Gain a deeper understanding about empath abilities, how it works as well as ways you can prevent overwhelm.
Signs You Are an Empath
Do you get told you’re over sensitive? You feel things much more deeply than people around you do?
Does this sound like you?
“I took an empath test online and it said that I am an empath. What can I do to control this as I am becoming physically sick and emotionally verwhelmed?”
“Could my depression possibly be linked to being an empath? I have this cloud hanging over me all the time and I suspect this could be the reason.”
“I don’t trust people so I tend to stay by myself when I’m not working. I have so many walls up I won’t allow people into my space. All these things plus many more leave me feeling sad and disheartened.”
10 Empath Traits
1) You feel uncomfortable in crowded settings
2) You have random unfounded mood swings
3) You burst into tears during emotionally charged movie scenes (even Disney)
4) You are able to gauge if what someone is telling you is sincere
5) You can read the emotional state of others beyond what they are revealing
6) You experience a visceral reaction to loaded words such as “hate”
7) You enjoy being out in nature, in or near water more than the company of most people
8) You are naturally inclined to alleviate the pain of others (physical or emotional)
9) You have a history of co-dependent relationships that likely weren’t healthy
10) Your energy frequently feels depleted after listening to the personal woes of others
In a nutshell, an empath feels what somebody else feels, you are able to take on the energy physical, mental, emotional or spiritual of somebody known or unknown to you whether they are in close proximity or afar.
For example, if someone is angry or deeply saddened but not saying anything, pretending everything is alright you may walk into the room and find you experience that emotion like it happened to you out of the blue.
Or you could walk into a room in perfect health, someone in that room has back pain and you experience the back pain as if it’s your own with no obvious cause.
If you know that you are an empath and you notice this it is easy to shift by acknowledging it is not yours and that you release it. The sensation will disappear as suddenly as it set in.
If you are unaware that what you are doing is empathing and you are someone who has a propensity for depression it may deepen and you think you just have mood swings or internalise this occurrence as something being wrong with you.
You may as a child have misunderstood this and perceived the other person’s feelings as resulting from something you did or diligently tried to make them feel better in some way.
I have dealt with a lady who at the age of six was seated next to a classmate in her schoolroom who had a broken arm. She felt extreme pain in her arm and cried. They sent her to the nurse and her parents took her to the doctor but there was nothing wrong. She had taken on the other child’s pain.
It doesn’t stop there though. You can pick up on others’ energies via TV even if it is recorded because it carries the energy with which it was made with. Tuning in to news media that go all out for drama and hype immediately sets you in a fearful, powerless place.
You can also pick up on someone else’s energy through hearing the harmonic in their voice, when you think of someone you have a strong connection with or when someone is reminiscing via strong emotional memory about you.
Essentially, you can empath energy through an electronic screen, computer phone and so on. That’s why scrolling through social media feels so draining to you. When you scroll your timeline, you are taking on the energy of every single person’s post you connect with since you’re allowing their energy into your space. Even if you’re skim reading, you’re absorbing all those bits.
It’s also not limited to your environment and mass consciousness, but astrological line ups as well.
The Meaning of Empath
If it seems like there are more empaths around these days, the reason why is that more people are becoming (or are already born) sensitive and in tune to subtle energies in unprecedented numbers ~ kind of like someone turning up the volume of the quiet background music!
The vibration on Earth has risen higher than ever before (since Lemuria and Atlantis) and affects all of you who are sensitive and intuitive. In the past the denser energy moved like a slow wave over the grid, now this much lighter energy we are living in of a higher vibration moves much more rapidly.
How it works:
A lot like the internet actually! Just as we rely on satellites, massive fibre-optic cables, network servers and spam filters. Your body receives and sends signals, your personal energy lines (meridians) connect with the Earth’s ley lines and you receive updates from the cosmic web.
As a sentient being your electromagnetic field interacts within Earth’s collective electromagnetic field. Your nervous system detects emotional waves from others in your environment and even on a global scale when large numbers of people emit similar waves.
Energy is information in motion at the speed of light squared.
It vibrates.
For instance, research conducted by Roger Nelson for the Global Consciousness Project produced evidence that four to five hours prior to the World Trade Centre attack on 11 September 2001 in New York, there was a significant spike in the global field of consciousness, suggesting a worldwide collective intuition about the impending event (albeit subconscious).
What is occurring is something like an etheric spam filter. Your body is filtering out the denser energy from the old paradigm and you just need to keep releasing it.
8 Ways Your Empath Abilities Are a Gift
1) Your heart chakra is more open so you can commune with the mineral, elemental, plant and animal realms. You can send loving, compassionate energy to areas of natural and/or manmade disasters in distress.
For example, if trees are being cut down you are able to communicate with them to tell them to release life force so they feel no pain. If there is a forest fire you are able to send calming energy to the wildlings and restorative energy to the land.
2) If someone troubled speaks with you (they need not express their concerns) they will feel lighter after interacting with you. Similarly you can tap into physical pain and help relieve it complementary to other treatments. Empaths make proficient Reiki practitioners and you can combine this with whatever industry you are in.
3) As much as you are inclined to deeply reach into the heaviness of others you are able to absorb wonderful and beautiful things too such as joy, love, laughter, picturesque sunsets, moonlit shores and shooting stars.
4) If you are feeling down and someone happy enters your space you can feel an upward spiral in mood instantly too!
5) You are able to feel into the heart of what someone is really saying, perceive underlying motives and potential futures as well as past traumas they have experienced based on the flow of the person’s energy. This helps you be fully present with them. While at times it may feel uncomfortable, it allows you to be of higher service to them.
6) Have you noticed that people tend to seek you out? Your energy draws them, inexplicably like a moth to the flame. Sometimes they can’t help spilling their secrets to you and revealing truths.
7) Because you are able to pick up on the atmosphere of a room or place instantly you can use it to your advantage by anticipating the way a conversation or event will go and then projecting energy that transforms it for the best outcome for all concerned.
8) You know precisely when it is a good time to broach a particular topic, or to let it go so you get optimal results where others may not. You know when to “buy” or “sell”, when to advance and when to hold still.
How to Prevent Overwhelm As an Empath
Ways you can prevent overwhelm by shielding against taking on the energy of others that doesn’t serve you, how to release it and move it out of your system.
1. Be Aware of Your Emotions (mood, attitude and feelings)
If you woke up in a good mood, got ready for work everything ran smoothly and you happily make your way to work, nothing distinct happens on your way there yet you feel like a thunderstorm when you walk in…
Recognise the mood or sensation is not yours. If you were feeling fine and then suddenly like someone flipped a switch and your mood or physical wellbeing changed for no apparent reason it’s probably not yours.
“Firmly state to yourself, “this is not mine; I release it from my energy field for transmutation now.”
If it is physical pain you tune into adapt the above slightly by asking in your mind, “is this mine?” Your intuition will indicate yes or no. Trust that and process it accordingly.
If you witness something heartrending like a lost puppy or a homeless person in the cold rain that you find deeply upsetting within your being. Know this; you can display compassion and love for others without them drawing energy from you or you taking on their baggage for them.
It actually serves them better to send them transformative energy on a vibration of love by seeing them happy, fulfilled, healthy, sheltered etcetera and projecting that over them instead of pity or shame.
If you know you are going to watch something that delves into lower vibration, like a horror movie or the nightly news with disturbing scenes, you can decrease the degree of openness of your chakras.
Imagine that you are pulling a zip down (like a sleeping bag from the inside) from above the crown of your head down to under the soles of your feet.
This will decrease your sensitivity for that time period and then your chakras will naturally open up again later. Or you can consciously “unzip” afterwards if you prefer.
2. Use a Shielding Technique
As part of your daily practice add a specific instruction to set your vibrational tone and personal boundaries.
For example:
“I create a filter within my light that keeps all energies that are not mine at bay. I release any energies I may have taken on and claimed and inadvertently claimed as my own and return them to pure Source energy (or your preference) for transmutation now. I will only empath when I consciously choose to do so. So be it.”
If you are experiencing long-term symptoms related to past events, I recommend a cord cutting ritual. You cannot sever any bonds that serve your highest good so don’t worry that you will sever the good things! You also don’t have to know who the cord belongs to ~ just sense the cord itself and not a specific person.
If you have a close relationship with someone, even if you are consciously shielding your energy and aware of your empathic tendencies, you can unintentionally take their emotional baggage or physical symptoms on because of a heart or soul connection.
The reason you do this is because you naturally want to give them relief from it. The thing is you may do that subconsciously and then you don’t know what to do with what you are feeling.
The simplest and fastest way to transmute it is to move it through your body into the Earth. As I have mentioned before, you are not pumping negativity into the Earth by doing so ~ our planet naturally transmutes discordant energy much like trees exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen.
I don’t advocate going around and transmuting in this way on behalf of others all the time because in effect you are disempowering them. It is better to educate them as to how to be accountable for their own bodies, emotions and energies to regulate their vibration.
Otherwise you are actually doing them a disservice because they have not learnt how to manage their vibration independently and they come to rely on others or external means or foster co-dependency on you. This can also generate a karmic debt between you.
They may not even have been in your space recently, they could be across the globe but if you have a connection with them on some level and they think of contacting you or reminisce about you for this to occur.
Suggested crystals for empaths: I can personally attest to tourmalinated quartz, rutile quartz, black tourmaline and smoky quartz. I have also heard that obsidian and haematite are helpful.