Are You An Empath?

Do you feel you are an Empath or have you seen the world around you and wondered what it really means? Empaths are psychic individuals who read their environment by absorbing the energy around them through their energy field. An empath's energy field has the ability to open like a human colander as they release their energy and then absorb the energy of the person, place, or group energy they are in the presence of. Sounds like a pretty cool super power! It can be cool if utilized appropriately but most of us who are highly sensitive would often disagree. It's like draining a pool and refilling it with polluted water. That's why Empath's can often feel drained or tired. If you are an Empath, the trick is that you must first learn how to release what you pull in, while then learning how to call your own energy back into yourself. Many Empath's have been told they are too sensitive, too compassionate or too emotional. Empath's typically don't like big crowded places like a shopping mall, a stadium or a crowded theatre. They often confuse their anxiety and emotions to be about themselves, as if they have a shortcoming, when in reality they are just very attuned to the energies around them and feeling that disturbance via their own emotional field. Simply put, an Empath is highly susceptible to absorbing other people's feelings and pains, albeit conscious
or unconscious. Often, an Empath is born  with a capacity for deep sensitivity and acute intuition, which makes them more prone to being an internalizer of their emotions. They become sensitive to the environment(s) they are in....at home, at school, or in their neighborhood, as they slowly learn to shape shift their energy field to accommodate others over the course of time. They can feel when someone is angry, sad, happy, hurt and often their own peace and joy becomes contingent upon how the other person they are in relationship is feeling, be it a parent, spouse, etc.

I have been an Empath since I was a little girl. I always though it was a bad thing being told I was sensitive. I was sensitive because I wasn't able to manage my empathy. I couldn't even handle my Eeyore stuffed animal from Winnie the Pooh because he looked so sad it made me cry! I grew up always being attuned to what the people around me were feeling, what their moods were, which caused me to constantly feel the need to help them, which I often did. What ends up happening, however,  is that you lose sight of your own needs and become to focused on the needs of others as a way of finding peace in your surroundings, even at the cost of yourself. It can become difficult to understand where one person's emotional field ends and yours begins. Boundaries become skewed.
It takes knowledge and healing to move into what I called being a Skilled Empath. I had a momentous experience for myself while in Energy Medicine School. I was practicing an addiction healing with a fellow classmate. I was required to give her the healing, so I asked her what addiction she would like me to focus on. She wanted me to plug into her overeating habits. So I did my thing and began the healing. As I layed my hands on her, in that moment we became like E.T. and Elliot in the movie E.T. The Extraterrestrial! All of a sudden, I felt such despair and pain! I truly felt all of her loneliness, how it made her feel isolated, and how her overeating provided her with a temporary feeling of relief, because in her mind, food had become her only friend. I started to hyper-ventilate and cry, as I absorbed the intensity of her feelings into my being. The next thing I remembered was my teacher running over and literally grabbing me and dragging me to other side of the room, which allowed the intensity of the pain to subside. She looked at me and said:
“Jessica you have a gift, you are an Empath but you will never help anyone if you drown in their pain with them.”
The light bulb went off....Ooohhhhhhhhhhh....Duuuhhhhhhhh!!! I got it! I realized I not only felt her pain but I was feeling my own...I wouldn't have been able to have any empathy without keeping control of my own emotional barometer. I always feel things to the depths of my soul and just can't imagine it being any other way! I have since learned that I don't need to to drown in another's pain, I don't need to take it on or even be the one to heal it. I just have to be present to someone, to let them know and understand that I hear their
pain. This starts the process of facilitating and assisting them to release their pain and find peace, or even be with the pain if they need to experience it at that time. It isn't my place to judge it or take the experience from them. I can be a loving supportive presence and that is the gift. I can also be a loving supportive presence to myself
when I experience emotional pain. There is a lot to learn in that. Being able to keep a healthy boundary has been much better for me to manage my own energy field. I am stronger and more
empowered for it as a result. Do I still fall into the Empathy pit? You betcha!!
Here are some tips that I have found very useful to help myself, when I overdo my Empathy or know that I am going to be in an environment where it is difficult for me to manage my field.

1) I take lots of salt baths with essential oils or I use salt scrubs if I don't have the time to soak. Salt is very purifying to an empath's energy field.

2) I use meditation and visualization. One image I envision is the light growing and exuding from my heart and beaming lights from the inside out through the holes in my energy field, (which happen from unskilled empathy) then sealing them off and healing them.

3) I pray a lot and ask for assistance and guidance.

4) I use a lot of Selenite....This is a great stone for Empath's...I hold it in my palm and it seems to help lift and purify the energy field.

5) I get Energy Healing from practitioners I trust.

6) I go outside and touch the earth, a tree, the dirt...This is very healing and soothing for me. I love all the elements and each seem to offer healing for me.

Jessica teaches the “How to be a Skilled Empath” workshop. For more info contact her at angelicguidancereadings@gmail.com