to me and determine whether they were mine or someone else's. Then with further training, I was able to properly release those that did not belong to me. Over time, I also discovered that receiving this energetically (and emotionally) charged information could offer some valuable insight into what was going on around me, especially when working with individual clients and groups.
For those of us who are struggling with the uber sensitivity that life has given us as an empath, I ask that you “feel” that there is hope, a blessing and a good reason for coming into this world as an empath. We have many gifts to offer the world and will have many opportunities to enjoy these gifts throughout our lives. Empaths can become amazing healers, teachers and leaders. Many of us can benefit from a little coaching and training so that we better understand how to work with our sensitive bodies and what to do with the information that is being shared with us. Ultimately, we create the space to live our lives more fully.
If you or someone you know might benefit from some training and coaching to better work with their empathic skills, feel free to contact me directly.
With much compassion and good Qi,
Shelley
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