Now that you know you’re an empath, what can you do? Can you protect yourself from the onslaught of energy? The answer is YES. Thankfully there are some things that you can do to minimize the effects of the energy from others.
For me, half the battle was knowing that I was an empath. Just knowing there was a reason why I acted and felt the way I did made me feel “normal” for the first time. But just knowing wasn’t enough. There were other tools I needed to learn to help me find balance. Over the next two weeks I’d like to share those tools with you.
The first thing I needed to learn was to be able to distinguish between my own energy and that of others. I learned a very important question to ask, probably the most important question I’d ever learn, “does this belong to me or does this belong to someone else?” As simple as this may seem, for an empath it is one of the most important tools you can learn. Knowing the difference between your own feelings or whether those feelings are being influenced by others is critical. Here’s how it works.
When an emotion or physical ailment would unexpectedly appear, I would ask this question. If what I was feeling was being caused by someone else, the symptom would disappear within one minute of me asking the question. The most difficult part of the whole process is remembering to ask the question. Here's one example.
I was at work one day when my back suddenly began to hurt. Since I’ve had prior back issues, I made the assumption that my back was acting up, even though I’d been experiencing no issues. Over the next 3 days my back pain progressively got worse. I was taking Ibuprofen like it was going out of style, only to find no relief from the pain. I was in serious pain and about to call the chiropractor when I remembered I didn’t ask “the” question. So after suffering for 3 days, I asked, “does this belong to me or does this belong to somebody else?” Immediately my back pain lifted. Within 60 seconds of asking the question I was pain free, with one exception. My forehead hurt after I smacked myself repeatedly for not having asked the question when the pain first started.
After that, I learned pretty quickly to ask the question anytime I would experience any physical symptoms. It took me a little longer to learn that same lesson when it came to my emotions. I didn’t understand how much I was being affected on an emotional level until I attended a funeral.
A friend’s mom passed away. I wasn’t close to the mom, but I was to her daughters. I wanted to support and be there for them, so my husband and I attended the funeral. I knew the funeral would be difficult and I thought I had prepared myself. Boy was I wrong. As soon as I crossed the threshold of the funeral parlor, a wave of emotion hit me, and I literally almost dropped in the doorway. I began crying uncontrollably and had to go into a corner so I could compose myself. Luckily, I knew the next tool, I put up a shield.
And thus begins part 2 on how to protect yourself. To be continued next week…