I am compelled to write today because of something I experienced over the weekend. I was at a party, chatting to a lady who was tell...

I am compelled to write today because of something I experienced over the weekend. I was at a party, chatting to a lady who was telling me a story about her mother in law. At some point, I had this desire to put my hand on her shoulder and I felt sad. The story was not sad to me so I was confused. Next thing I know, tears are rolling down her face. I realized, 'oh, right.....it was HER feeling!'

A friend told me I was an empath a long time ago but I never believed it. In my head, empaths were people who could not filter out other peoples' feelings from their own and that couldn't be me. I understood when someone was having a problem/issue/feeling that it was theirs and not mine. The problem was when they didn't tell me their problem but I could feel something was wrong. Then I get confused. As I learned to pay closer attention to my emotions, I notice that I pick up feelings from others, places and situations far more than I realized. Additionally, I noticed there different layers/aspects to the whole empath thing. In the example above, how I knew it was her emotion was because she started crying. If she hadn't done that, I would have been confused as to why I was feeling sad and wanted to console her. I would have assumed the feeling was mine. That's one aspect.

Another layer/aspect is the absorption of people's beliefs or consciousness. A while ago, I lived with 2 other people. The consciousness of the household is you must work hard for your money by getting more hours at work. Starting your own business and working less hours at a job to build the business is not a way to be successful and have more money. Taking a couple days off to spend with your girlfriend is not acceptable because you must work to get/save more money. I absorbed this belief system and assumed it as my own. In focusing most of my time on getting more hours and making money, it took me further away from the needs of my soul and I felt lost. My spiritual/soul side took a back seat and it was starving for attention. However, it was the feeling of being lost that made me take a look at what is going on inside. I was caught up in the dominant consciousness of the household and lost sight of MY dominant consciousness.

But what exactly is the big deal? What if I am empathic and I pick up other people's emotions....who cares? The answer is: When you assume other people's emotions/feelings as your own, YOU ARE NOT STANDING IN YOUR OWN POWER. You are not standing in your own truth or your own wisdom. You can be a more empowered individual if you stay true to who you are at all times and in all situations. In my experience, very sensitive individuals have a hard time staying true to themselves.

For the record, I certainly do not profess to understand all there is to know about the empathic person but here are some aspects that are strong indicators you are very sensitive to other people/situations:

• Being able to put yourself in someone else shoes and feel their situation.
• Picking up others' emotions.
• Loosing ones identity in an intimate relationship.
• Picking up the consciousness of a room/place and assuming it as your own.
• Automatically take on other peoples emotions as our own.
• Trying to fix people because you feel how sad/depressed/ etc., they are.
• Lack of healthy boundaries.

I am guilty of all these. The most frustrating for me was loosing my identity in a partnership. I didn't even know it was happening until I moved out. I took on my partners' emotions, likes and dislikes so much that when I moved out on my own, I didn't even know how to decorate my place. I didn't know how I wanted things to be in my own space. When I went to the store, I would buy items we bought together; things I thought I wanted. Eventually, I started saying, 'you know what? I never really liked that item and i'm not going to buy it.....ever again!' Slowly, I started putting things in my space that I liked and made ME happy. This was nobody's fault but my own.

Please be aware that if you do not know whether an emotion is yours or not, it is easy to get into the blame game. The blame game becomes a problem when you do not take ownership for how you are feeling. It would be easy to blame my partner in the above example by saying, 'all the decorations in our house together were what YOU wanted.' Yes, that could be true but I didn't speak up. If I didn't speak up, how can I blame someone? I take full responsibility for my actions.

Lack of healthy boundaries is something I work on daily. What i've learned; it's ok to say no. You don't have to give a reason. Say no and stick with it. That's a boundary. You may already know where you could place boundaries in your life. The trick is to enforce them. The awareness of where they could go is half the battle. 

So what about you? Are you empathic? Are you even aware that you take on other people's emotions and assimilate it as your own? If this is the case, here are some points that might help you understand how to work with this part of you:

1. You will need a strong sense of Self to sift through the layers of the emotions that you process and project. Start with your level of awareness: Next time you are in public somewhere, just pay attention to how you are feeling. If you suddenly change how you are feeling, ask yourself 'is this change because of me?' When my emotional state shifts quickly, I first check in to see; am I hungry? Is my blood sugar low? How was I just feeling before this changed? You have to be very honest with yourself here. You may all of a sudden feel sad because you saw a couple kissing and you just had a break up. That's clearly your stuff. If it wasn't yours, you would likely feel love looking at the kissing couple. Own your stuff!
2. If you are not aware of the emotions you normally feel, then how will you know when they are yours or not yours? Awareness is key. If you are able to determine the emotion you are feeling is yours, accept it don't make excuses for it. It's yours and that's ok.
3. If an emotion gets too overwhelming for you, just ground yourself or shift your thinking to something more enjoyable. If the emotion is that tangible, you can always go back to it when you are in a safer environment.
4. Please remember, EMOTIONS ARE YOUR GUIDE. They are telling you something. LISTEN. Listen, whether they are yours or someone else's. Trust what you hear. Start trusting yourSelf. 
   
   

2017. What a crazy year! It was filled with fun, sadness, excitement, stress and transition. I lost my beloved cat. I sold my house a...

2017. What a crazy year! It was filled with fun, sadness, excitement, stress and transition. I lost my beloved cat. I sold my house and moved in with a friend. I moved countries and started new projects. The one thing I didn’t do was write in my blog. Writing these blogs fed my soul. It was the outlet I needed to get back in touch with my essence; bringing me back to me. Because 2017 had so many emotional ups and downs, I just didn’t have any interest in writing and felt I had nothing to contribute. Now that I’m a bit more settled, I felt the need to start again. Writing about spiritual stuff and healing is exactly what I need right now and hopefully, I may have something to say that you need to hear. So hear we go again!

Recently, I had a stomach issue. I attributed it to stress as moving countries, starting a new job, a new business and issues with various relationships are particularly stressful. It seems it all caught up with me and settled in my stomach/intestinal area. I figured the stress would continue for a bit but in the meantime, I could put myself on my biofeedback machine. While this did help the situation, it did not take the problem away. I also did Reiki on myself which helped as well but again, it did not heal the problem.  After about 10 days of this, I started writing down the feeling associated with the discomfort by focusing on that area. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I know how to do that and I teach it in my classes! Perhaps it was because I wanted a quick fix but when that didn’t work, I had to look a bit deeper. Your organs will tell you things if you just listen. Again, I know this but it seems it is easy to forget when it comes to my own stuff! I began looking over my previous blog entries and saw that I wrote multiple exercises on looking inward but I wasn’t doing any of them. So one night, I sat with the discomfort in the stomach region and all kinds of stuff came up. It was not a pleasant experience but I started to get an idea as to what was going on with me. There were things/places/people and childhood stuff I wasn’t allowing myself to release or deal with properly. I was holding on tightly to them in an unhealthy manner.  I sat with the feelings in that area for a few nights and also wrote down the issues that came up. Although it was an emotionally draining week, the discomfort began to dissipate as did the intensity of emotions associated with that region.

Mantak Chia wrote a book called, “Inner Smile.” He is quite the prolific writer on working with energy to heal the body through breath and intention. I recommend any of his books. The ‘Inner Smile’ is a meditation. The concept being when you smile at something, it brings joy therefore when you smile at your organs or body systems it will increase the chi (life force energy) to that region. I remember reading this years ago so when I started listening to my organs (in my case it was the stomach/intestines) and hearing/feeling what they had to say, I then smiled at them and thanked them for bringing this issue to my attention.

At this point, you are probably saying, “that is stupidest thing I ever heard! I get it. It is kinda weird. But if it didn’t work for me, I certainly would not be talking about it. If the physical problem had not come up, I would not have been alerted to the emotional issue associated to it and therefore healing could not take place.

I invite you to try the exercise below and see if it works for you but before we start, I want to make it clear that if you are having a physical problem, it is in your best interest to see a doctor. I do believe in western medicine and if my issue had been grossly uncomfortable, I would have gone to the hospital. There is no reason to suffer unnecessarily! These exercises work best along with the treatment you are receiving, not in lieu of.

Technique 8

1. Pick a time that you can do this uninterrupted. It could be before you go to bed, in the morning or whenever you can grab some quiet time. Light some candles. Take a bath. Whatever you need to do to put you in a relaxed mood.
2. Start focusing on your breath. Don’t do anything with it. Just watch what the breath is doing. Do this for a few minutes.
3. Start taking in some slower, deeper breaths and release the breath for the same amount of time you inhaled. Continue this for about 5 to 10 minutes. It’s important to slow the mind down before going any further.
4.  Now shift the focus from the breath to your body. Where are the sore parts of your body? Start with that region. If you do not have any sore parts then start with the liver. Find an anatomy chart to locate the liver and gently bring your attention there. Ask it what it wants you to know. Pay attention to any emotions that come up. You may get some images or hear something.  I also ask it what I can do to help it. You may get nothing when you ask an organ any question and that’s ok. Alternatively, you may be surprised at what you do pick up!  If you get an image or a feeling that is very uncomfortable, I encourage you to reduce the amount of time you spend there. When the feeling is too intense, it can tear your energy field making healing in that region even more difficult as your energy will leak out.  So tackle an issue a little at a time. There’s no rush to sort things out immediately! For a physical problem to develop, the emotional issue has been there a while so be patient and kind to you.
5. After spending a few minutes on this area (stay longer if you feel it’s ok to do so), thank the liver for all it does for you. It performs necessary biological functions without you being aware of it so thank it and smile at it.  Smile at it for several minutes.
6. Follow this same pattern for your other organs. You could also do body systems such as the circulatory or nervous system. You could focus on your joints or bones or any part of your body that is a problem for you.
7. This can be an emotionally draining exercise so perhaps only do a few body parts or systems at a time. Write down what you pick up so you can remember.
8. Once you do the parts that are a problem for you, then start thanking and smiling at the good parts. They need attention too!

If you haven’t noticed by now, the exercise is really about Self-love. Love for Self. We care so much about what the outside looks like, that we are not paying any attention to the inside. Let your body know you love it and want to nurture it. Doing this by eating right, exercise and getting a massage now and again is really not enough. Of course, it certainly helps the body but you still need to give love and thanks to your temple. 

It’s the only one you got and you are the only one that lives in it!