Feeling the Love…& the Anxiety & the Depression & the Rage…Or Why Being an Empath Ain’t All it’s Cracked Up to Be

Many of the healers who find EHI and its Energy Healing Training programs cross the threshold in a state of depletion, overwhelm and exhaustion.  Why is that?  Is it exhausting to be a healer and have a healing practice?  Do healers have to give themselves away to support and facilitate transformation in others only to wind up overwhelmed and overstimulated in their own lives?

You’d think so if you saw the skid marks from the heels dragging over the classroom threshold. CK was once there herself.  And she wasn’t even a healer at the time.

So what’s happening here?  And what can be done about it?

Many of us are feeler/sensers.  We pick up our information about our environment and others through a felt awareness.  It’s called lots of things:  Empath, Sensitive, Kinesthetic, Clairsentient.  It’s a hallmark of many healers.  It’s also a hallmark of many others who don’t have any interest in facilitating healing.

Empaths make good friends, spouses and confidantes.  They are connected to the joys and triumphs, trials and tribulations of others in such an intimate and intense way that people love to share their news with them – the good, the bad and the ugly.  Maybe you’re one of these people!  Do you recognize yourself as an Empath or Sensitive?

Over time these wonderful people often find their world getting smaller and smaller.  Their ability to be amongst large groups, attend movies, concerts, plays, rsvp affirmatively to party invitations, head to the mall during the holidays becomes an enormous challenge.  They have to galvanize to do any one of these things and then they need recovery time thereafter.

The truth is Empaths or Sensitives have a wiring issue that they can learn to resolve. While many of us have identified with intense sensitivity as a badge of honor, or the sign of a good healer, friend, spouse, it’s really a call to adjust the energy body and live from a more contained and self-aware space.

CK’s going out on a limb here.  I’m hoping I won’t get slammed by my analogy, but here we go.

See the picture of Mother Theresa?

Mother Theresa was an amazing woman who gave her life to serving the poor, the needy, the under-served populations, bringing ministry and charity to the lowest caste of society.  Yet when she died and her journals were published, they revealed anger, despair, a sense that God didn’t hear her prayers.

See the picture of the Dalai Lama?

The Dalai Lama is also amazing.  As the incarnation of compassion, his presence radiates.  He is in service to the world in equally incredible ways, and while he’s still alive and we can’t read his journals, his countenance reflects his spirit, his spiritedness and his spirituality.

When I talk about this with my students in my Energy Awareness training, I ask my students which of these two remarkable people they’d like to have lunch with.  Can you guess the answer?  To a person, every student has always chosen the Dalai Lama.  (And not because Mother Theresa is deceased.)  When I ask why, to a person each student reflects on the Dalai Lama’s presence, poise and grace.  They feel a lunch with him would be an inspiring and elevating experience.

So what’s all this got to do with being an Empath or Sensitive?  My experience of working with healers and clients who are long-term Empaths is that their lives don’t quite feel complete, vibrant, inspired or elevated.  Rather they feel pulled on, over-stimulated and downtrodden by serving the needs of others without being served in kind.  It’s the equivalent of Mother Theresa’s despair and anger that she felt unseen and unheard by her God.

Imagine the possibilities of living life through the compassionate energy that the Dalai Lama cultivates and delivers.  Would it be possible to feel that downtrodden energy from that dynamic?

So what’s an Empath to do?  Two things:

1. Close down the 2^nd chakra to 10%, yes 10%.  Imagine the chakra, two fingers below the navel, opening front to back, with petals that open and close.  Close the petals down to 10%.  Repeatedly.  By that I mean 50 times a day.  Or more.  That will stop the intake of other people’s emotional energy.  With practice, Empaths will disengage from serving as a vacuum cleaner for everyone else’s emotions.  Can you imagine the relief?
2. Open the Compassion Center.  The Compassion Center is the entire upper chest area, between the heart and throat chakras.  The Compassion Center enables us to be present for others without taking on their energy or owning their emotions.  It’s a beautiful resource for healers, because they can elevate the patient/client’s perspective to extend into the upper chakras and the higher frequency energies of the heart and the authentic self and away from the lower chakra energies that are often where we get bogged down and emotionally stuck.

With practice, Empaths (whether healers or not) can enjoy all of what our culture and society offer – movies, malls, parties, crowded lecture halls – without feeling drained, overwhelmed or fatigued.  And then you’ll feel the love, baby.  It’ll be your love of self, your life and your elevated awareness.

Have a great week and keep your energy flowing!