In my intuitive practice, I get a lot of questions from empaths about how their structure works, and how they can manage it in a clearer way. An empath is a person whose body is set up to process information by feeling, and this extends to the feelings or energy of others. This can be emotionally, psychically, physically in their own bodies, or a combination. They empathize with strong compassion for the plights of others, and find that feelings can be “contagious” for them. This is also known as clairsentience, and it is one of the most common ways for people to get in touch with their psychic nature.
Sometimes, this occurence can override their own feelings and sense of self. Oftentimes the empath is not aware that the onslaught of feeling is not being generated from their own beings, but picked up from others. They can sometimes get carried away or thrown off balance by the overwhelming nature of this phenomenon. It can sometimes make the empathic person ungrounded because the person tends to pull their energy inward to protect themselves. It can also manifest as a tendency to dread certain social situations. This is all due to the empath feeling naturally overwhelmed with sensations, yet they tend to feel that their experience is “just how life feels.”
Empaths are individuals who greatly benefit from the practice of setting boundaries and feeling their own individual vibration. This means distinguishing how they feel on their own and differentiating it from how others feel. This can take some practice, but with experience it becomes a crucial lesson in grounding and in self-awareness for the empathic person.
How do you do this?
Empaths greatly benefit from attuning to their own vibration by spending mindful time alone. It is easiest to determine how you feel and how your personal vibration interacts in the body when you are clear of outside influences. Most empaths require alone time to “recharge” anyway, and this is why. Conscious or not, a great amount of clearing of other peoples’ energy happens during alone time, resetting their systems and clearing their minds and bodies. I would urge you, as an empath, to take the time to consciously tune in to yourself while alone to become familiar with your "personal vibration," and practice it for awhile until it becomes a habit.
Learning your own personal vibration benefits you in so many ways. This practice creates a natural baseline for you, which builds personal autonomy and gives you the energy you need to stay aligned with your true self. This practice in mindfulness also helps you sense the more subtle world of spirit. Over time and with this new self-knowledge, you will gain the ability to differentiate between your own feelings and others', as well as the presence and influence of spirits should you wish to do so. Creating a natural baseline of self-awareness also sets up a boundary for you. You are more aware of outside influence, and can then consciously choose to reset your thoughts and feelings should you wish to do so by simply understanding it was not yours. This awareness helps you release the foreign feelings and regain your autonomy. Healer types can use this information to know how to help their clients while at the same time protecting themselves. You have the ability to send the outside feeling on its way without repressing any of your own corresponding emotional energy.
What can happen sometimes is that the sensitive soul that is the empath generates their own emotional reaction to the feelings of others. Outside influences may trigger them in some way. This kind of emotional entanglement can be confusing, but with self-knowledge of the personal vibration, it becomes easier to unwind. It is especially important that your own emotional triggers be looked at and processed, rather than stuffed, as you clear the other person’s energy. Sometimes our self-protective habit will cause us to repress a lot of our emotions in an attempt to “clear ourselves.” Empaths need to be aware and honest about what is emotionally their own!
The tendency to put one’s emotions on others is another habit of souls who live in a state of denial and/or overwhelm. While some empaths have some idea about their clairsentience, not looking at their own emotional triggers is a form of emotional repression and projection. What happens in the body is that the emotional body is responding to the emotions introduced to it. For example, when you as an empath feel the anxiety of another person, this can trigger a sympathetic response inside. Depending on whether or not you tend to be an anxious person as well, as many empaths are, you may feel aversion to the perceived discomfort of the anxiety and react in some way. You may feel confused by this odd sensation, or, you may react with a trigger about the last time you felt a strong sensation of anxiety.
Empaths would do well to use such a situation to check in and see what is happening as they process it. The empath may truly be feeling someone else’s state without realizing it, and not have a connection to it of their own. This is important to decipher. Is there a part of them that is anxious too? If not, and they are merely being triggered by a past state of anxiety, this is an opportunity to clear the trigger by going into it rather than avoiding it. Perceived discomfort can keep some people from doing this work, and oftentimes it helps to have a support system like a healer or practitioner with you the first few times. Once the pain is faced and the root is understood, the trigger and past sense memory can be released and healed by integrating it into your body and awareness. This greatly aids the empath in self-awareness and personal space. Taking on the emotions of others will tend not to trigger as much, allowing you to feel the foreign energy without the spiral of reaction. You can then clear yourself as you feel your way back to your personal vibration.
Knowing your personal vibration, or knowing how you feel, in many ways means that you cannot be affected by others. You may empathically know how others feel, but staying solid and grounded in your self-awareness allows you not to be swayed, confused, or triggered. It keeps you from wasting emotional energy and it allows you to feel into situations more keenly. It has a separating action from others in a way that keeps an empath from being automatically drained in social situations. This type of knowing sets up automatic boundaries, and sets the stage for deeper and deeper levels of self-awareness and autonomy in the empath’s life.
In the next few posts, I will cover more of these processes in depth. Thank you for reading my blog! Please comment below with your own experiences as an empath, and how you manage your energy. I would love to hear from you.