Balancing
the Self
“The English language tends to say, ‘I am lonely’ rather than ‘I feel lonely.’ The emotional state takes over our whole being. We are possessed by it, which makes the situation much more difficult to deal with than if we were companions to loneliness or in dialogue with it. Instead, we could say, ‘Today, I feel sadness.’ I am not sad; I feel sad. We can also realize that along with the sadness, there may also be quiet stillness and a purring cat on our lap or flowers outside the window, and perhaps we are enjoying a cup of tea.”
—T. Thorn Coyle, Kissing the Limitless
EMPATHIC ANECDOTE
Dangers of Muting the Ability
At times, the empathic experience can be so overwhelming that we want to turn it off altogether, forever, end of story. This is not an advisable goal; there is always a balance to be found, no matter what. Something that all emotionally sensitive people are prone to is the desire to mute the ability. For a short time, when things get overwhelming, a tempting response is to momentarily shut it all off. By doing away with mindfulness and by putting compassionate responses on the back burner, it can feel as though stress has been lifted momentarily. This may feel like an instinctual survival mechanism, but it is really more like an overcompensation for empathetic overload. Though this response might bring a sense of relief in the moment, the effects can be damaging in the long run. Processing our own stress gives us the option to not project it onto other people.
In a sense, we must strive to put other people and other issues before ourselves when counseling, when being a friend, when performing healing or magickal work, when listening to someone’s concerns, and so on. We must empathically step in the shoes of the other. Just the same, we must allow ourselves to be the first person we tend to emotionally. If we give, give, give and never allow ourselves the permission to receive (from others or from ourselves), we will forever find ourselves emotionally out of whack. When one’s own needs are met, the needs of others can follow. This is not a selfish view, but a point of wisdom. If we can ensure that our needs are met, we can more accurately meet the needs of others and be of real help. Practitioners of Reiki and other modalities are taught to heal the self, heal the family, and then heal the world. If we are in a state of constant empathic overload, we are more prone to mute our abilities for the sake of self-preservation.
When interacting with others, the empath must consider the other person’s general perspective. We can skillfully interact when we have an idea of their own mental and emotional processes. We must avoid the temptation to be impulsive or reactive by allowing our cognitive mind to form eloquent and heartfelt responses.
I recall one incident that touched on this life lesson. It was a chilly autumn night in Montana. A friend had visited me at my house for a few days, having taken a holiday from the other side of the country. We had a great time together during the trip, exchanging experience, knowledge, and joy. I greatly value this sacred friendship and am grateful for connections like this in my life.
While driving my friend back to a Washington airport, the freeway breeze was howling and some Europop was blaring on the speakers. At that time in my life I was a bit out of whack. A fairly unhealthy state of functioning had been created through extreme busyness, little sleep, not enough green vegetables, and probably too much alcohol throughout the week. The stress of life was on overdrive. (I am so thankful that my twenties are a thing of the past!)
Somehow my friend and I began discussing the topic of animal rights. Many readers who are familiar with my earlier books know that I’m an advocate for both human rights and animal rights. Personally, I am in support of ethical hunting and fishing practices, organic farming, and animal husbandry; I even help raise certain animals for food. On the flip side, there are a few things that I disagree with as strongly as the emotionless and profit-based industry of factory “farming.” In my opinion, few things embody the force of evil to the degree that the mass-meat industry does, and yet we find that otherwise ethical people consume inhumanely produced meat on a daily basis without giving a thought to the horrific suffering that is quite literally perpetuated through the common American diet. Mass torture has become normalized in the face of capitalism. As an empath, it’s unbearable for me to think about consuming an animal that experienced a life of torture and never saw sunlight or grass.
My friend’s view of factory farming is different from my own, though we share similar lifestyles otherwise. While I won’t recount the entire conversation, suffice it to say that I allowed myself to become almost irate at the prospect of someone disagreeing with my strong views on animal rights and animal welfare. At the time this was due to adamant vegetarianism, though I now choose to eat a “humane or local only” diet, where animals and humans have both been treated with respect, dignity, and compassion.
I was flying off the handle during this road trip, forcefully making my opinion known, citing all the rhetorical facts about industrial meat practices, recounting the statistics of ecological damage and animal abuse, and virtually demanding that my friend agree with this viewpoint. I described the tortures of industrially raised pigs, chickens, cows, and the like.
At the time, this argument left very little room for a difference in opinion, which was unfair of me. Similar occurrences happened in my life around this time, causing valuable friendships to suffer long-term damage. While some people are more apt to talk through any given issue or outburst, others may hold on to negative exchanges for much longer because they don’t want to risk the same thing happening again. People are cautious of one another for a reason, and it can be difficult to rebuild trust when a person’s emotional wellbeing has been compromised.
By not considering the effects of my words, I was disallowing present-moment awareness and empathic connection. This experience taught me that a forceful approach is not the best method of transmitting viewpoints. As a result, the lesson was learned: even if it’s difficult, counterintuitive, or downplaying of our personal values, we all must strive to peacefully comprehend conflicting opinions and convey our own in a tactful manner that the other person can respond well to.
While my opinions about the mass-meat industry have not changed to this day, my approach would be much different nowadays. If a conversation such as this happened at this point, my approach to conveying this information would be much more gentle and respectful. Instead of clicking the “mute” button on empathy, we can consciously choose to let love and respect be the first thing on our mind when interacting, regardless of how severe a disagreement may be. This allows the gates of communication to open, and for the other to learn from us, and for us to learn from them.
✴ ✴ ✴
Knowing Yourself
In order for an empath or emotionally sensitive person to accurately help others, they themselves must constantly find and re-find their balance. The world itself will feel askew if one is not grounded, self-aware, and in a place of peace. If a person is imbalanced, they are prone to viewing all of life’s experiences as dramatic, victimizing, or otherwise negative. They are prone to seeing empathy as a curse and may overcompensate for their fears through social isolation. This is counterproductive to spiritual wellness.
For people who identify as strong empaths, our abilities will be in place regardless of whether or not we’re feeling 100 percent. Aside from those instances where we experience burnout and instinctively mute our abilities for a temporary period, our senses are operating at full strength whether we like it or not. While it’s possible to exercise empathy when we’re not at our best, it isn’t advisable because our social filter will be askew. It is still possible to fully empathize with a person or situation if we’re feeling imbalanced, but the response with which we follow this empathy may not be truly helpful. If we are experiencing pent-up agitation as a result of sleep deprivation, for example, our ability to accurately assess and evaluate any given situation may be off. We may find ourselves fully agreeing with a friend’s or coworker’s pessimistic attitude simply because we can feel their strong emotions when they may instead actually benefit from encouragement toward forgiveness. (Even if we’re not at our best, we still need to make a conscious effort to craft some amount of emotional positivity.) Personal imbalance can impede our ability to step back from a situation and lend compassionate assistance. From an imbalanced state of being, how can we lend our healing to people or situations if we ourselves don’t have a strong footing? This chapter is designed to give readers ideas for finding their balance.
Bring It to the Mind
The mind helps us understand and process emotion. Empaths can easily become overwhelmed with emotional energy, both from ourselves and others. One of our biggest challenges is differentiating between our own emotions and those of other people. Sometimes this mental “stepping back” is enough to jolt us into an awareness of precisely where our own energy ends and another’s begins.
We must be increasingly aware of our own emotional state at all times in order to actually understand our abilities and interpret the emotions of others. Day to day, when we experience a strong emotion or are encountering someone else’s, we must immediately bring our awareness to our own emotional state in order to keep tabs on ourselves. By establishing emotional mindfulness firsthand, we can avoid the experience of overly absorbing other people’s energies. This also makes the empath more able to accurately listen to others, advise them, and give them the camaraderie they need. You don’t have to emotionally mirror a friend’s depression in order to help them through it; you can choose to take a step back and become that supportive, encouraging figure they need.
By constantly bringing cognitive awareness to the emotion or emotions we are experiencing moment by moment, we can more easily differentiate between our own emotions and those of other people. By identifying our inner state, rather than letting emotional experiences whirl us into confusion, we can choose to instantly look for the cause of any given emotion and then choose the best way to respond. This split-second daily analysis gives the empath an opportunity to take a step back from their emotional experience, allowing for a much more balanced series of responses to occur. This simple and honest practice not only helps prevent a whole slew of “empath problems” that we might experience on a regular basis but also helps us instantly discern our own emotion from one we may have absorbed.
Instantaneous, conscious mental cognition of our own emotional state can help “squeeze the sponge” of our energetic and emotional bodies. By putting a mental barrier between emotion and self, the emotion becomes less controlling and more controlled. This act of consciously using the mind to analyze emotions might sound difficult to do in daily situations, but once it becomes routine it becomes second nature. Practiced enough, it will become the normal course of interaction with others and can help instantly empower the empath by recognizing “mine” from “other.” This sort of mindfulness can help empaths perceive themselves and others with detailed accuracy, naturally opening the door to exploring their strengths as perceptive emotional healers.
Don’t overthink it. Keep in mind that too much emotional self-awareness can transform a feeling mind into a paranoid, obsessive mind. Overthinking emotions can serve to drive a person mad, which doesn’t aid much in creating empathic healing. If you find yourself constantly rereading and overanalyzing even the smallest occurrences or emotional shifts, you may be experiencing empathic overload. Practice breathing and grounding techniques to help avoid this occurrence. Find your balance!
By applying mindfulness to our everyday moments, we become aware of the emotions and feelings we’re experiencing in the present moment as they occur. This mindful self-awareness can be seen as the key to transformational success.
Stepping Back
Empathy is not a crippling weakness; it’s an immeasurable strength! All we have to do is learn how to work with our energies and with our minds, and everyone has a unique way of accomplishing this. A good technique for empaths to utilize is an emotional “stepping back,” especially if we’re feeling overwhelmed. Take a step back from overwhelming emotions when they arise, observing them as “other” to yourself: “I am not my emotions, I am not my body, I am not my thoughts: these are aspects of my constitution. I can feel these emotions without becoming attached to them.”
I highly recommend the book Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart by Tara Bennett-Goleman. This work of wisdom, which blends Buddhist psychology with the psychotherapeutic approach, can help people who are coming to understand their emotional capacities. In the book, after the foreword written by the Dalai Lama, Bennett-Goleman begins exploring the Buddhist notion of sunyata (emptiness), which implies that nothing in reality is static or permanent. The concept of emptiness suggests that all of life is in a constant state of change, whether the physical body, the mental body, the emotional body or anything else in existence. This is similar to the Greek philosophical saying panta rhei; ouden menei (everything flows; nothing is stagnant), as well as spiritual understandings in several cultures across the globe. Proponents of the emptiness concept, like myself, assert that because everything is in a state of change, we can become hindered by identifying any emotion as “us”—in other words, “I am happy” or “I am depressed” is inaccurate and could better be stated as “I feel happy” or “I am experiencing depression.” If we take a step back from what we experience emotionally, it can help us cope with difficult feelings and with the unpredictable changes life puts in our path. This does not mean that we should detach and disengage; instead, we can more fully and accurately engage with the emotional realm if we are utilizing self-awareness and discretion.
Cognitively analyzing our own emotional state can allow us to make a conscious effort to choose a wise response instead of being immediately reactive, whether that reaction is an empathic response or a contrary response. We can also more easily interact with ourselves and our own thoughts if we choose to view our emotions as something we experience rather than something that is beyond our ability to control. By knowing our own emotions, we can experience and analyze the feelings of others and can more easily define, and even defend, our personal emotions. By stepping back and seeing our emotions as something distinct from us—as one aspect of our holistic constitution—we reclaim our power over them and create a platform for creativity, joy, and expanded consciousness to occur.
People who are especially empathetic should be very mindful of everything allowed into their personal sphere. Everything we consume, experience, and interact with affects us on some level, whether emotionally or energetically.
Consider Your Conditioning
We are very much products of our past. Society, family, friends, and social norms condition us on a deeply unconscious level. This is the way of society; it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be in certain situations. We should consider ourselves lucky if we’ve been raised in a family or society that emphasizes compassion and humility. If we’ve grown up in a family or society that practices hate and violence as everyday norms, we can choose to recognize that and actively “unlearn” that conditioning. We can unravel and remake our minds through meditation, counseling, therapy, and the limitless path of self-improvement. We get to choose what kind of person we become and which aspects of our conditioning we embrace and perpetuate and which we choose to leave behind.
Because empaths can easily absorb familial behavior and social opinions, we must work to separate our own views and issues from those of others. When it comes to family, we must work to break any chains of negative conditioning that may be present. Children instinctively absorb parental patterns and modes of behavior, but when you’re older, you have the ability to separate your energy from theirs. Don’t hold on to your family’s issues, anxieties, or prejudices; they are not your own. The religion, politics, customs, and practices that you grew up with are not necessarily your own either: you must discover for yourself where you belong and what to carry with you and what to leave behind.
It’s endlessly beneficial to practice regular meditation, journaling, and even therapy to recognize and identify the origin of certain fears and negative behaviors. It’s okay if you can’t clearly locate the origin of your fears or anxieties; some imprints may have begun early in life, even in the womb. Some imprints are undoubtedly carryovers of past-life experiences, many of which have a tendency to mirror or repeat in this lifetime. Even if we don’t have the capability of diving into the intricate details of our past lives—or even the details of this lifetime’s past—we can choose to see ourselves for who we are and how we are, and realize that our conditioning doesn’t have to shape our every experience. We can change our negative tendencies even without knowing their origins. It’s empowering to remember that we choose our own responses in life despite the traumas and imprints of the past.
Affirmative, Captain
Regardless of your spiritual viewpoints, it’s a good idea to create your own positive affirmations. These are phrases of empowerment that are repeated throughout the day and that have the power to come into manifestation. Training the brain trains the spirit. While some aspects of reality are out of our hands, the manner in which we respond to life has an immense impact on our health, happiness, and ability to manifest positive changes in our experience. Affirmations work on a psychospiritual level.
Louise Hay, the founder of Hay House Books, is often recognized as a pioneer in raising awareness of the power of affirmations and focused positive thinking. For more information on affirmations, check out her book You Can Heal Your Life or the excellent DVD of the same title. Even something as simple as mentally or vocally repeating “life is good” can go a long way in changing one’s mood throughout the day. Short, effective affirmations include “I can do this,” “These emotions are not all mine,” “I am safe here and now,” and so on. Some people prefer longer affirmations, such as “My boundaries are defined, my needs are met, and my outlook is optimistic,” or even longer verses, such as “Today is an opportunity to deeply connect with my environment and those around me. My balance is maintained in all aspects of life; my guides and ancestors are with me now and forever.”
As if the body were a physical reflection of the mind, a fearful thought can cause heart palpitations and sweating, envisioning something pleasant can inspire peaceful equanimity, thinking about or viewing something arousing can swell the genitals, and so on. The body follows the mind, and our experience of life is greatly a product of our outlook. It’s important to understand the importance of both positive thinking and good physical health, as the two go hand in hand. Positive visualization and healthy food, sleep, exercise, and social interactions are means to maintain a healthy mind and body.
Along similar lines, my first Priestess, Zanoni Silverknife (the living head of the Georgian tradition of Wicca), once taught me, “If you’re feeding your mind gloomy and horrific things through books and movies, that’s what you’re feeding your spirit. The same goes for food: a healthy body is a healthy spirit. If you don’t take care of the body and mind, the spirit suffers because all things work together! You have to look after everything about you; it’s a balance. Like the First Degree symbol in the Craft, the inverted triangle draws the mind and spirit (the upward points) into the body!”
Express Yourself
Art of any type can be a potent expression of empathy. Emotionally driven art takes numerous forms, spanning every imaginable medium. Art is expressed everywhere, from sculpting to music, from cooking to performing, from designing to crafting, from writing to architecture. The list is endless. Art has no boundaries. Emotional individuals tend to be natural artists because we have a large amount of energy that must be conducted through us in some manner. Art is often fueled by emotion, which is why works of art can contain such powerful personal, social, political, spiritual, and emotional energy. While there is a whole history and practice of fine art, personal art does not have to meet the standards of art critics or historians. When it comes to using art as a psychological tool or as a spiritual medium, competition is not involved; the pieces don’t have to be “fine art,” but they should be free-flowing and uninhibited. The artist does not need to have an in-depth knowledge of art history, criticism, or modern art culture.
Expressing oneself in one form or another is essential to people who have high emotional capacities and experiences. Creative people have a great deal of energy surging through them at any given time. Regardless of who views or listens to the art, the point is that it should be created even if it’s unconventional and even if it’s not meant for an audience.
Taking time to create art can be incredibly beneficial. When art is created, the artist reaches into their conscious and unconscious mind, conducting those feelings into a manifest form. Art of any type not only helps the artist therapeutically release pent-up emotions and creative energy but also influences those who “consume” the art, whether they see it, listen to it, feel it, taste it, read it, or otherwise experience it. Art is a deeply transformational magickal tool.
Empaths naturally absorb energies around them, so the process of creating art can be a helpful way to flip the switch from internalizing to externalizing. This, in turn, can lead to deep personal healing (provided that we are careful not to absorb the art of others and present it falsely as our own). Many artists use their expression as a therapeutic tool to channel mental and emotional energies into tangible forms, whether visual, audial, or tactile. Your unique perspective is validated emotionally when expressed with creativity.
In the psychotherapeutic approach to art therapy, the therapist helps their creative client analyze their own pieces of art, searching for deeper meanings. Art therapy is a brilliant method of expression and unconscious communication—even spiritual channeling—that has proven to be effective for individuals of all ages. It is especially effective for people suffering from emotional, physical, or psychological challenges or conditions. People who have experienced traumas and occurrences of high stress can also discover increased peace, healing, and personal insight through art therapy, both in professional and independent settings. Social empathy also gives us feelings of acceptance and group belonging, so it’s worth considering sharing your beautiful art with the world.
IN PRACTICE
Mudras for Increasing Energy
Emotionally sensitive individuals can get drained very quickly. When we find ourselves in stressful or fast-paced situations, we are at risk of our prana (energetic life force) becoming compromised or drained. This is especially true if we are feeling imbalanced due to repetitive negative thinking or if we aren’t being mindful of our diet or sleep cycle.
Mudras can be described as gestures or ritualistic “seals” created by placing the hands and fingers (and in some cases the tongue, eyes, and entire body) in certain positions in order to invoke specific energies into the practitioner. Mudras have their root in ancient Vedic practice, including Ayurvedic medicine, classical Indian dance (such as bharata natyam), and primeval Hindu rituals. Mudras can clearly be seen in iconography from India and beyond, having become incorporated into many schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, and a variety of Tantric spiritual paths. Symbolic hand gestures can even be seen in early Christian and Abrahamic iconography.
Many Westerners are familiar with the use of mudras in yoga and meditation. By implementing certain positions of the hands and body, practitioners align themselves to certain frequencies. Much like reenacting an ancient magickal ceremony, the performance of a mudra connects the practitioner to a timeless current of mystical energy, instantly linking the practitioner to every other person who has performed the mudra throughout human history.
If my descriptions here are confusing, feel free to do a Google image search for the mudras by name. It is important to perform mudras with the utmost precision and focus.
To begin your energetic recharge, sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and place your hands in the anjali mudra, also called prayer position or namaste hands (see the illustration of the anjali mudra later in this chapter). Take a series of deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Concentrate on your breath, and when you’re ready, ask your guides and guardians to supply you with the energy you need to get through the day.
Continue to take deep breaths and keep your eyes mostly closed throughout the exercise. To form the prana mudra (“gesture of life force”), begin by making peace signs with both hands. Instead of clasping the ring finger and pinky with the thumb, allow the thumb to sit gently at the bottom of these fingers. Finally, bring the pointer finger and middle finger together, next to each other, rather than keeping the two fingers stretched separately. This mudra is said to help energize the body and raise a person’s energy from the lower part of the body to the upper, thereby increasing concentration and levels of energy. Hold this position and visualize a flow of energy rising up your body, invigorating your mental awareness.
Next, do the rudra mudra (“Lord Shiva’s gesture”) with both hands by gently touching the tip of the thumb to the tip of the pointer finger and the tip of the ring finger. These fingers now come together in a triangular shape. Keep your middle finger and pinky outstretched. This mudra is believed to activate energy and fight fatigue. Take deep breaths while you envision your personal energy expanding and contracting with each breath. As you exhale, your aura of energy increases in size. As you inhale, your aura contracts.
When you’re ready, perform the prithvi mudra (“earth element gesture”) with both hands by simply touching the thumb to the ring finger, keeping the other three fingers outstretched and keeping the pointer finger and middle finger together. This is the perfect mudra for grounding because in Ayurvedic healing it is believed to help increase the earth element in the body (prithvi) and calm one’s inner fire energy (agni). This gesture increases grounding and decreases anxiety. Take deep breaths and visualize the energy of your legs and bottommost chakras grounding into the earth, linking with the energy of the Great Mother below.
Conclude by once again performing the anjali mudra and taking deep breaths. Imagine your uppermost energy radiating outward like a halo of light, keeping you focused and sustained. Slowly open your eyes and see yourself glowing with invigorating light.
Finish by saying out loud, “That which is below is as that which is above. Atman is within and Brahman is without. I am grounded and I am energized. Namaste!”
Smile and send prayers of gratitude to the helpful spirits and entities around you.
Meeting Your Own Needs
It’s so easy for empaths to neglect our own needs because we are constantly worried about other people’s needs. A balanced empath will strive to strike a balance between their own needs and those of others. Healers themselves must be healed before they can help others—yes, indeed, this is a point I will continue to reiterate! This doesn’t mean that we should have all of our problems under control—we wouldn’t be here in this earthly experience if we didn’t have challenges to navigate—but that we must exercise extreme self-awareness while we simultaneously encourage others toward the same. We must keep ourselves in check.
Because we live and function through our emotional bodies, we have the responsibility to keep in check not only our emotions but also our physical frames. For those of us who live in our emotions or our minds—those of us who are naturally inclined toward empathetic and psychic experiences—we must come back to ground through bodily awareness and respect. In this section, we will discuss self-care techniques that can aid us in becoming better healers, mystics, and empaths.
As you well know, anxiety is the brother of empathy. This connection is unavoidable. Empaths experience the vulnerability of social anxiety and depression more than the average person does because our receptors are wide open whether we like it or not! We are observers, we are deep thinkers, and we have an uncanny intuition that guides us through life’s ups and downs. Alongside this comes a natural inclination toward anxiety and depression. But we can’t give in to the allure of ennui, isolation, and perpetual solitude, as tempting as it may be. It was the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca who once said, “For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.” 16
A 2011 study published by the National Institutes of Health discovered that individuals with social phobia (social anxiety disorder) demonstrated higher than average levels of empathy.17 Using a computerized study to determine each participant’s cognitive (mental) versus affective (empathetic) capacities, the experiment found that those participants who functioned with high levels of social anxiety demonstrated a much higher frequency of social cognizance and empathetic capacity toward others’ emotional states than did those participants who experienced little to no social anxiety in their daily lives. So there you have it—we can’t beat ourselves up over our anxieties and depressions; these are natural byproducts of, or contributors to, the empathic experience. We can, however, navigate these experiences so they don’t become permanent characteristics. To begin, we need to accurately and honestly meet our own needs.
Love Yourself, Baby
Life can throw us a lot of curveballs. As we journey on a path of self-improvement, we find ourselves atoning for our mistakes, misunderstandings, and negative behaviors. Genuine humility helps the spiritual seeker gather insight into their unique spirit and individual experience. This humility requires self-forgiveness. By recognizing our mistakes and shortcomings, we can approach self-improvement from a place of peace instead of regret. The past is gone; let it go. The way we view ourselves in the present moment is of the utmost importance. By seeing ourselves as spiritual beings who have encountered challenges and life lessons, our personal evolution can be ensured while we glide swiftly into future terrain.
It is important to learn to recognize when you need healing and attention. Every healer needs healing from time to time so that they can maintain balance and a good energetic exchange with others. Become aware of when you could benefit from a healing session of some type or a divinatory reading or when you just need a bit of space from others. Tend to your own needs by first realizing that you deserve to be healthy, happy, and wise. Empaths must seek to cultivate positive, self-accepting views as much as we possibly can. It’s possible to love oneself while simultaneously knowing that there’s room for improvement. Don’t let criticism or regret stifle your growth. Don’t let social standards dictate your life. Don’t give up. Love yourself for the amazing, sensitive soul you are. Accept the lessons you have experienced. Know that right now is the ideal time to cultivate empathy toward yourself.
You don’t just have to compliment and praise everyone else; it’s okay to take compliments and be proud of your own accomplishments. You can talk about yourself and your life with others without it feeling like a competition. Confidence is not necessarily arrogance! As long as you’re not hurting anyone, why rely on the approval of others for the sake of your own functioning? You know you’re a good and beautiful person, right? You are! Love yourself and realize that your life is constantly changing; the direction it takes is up to you. Let’s give this whole “life” thing the best we’ve got. Let’s show it a thing or two by claiming our power and spreading loving-kindness. Let’s allow that love to radiate from the deepest caverns of our heart-caves and rush out to affect our every choice, decision, and interaction.
While it’s noble to think that we can be all love and light all the time, shit happens. There will always be another stressor or challenge; it’s just a matter of how we consciously choose to respond to it. By sitting with a true, heartfelt love for who we are, we can more easily interact with life’s challenges and encourage others to do the same. We can genuinely respect others if we respect ourselves. It’s detrimental to maintain a low self-image. We must consciously shake ourselves out of that state of mind when we find ourselves entering it. Focusing on negativity and stress can create and perpetuate physical disease and weaken the immune system. If a person is regularly stressed, the cells in the autonomic nervous system go into hyperactive mode, which in turn easily affects muscle tension and blood flow, thus increasing anxiety and nervousness and opening the door to physical imbalances, including migraines, breathing problems, and bowel issues.
If you find yourself feeling drained and stressed on a regular basis, find the cause and make constructive changes. If you are regularly unhappy and feel as though there is a roadblock in your life’s path, allow yourself the time to discover the cause and make positive changes for the greater good of all involved. By improving your wellbeing, you improve the wellbeing of those around you. We must love ourselves, heal ourselves, and listen to our own bodies and minds. Loving ourselves despite society’s harsh judgments is a mark of rebellious wisdom!
Daily Releasing and Elemental Cleansing
Because we are natural conductors of emotional energy, we must form some type of routine or daily practice to “dump” or otherwise release excess vibes that may accumulate. If you are a public figure or are involved with the social sphere on a daily basis—even just online—you should direct excess energy out of your body on a daily basis, sometimes even multiple times throughout the day. If your own emotions tend to get the best of you, you must also actively conduct and channel that energy regularly. Daily energetic work is both spiritual and psychological, allowing our empathic skills to become a source of empowerment.
If at any time someone else’s emotion becomes overwhelming to your own emotional body, try going somewhere in private (outdoors is best) and touching the earth to ground your energy and your mind. Situate yourself in a crouching position and touch the ground quickly while making a noise vocally, as loud as you feasibly can in your environment. A simple “huuuuhhh!” can serve to energetically and psychologically ground an emotion out of your sphere and into the nurturing earth below. This process activates the element of earth.
Showering is another way to wash oneself of energetic buildup. By accessing the energy of water, which, in occult spirituality, is the elemental ruler of empathy, intuition, and compassion, we can literally send energetic buildup down the drain. Morning showering gives the empath an opportunity to fully connect to the present moment and become centered for the day’s endeavors. As part of my personal devotions at the temple I co-operate, I follow my morning shower with a routine of Hindu aarti or condensed puja to Ganesha, Shiva, and Parvati, and have also adopted a practice of morning yoga consisting of Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations) and various other asanas (postures). Oh, and I drink a big ol’ mug of coffee afterward—fair trade organic, of course!
Smudging oneself with sage, cedar, palo santo, or any resin incense (all of which are tree-based) is also a good idea when practicing energetic release, because the combustion of these earth-based, organic materials instantly activates energies of calming, grounding, and centering. This process activates the elements of air and fire by means of smoke caused by combustion.
In all cases, using the elements to cleanse oneself of emotional buildup will not offend the elemental spirits; it’s merely a process of offering energy to the elements so that it may be released gently into the rhythm of nature. Energetic cleansing and releasing is more akin to recycling than trashing. While you perform a daily energetic release or cleansing, feel free to make the process as intricate or ritualistic as you’d prefer. Some empaths like to meditate first, others like to invoke guides, gods, and guardians, and still others like to make it a brief practice after work or just before bed.
I’ve known so many metaphysical folks who agree that some sort of daily routine would be emotionally beneficial, whether it’s five or ten minutes in the morning or evening, but then there’s no follow-through. Don’t just think about creating a daily practice. Don’t just give it some consideration and then forget about it. My advice: just do it! There’s no sense in letting such a great opportunity be squirreled away to the back of the mind; put a daily practice into motion and you’ll find yourself much more balanced and able to face the day. Whatever kind of practice is performed, you know your energy best and can find a method that works best for your own constitution.
Gimme a Break
For more years than I can count, I’ve been resistant to the constant urge from peers and elders to “just take a damn break sometimes.” I struggle with it even now! Like it or not, empaths need some personal space from time to time. Energetic exhaustion can be mistaken for a number of other ailments or health issues. While depression, anxiety, fatigue, and self-isolation are indeed often due to environmental, dietary, hereditary, and neurochemical health issues, it’s good to also consider simple energetic depletion or emotional overload as a potential cause of, or at least a factor in, an imbalanced state of being.
Most researchers cite a sensitive or amplified nervous system as a potential contributor to common empathic anxiety. It’s necessary to forgive yourself for being anxious or depressed or what have you; just accept the fact and work through it. Possibly the best way to work with these factors is to perform techniques of instant calm. When you’re overwhelmed, take a quick walk. Take a shower. Practice meditation and deep breathing for a few minutes. If you’re in public and can’t readily escape, walk calmly to the bathroom and calm down for a bit. Maybe take some Rescue Remedy (a Bach flower remedy tincture) or another subtle medicine.
If you’re overwhelmed with busyness and teetering on a nervous breakdown, do whatever it takes to schedule a day off. We must decompress on a regular basis because we are so emotionally sensitive. It’s okay to put a giant X on a day in your calendar and stick to it. Take the time to recharge and make yourself happy. Do things that are relaxing to you personally; embrace what you enjoy. During those times, do absolutely nothing except catch up with yourself: no obligations, no stress, no exceptions. We need ample time to assimilate and process emotional energy. Taking time to just chill or just be provides a great opportunity to process emotional energy and find grounding in the body. Having no scheduled events for a period of time can help the mind grow in creativity and contentment and can help an empath find their balance.
It can also be good to schedule time to not communicate with anyone for a whole day, aside from maybe one or two people if absolutely necessary. This strict daylong fast from communication should ideally include Internet, phone, and text communication but shouldn’t include animals (pets should be interacted with daily). Dedication, discipline, and diligence are keys to self-healing and grounding. And if you find yourself addicted to the Internet and other technological mediums, I strongly recommend “unplugging” for an extended period of time.
Be mindful of your personal energy by taking mini-breaks throughout the daily grind. This can be as simple as stepping outside for a minute or going into a bathroom or bedroom with the intention of quickly grounding, centering, calming down, and breathing.
Sleep Is the Brother of Health
Much of the world exists in a state of mental disconnect due to increasing work schedules and dwindling sleep schedules. Regardless of one’s culture, the demands of life can be dreadfully hard to keep up with. But there is always wiggle room. There are always small changes that can be made to get those recommended seven to nine hours of nightly sleep. Life is too short to spend in an exhausted, zombified state.
Aim to have restful, rejuvenating sleep, and find what you need to achieve this. Sleep helps us process and assimilate physical, mental, and emotional energy. We must strive to get restful, deep sleep even if we are prone to mental wandering. Psychic, empathic, magickal, and other spirited individuals are prone to overthinking, which can lead to insomnia. In addition to establishing a routine (such as going to bed and waking up at the same time every night as much as possible), you may wish to experiment with various sleeping supplements if necessary—the more natural, the better. Everyone responds differently to different sleep aids. You may try dimming the environment, playing relaxing music, having some white noise in the background (like a fan, air purifier, or humidifier), and so on. You may even need a new mattress, bed sheets, or blankets to ensure optimum comfort and relaxation. And don’t forget that a rejuvenating hour-long nap can do wonders! Find what works for you to find a balance between your sleeping life and your waking life.
Hydrotherapy
Like our emotions, water is mutable and flowing. Our bodies are on average about 60 percent water. When thinking about water and its variations, I often envision the Cups suit of the Tarot. Many Tarot decks depict different aspects of this element, which can appear as rushing, healthy rivers and waterfalls or as stagnant and poisoned lakes. The manner in which we conduct our own water—our emotional body—is up to us and us alone.
Of the four classical elements, which have been recognized across the globe since ancient times, water is the element most commonly associated with empathy, compassion, love, and the emotional realm. Emotionally sensitive individuals can benefit greatly from tapping into the energy of water on a regular basis.
Showers can be viewed as the ultimate cleansers. To think that heated water can pour from a spout inside our own home is a profound human advancement. Let us not take the shower for granted; it gives us a great opportunity for physical and spiritual cleansing. To add extra oomph to the experience of releasing energetically, try bringing some sea salt into the shower and rubbing it all over the body; this allows the mineral to grab excess energy while simultaneously exfoliating the skin. As an aside, I recommend against using any sort of chemical soap, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, or what have you. By purchasing or crafting all-natural body care products, we not only promote our own physical and energetic health but also support smaller companies who in turn support sustainable industries.
Baths are a relaxing and soulful way to unwind and cleanse and can be as simple or complex as you’d like. You may prefer quick ten-minute cleansings or three-hour-long excursions complete with music, books, candles, incense, and other props, or you may choose to make bathtime into a complete esoteric ritual.
The elements of fire and water can intersect in a number of healing practices. Saunas can be a great way to unwind, relax, and cleanse, especially at a gym or a public swimming pool. Hot yoga is another method, wherein the yoga room is cranked to a high temperature as practitioners go about their postures. Another intersection of these elements can be seen in the ancient and deeply sacred Native American sweat lodges. Personally, few experiences have purged my mind and cleansed my soul like sweat lodges. As a non-Native, I cannot claim inner wisdom nor regular access to traditional rites. You may wish to research local Native or Native-trained groups and see if they’re open to newcomers. When attending a sweat, be sure to follow the rules and customs of the ceremony, bring whatever offerings are appropriate (financial or otherwise), wear loose-fitting clothes, and ask any questions beforehand. Use good communication and make your desires known to the sweat leader should any discomfort arise. It is also customary and respectful to bring an offering of tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and/or bear root (osha root) to the one leading the sweat.
Whatever your method, have fun while you tap into the deeply cleansing element of water. It’s an element that commands respect and reverence and is here to help us as needed.
Musical Bliss
Music, being a nonvisual form of art, can be especially healing for highly psychic, empathic, and sensitive souls. Music can help activate our empathy in constructive and healing ways. I am blessed to have many musically inclined friends—musicians, songwriters, DJs, and so forth—and I can’t imagine what life would be like without music. Whether freeform rhythm or intricate composition, and whether organic or electronic, music can be a deeply moving spiritual force. Music has served as an expression of human emotion for as long as our species has existed. Music bonds societies and cultures, encourages healing and creativity, and can serve as a catalyst for mystical experiences.
Empaths can easily merge their own emotions with the emotive art they are experiencing. Playing spiritually conducive music on a regular basis is particularly important because even prerecorded music has a notable effect on our energy. Before putting on some tunes, examine your mental state: would it be more energetically and spiritually beneficial to put on something more upbeat or something more soothing? Odds are that whatever music you choose will influence your energy pattern both in the moment and possibly throughout the whole day. To more acutely hone the magick of music, try expanding your horizons into a wide variety of genres, styles, and levels of music (i.e., popular and underground, natural and synthesized, local and global), and find what you prefer.
When feeling depressed, you could have on hand a playlist of music that shifts from tunes that are deeply depressive and somber, to tracks that are a bit more uplifting, and finally to compositions that are highly upbeat, inspirational, and uplifting; this is a sequence of mood alteration that can be used as a type of musical therapy. Other people respond better by playing only happy music when they are sad rather than going through this musical progression from sad to neutral to happy. Do whatever works best for you, but don’t dwell on the somber stuff, as beautiful as it may be.
Some people prefer to put on New Age or intentionally healing music for relaxation and energetic balance; what really matters is the personal effectiveness of the art you choose to engage with—take it at your own pace and hone your preferences. Music with intelligent, reassuring vocals can be therapeutic. Listening to nonvocal instrumental music can also ease an emotionally sensitive person; in this case, the mind can wander without being bound by spoken words, aiding in personal creativity and concentration. Listen to whatever moves you and explore new musical expressions that sing to your soul. For me, no one compares to Tori Amos; she has always been my empathic muse.
For the purpose of empathically relaxing and recharging, I personally recommend piano music, harp music, symphonic music, Native American or Japanese flute, Indian ragas, downtempo electronica, psychill, alpha waves, and the sounds of nature. Some people prefer listening to music sung in a foreign language or chanted so that the mind can follow the sound of a person’s voice without getting lost in the meanings of the words themselves. If you are fond of electronic dance culture, try finding an event, party, or festival where one of your favorite styles is being played. If you are a fan of live band music, discover what’s being offered in your area and which acts are coming to town. Then go dance, have fun, and get lost in the music.
Tips for Combating Anxiety and Depression
Some things that others seem to totally disregard may deeply affect empaths. We empaths are prone to suffer from anxiety and depression because we are intensely emotional individuals by nature.
As an empath, it’s only natural to feel set apart from the crowd, to have an overwhelming feeling of alienation as others seemingly go about their business unaffected by the abundance of energy all around them. At times it will feel like we’re not meant for this world because of our uniquely emotional disposition. But empathic souls help change the world bit by bit, piece by piece. We have a crazy number of challenges, but we also have great talents that need to shine. Anxiety and depression are deeply interconnected yet are deeply illusory much of the time.
Undoubtedly we all experience anxiety and depression from time to time. However, it is unhealthy to experience these states of being for long, extended periods. We are sensitive souls whose gifts are vital to the world’s emotional development, and we cannot allow ourselves to settle for living in a perpetual state of mental and emotional imbalance. We do not deserve to experience extended periods of suffering. Even if personal balance seems unreachable, there is always hope. Even during those times when we feel utterly exhausted with life’s challenges and with our emotional dispositions, there’s always something that we can do to create positive change. It is my hope that the following lists can provide ideas for empaths who regularly or occasionally suffer from these ailments.
Tips for Combating Anxiety
• First, analyze the situation. Is it actual anxiety or is it really a feeling of anticipation or excitement? If you’re free from actual harm, it’s most likely excitement—so attempt to change your view of the feeling you’re experiencing.
• If you smoke cigarettes, quit. Now. Seriously. I used Allen Carr’s Easyway method (see the bibliography) and everything in my life has improved since: anxiety, depression, insomnia, circulation, mood, focus, breathing, finances, social life, and so on.
• Exercise or practice yoga (if you’re having racing thoughts) or practice meditation (if you’re experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety, such as trembling, voice shifts, heart palpitations, sweating, or nausea).
• Practice deep diaphragm (belly) breathing rather than shallow lung breathing.
• Shift your focus to something else.
• Spend a bit of time alone to calm down and take deep breaths—perhaps meditate or lie horizontally for a few minutes.
• Take a homeopathic or low-impact medicine or tincture to combat anxious thoughts (such as Rescue Remedy) or try some herbal teas for this purpose.
• Try diffusing social anxiety in particular with gentle humor and lightheartedness whenever possible.
• Shift some focus onto the other people in conversations by asking questions and listening to opinions to avoid getting too wrapped up in nervous thoughts. Exercise genuineness. Successful interactions are a balanced conversational exchange between individuals—a two-way street!
• Identify and write down on a piece of paper all of your worries that you can think of, then safely burn the paper. Feel free to perform this activity often as part of a spell, meditation, or personal ceremony.
• Perform a grounding meditation or an “energetic grounding with tree roots” visualization if possible.
• Replace stimulants (coffee, tobacco, chemical energy drinks, etc.) with relaxants (chamomile, passionflower, etc.).
• Try using “I feel” statements to help keep yourself honest and emotionally aware if your boundaries feel weak.
• Utilize your five senses by bringing your awareness out of your mind and into your physical body, observing how we humans physically sense reality. This can ground you into the earth plane.
• Put your hands, a blanket, a pillow, or something else in front of your chest and belly to protect your solar plexus from absorbing external energies.
• Cultivate self-love and amusement in the moment, which will help to combat a fear of social disapproval.
• If a conversation is too overwhelming, change the topic to something funny or lighthearted if it’s appropriate, and remember that it’s okay to admit to others that you are working through social anxiety.
• Watch and listen to some ASMR, meditation, or relaxation videos on YouTube.
• Look up helpful articles online by searching for your specific anxiety symptoms. Helpful professional tips are abundant on the Net!
• Three words: lavender essential oil.
• If you suffer from high anxiety, I recommend reading the excellent book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings by astrologer Rob Brezsny.
• Practice changing your body language when you’re in public: walk taller and with pride. When you’re alone, try waving your arms and making yourself big so your mannerisms communicate confidence to your mind; this also helps expand your sphere of energy.
• If alone, try masturbating (physical self-love) to refocus mental energy to your body—but be careful not to start masturbating compulsively or as a physical dependency and ideally without the use of pornography. At the point of orgasm, focus healing energies upward through your body instead of toward the mental stimulus.
• Do some safe and fun exercise, such as a cardiovascular workout, as exercise is a natural antidepressant.
• Make time for acupuncture, tai chi, qi gung, a trip to the hot springs, a bath, a massage, a manicure, or whatever it takes to healthfully and happily decompress.
• Allow your rational brain to remind you that you are probably in no physical danger and are safe from harm.
• If the anxiety is severe or ongoing, seek the help of an herbalist, doctor, medical physician, and/or alternative medicine practitioner.
Tips for Combating Depression
• Stretch your muscles and practice exercise or yoga to direct your focus out of your mind and into your body. You may also be interested in going to the gym or trying martial arts, a dance class, kickboxing, and so on.
• Examine your negative self-beliefs and consider whether or not they’re actually valid or grounded in objective reality.
• Take a relaxing shower or bath, and perhaps perform breathing exercises and positive visualizations while cleansing.
• Watch funny movies or shows.
• Engage in musical therapy and even sing and dance along to uplifting tunes!
• Plan to go see a live performance at a local theatre. You may even wish to get involved in a future performance.
• Don’t engage in comparing, contrasting, or competing; instead, set healthy and reasonable creative goals for yourself.
• Take a healthy break from social media, online communication, and even the Internet as a whole if you find yourself having any sort of dependency on the virtual world and its plethora of communicative shortcomings. Temporarily disconnecting from the virtual world can do wonders for the psyche.
• Make a list of all the things in life you are thankful for, and do this often.
• If the sun is shining, get yourself under its rays for a period of time; otherwise, consider getting full-spectrum bulbs to inspire mood elevation.
• Get busy: do work and activities that keep you alert and energized and create a feeling of completion within you.
• Serve other people: sign up for volunteer work, help a neighbor or a stranger, give your time and energy to worthy causes, or just perform a few random acts of kindness.
• Make inspiring future plans and lists.
• Write entries in your journal.
• Smudge, purify, meditate, and pray.
• Immediately when such thoughts arise, replace negative thoughts with optimism, replace judgments with blessings, and replace “grrr” with grrratitude.
• Talk to fellow empaths or caring friends and family, even if it’s just for mutual venting or a bitching session! Socialize in positive ways with good people who have earned your trust and who are also working on self-improvement and humble self-awareness.
• Regardless of the weather, walk barefoot in nature for a few minutes, touch a tree, talk to plants, breathe deeply, and reconnect with the Mother.
• Go pet, feed, walk, and snuggle cats and dogs at a local animal shelter. You may even adopt a pet or two with whom you feel a destined bond, if you have the means to do so and can put their needs first.
• Create art, create art, and then create some more art.
• Wear brightly colored clothes to inspire unconscious energetic elevation.
• Do elemental meditations to connect with nature.
• Take a contemplative walk in an old cemetery. (Note: don’t do this if reflecting on death exacerbates your depression.)
• Try watching inspirational documentaries, such as Baraka, You Can Heal Your Life, and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, or inspirational feature films based on historical events, like Gandhi, Kundun, and 127 Hours.
• Watch some inspiring TED Talks online.
• Read inspirational self-help books that can aid you in the quest for healing and self-discovery.
• Watch and listen to some ASMR, meditation, or relaxation videos on YouTube.
• Try some fake smiling or laughter, which stimulates the pleasure centers in the brain—or better yet, keep practicing real smiling and real laughter!
• Remember that life is both a sacred journey and a game that, like any other game, has its obstacles.
• Know that your sadness will pass, as all things do, and that proactivity is key. Trust in the process of change.
• Remember that you are loved, even if it doesn’t feel like it. All we can do is try our best in life, work to heal ourselves, and strive to help others.
• If the depression is severe or ongoing, seek the help of an herbalist, doctor, medical physician, and/or alternative medicine practitioner. Personally, I have had great luck with therapists and counselors when I needed help the most.
• Timely intervention is critical! If you or someone you know feels suicidal or is on the verge of a serious breakdown, I wholeheartedly encourage you to call 911, check into a local mental health facility, and/or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK.
IN PRACTICE
Empathizing with Contrasting Stimuli
A neat project to incorporate into an empathic journal or Book of Shadows is a documentation of how you react to different sensory experiences. By pushing our limits of comfort and preferences, we can extend our empathic capacities beyond our zone of familiarity.
This exercise makes use of the common sensory faculties. If you have full or partial blindness, deafness, anosmia, or another sense variation, simply modify the steps accordingly.
Divide a section of your journal into segments for each of your physical senses, dedicating one day to exploring each. Begin with hearing. Make a list of contrasting sounds, noises, and auditory stimuli that you can experience and document. Note how you react to ten minutes of meditation near a tranquil stream, followed by ten minutes of hanging out at a noisy construction site. Spend a while on YouTube rotating between relaxing music like piano and harsh music like death metal. Listen to sounds of kittens purring and then sounds of hardcore porn. Tune in to a right-wing radio program followed by a New Age healing podcast. Listen to a Catholic mass followed by a Gnostic mass. Get creative in experiencing as many contrasting sounds as you can. You may go as far as attending a symphony in the evening followed by a noisy sports club afterward. Take yourself out of your comfort zone and see if you can awaken your empathy for those who are involved in creating or experiencing those sounds. What happens if you focus long enough to put yourself in the shoes of the construction worker versus those of the pianist? The porn star versus the cozy kitty cats? What happens when you emotionally merge with these individuals for a moment, or when you merge your own energy with the abrasive sounds of a front loader versus the soft wind through the trees? Record your findings in your journal.
On a different day, continue the experiment using sight. See how different it feels to gaze into the wilderness for five minutes as opposed to looking in a restaurant’s outside trash bin. If you go on YouTube or flip channels on the TV, be sure you’ve muted the device (by turning down one sense, we naturally increase the others). Put in earplugs and walk around your house or property, carefully observing things you might otherwise pass by. Try not to touch but only to observe. Report these findings in your journal.
Continue the exercise with touch, taste, and smell, dedicating a whole day to each sense. Try touching, tasting, and smelling things that are in great contrast. You may touch a soft blanket for ten minutes and then wear some extremely tight, itchy clothing for ten minutes. You may eat some food you enjoy and then try some food that you can barely stomach. You may immerse yourself in the scent of floral incense followed by the smell of a bouquet of rotting veggies. However you choose to engage in these sensory experiences, document your reactions to each. You may find that your initial reaction to each sensation is different from how you feel after “sitting with” each sensation for a while.
How do you feel after spending time with the pleasurable and comforting sensations? Does a feeling of relaxation easily come over your mind and body? Do the pleasurable sensations remain enjoyable or do they become overwhelming after a while?
Do you feel as though you can “step into” the displeasing sounds, sights, tastes, textures, or aromas momentarily so they don’t feel so aversive? Are you able to sidestep your preferences and merge with the experiences? Do boundaries of discomfort arise or do you encounter a more universal fluidity in your approach to the disagreeable sensations?
By expanding our realms of sensory experience, we can more accurately empathize with our environment and the sensations that others experience. By softening our instinctive reactions to various things, whether favorable or aversive, we come to learn that dramatic responses to sensations are usually unnecessary. Exercises like these teach the empath to have more easygoing responses when encountering different types of people and social situations. Our dance of reality can become a bit more peaceful if we choose to adapt to the variety of experiences life has to offer.
EMPATHIC CONTEMPLATION
Cultivating Dietary Empathy for Your Pets
Empaths are animal lovers—period, end of story. We inherently empathize with pets and all types of animals, both great and small, predator and prey, fish and foul. Animals represent a certain purity … a connection to wild innocence … to the hidden realms of reality. Animals are incarnations of nature’s majesty, products of countless years of evolution. Unrestrained by human ego and vanity, animals give us a glimpse of our intrinsic primal nature.
For emotionally sensitive individuals, caring for pets is a great way to calm excessive emotional energy or a fast-thinking mind. Pets help us refine our empathy because they are capable of giving and receiving unconditional love. Cats are good pets for the empath because they provide steady and nonjudgmental companionship. They are also infant-sized, which psychologically triggers a “need to nurture” response in a typical human (and by gods, do they know it!). My two black cats mean the world to me; they provide more joy, affection, and emotional balancing than I could possibly express. For many people, dogs provide a similar companionship. Unlike the typical cat, dogs tend to be human-dependent. Dogs get more attached to people, while cats get more attached to places. Cats and dogs are human companions for a reason, and we must treat them with unconditional love.
Because we find ourselves so bonded with our animal allies, it’s important to take a step back and see if we truly are meeting their needs. Do they get enough fresh air? Exercise? Both dry and wet food? Purified water? Are their boundaries respected? I’m honestly not too particularly worried about how empaths treat their pets on a daily basis (aside from, perhaps, a bit of over-snuggling and extreme anthropomorphism), which is why it’s essential to examine what, exactly, we’re allowing them to put in their bodies.
Let the reader beware! Many pet food companies use terms like “natural,” “balanced,” “premium,” “gourmet,” or formulated by “science” on their products, yet they pack the food full of GMO corn, soy, wheat, cardboard, sawdust, artificial preservatives, additives, cheap synthetic “feed” items, and something called “meat meal,” which actually contains pulverized roadkill, euthanized cats and dogs, diseased farm animals, zoo animals, spoiled supermarket meat, and slaughterhouse waste, all ground up and molded into appetizing little kibbles. Standard, mass-marketed, commercial pet foods (as well as vegan pet foods) are often extremely damaging to feline and canine health, causing both long-term agony and vet bills. The negative environmental impacts are also numerous, considering the food’s ingredients.
Highly reputable and human-grade brands of cat and dog food, many of which are relatively inexpensive, can be quickly discovered by hopping online for a few minutes. If you find yourself in the grocery store and have a smartphone, you can quickly type in the name of a product to discover an independent website that tells you if it’s actually healthy for your pet or is merely being marketed as such. By avoiding the big name brands of any food product, we can invite better health into our lives and the lives of those we love. Please note that most of the giant corporate stores don’t generally carry the brands of pet food that are truly healthy—it’s better to shop locally, anyway! And while you’re at it, please, please, please make sure your pets are neutered and spayed to help control overpopulation and animal suffering—it’s better for animals and for the earth! Let’s choose to love and empathize with our pets, and indeed all animals, to the best of our abilities.
CHAPTER MEDITATION
Spiritual Realignment with Adam Kadmon
Adam Kadmon (also spelled Qadmon or Cadmon) is a term meaning “Original Man” and is a Jewish mystical concept that was developed around the eleventh or twelfth century. In the ancient mystical system of Kabbalah (as well as the later Hermetic or esoteric Qabalah), this Primordial Adam is associated with the sephiroth Kether, the uppermost sphere on the Tree of Life. Seen as a diagram of creation, the Qabalistic Tree of Life represents all of reality in the form of a map (please see the image of the Tree of Life in chapter II). Adam Kadmon is also the name given to the “fifth world” in Qabalistic thought; this is not generally explored too deeply in Qabalistic literature because of the concept’s transcendent nature, leaving most esoteric texts to explore only the four common worlds: Atziluth (“emanation”), Beriah (“creation”), Yetzirah (“formation”), and Assiah (“action”).
The first Tarot card, 0: The Fool, finds its placement on the eleventh path, located between Kether and Chokmah, and is ruled by Aleph (a), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This path on the Tree of Life represents the very first route that was taken by the formative energy of existence. This “lightning flash of creation,” also called the Flaming Sword, begins in Kether and manifests all spheres of existence, ending in Malkuth, the manifest plane. Mystically, the Fool can be viewed as an extension of the Original Man because of him bursting forth immediately from invisible existence—a metaphorical Big Bang.
In Jewish mystical systems, Adam Kadmon is viewed as a primordial being who is himself a collection of all the souls ever to exist in the world and is the original “image of God” created by Yahweh in Genesis 1:26, in whose image all humans are formed. Adam Kadmon is distinct from the biblical Adam who coupled with Eve (and/or Lilith, depending on the account) in the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Some scholars also speculate that the “Ancient of Days” that appears in Daniel 7:13 is not referring to God but to Primordial Adam.
It should also be noted that, according to Midrash (Rabbinic commentaries on the Bible), Adam Kadmon is an androgyne—one who is neither male nor female because “his” essence cannot be limited as such. Many accounts see Adam Kadmon as the mediator between God and Creation, and as an anthropomorphized embodiment of the spark of consciousness on earth. Gnostics and other mystics have long held the belief that our own human souls or astral bodies are microcosmic reflections of the macrocosmic Adam Kadmon, and it is through our own energetic bodies that communication with the Divine occurs. (Adam Kadmon also represents the perfected human or ultra-human, much like Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch, as humankind’s ultimate and ideal state of perfected wholeness.)
The concept of Adam Kadmon is especially pertinent to empaths because in many ways he represents the untainted, untouched soul of humanity that has yet to be affected by the evils and ills of society. By allowing a spark of his energy to descend the paths of creation, his influence in the world assures us that a part of him is always present in this often difficult experience of life on earth. This meditation invites empaths to reconnect momentarily to this archetypal being of purity and creation. While affirming to the Divine that we are up for the challenge of life on earth, we can also ask for a reconnection to the gentle and untouched side of our souls reflected in Adam Kadmon’s spiritual Oneness.
Adam Kadmon is the innocent and nonsexual child who is free of judgment and is emblematic of total purity. Everybody has an untainted, innocent piece of the soul within. This sacred spark becomes molded and shaped when it enters the world of ego and individualization. People who display strong and consistent qualities of empathy are often noted as having “childlike” qualities. I believe wholeheartedly that this innocent self rests within even the most vicious of individuals; it’s only a matter of reconnecting to it. For empaths, this innocent and genuine (and sometimes naïve) aspect of the personality tends to be more pronounced. Socially, this can be very attractive to others, all of whom come from a different place of perception and intention. A meditative ritual such as the one that follows can help an empath reconnect to their original innocent self: the deepest goodness of the soul that nothing in the world can ever touch.
1. Prepare by gathering the following tools: a red candle with a holder, an organic red apple, the Fool card from any Tarot deck, a red blanket or veil, and a red stone. (Note that ADM (
) in Hebrew means “red” and also refers to the earth.) If you are feeling brave, consider poking the middle finger of your left hand with a sterile lancet and applying a drop of your own blood to your brow; this can help secure your primordial energy pattern into your psychic vision.
2. Ensure that you have the house to yourself and will not be disturbed in any manner for at least an hour. Lie down on your bed; this is the place from which you build a bridge between waking life and the dreaming world on a nightly basis. Light the candle and dim any other lights in the room. Place the apple near the candle and the Fool card underneath the candleholder. Get comfortable and cover yourself with the red veil or blanket, placing the red stone over your heart. Envision a circle of protection surrounding you and your bed.
3. Take a series of deep breaths through the nose, allowing the day to fade away. Don’t think about what happened or what’s on your agenda for later; allow yourself to be present and still. Make any final adjustments and focus on your breathing. If any distracting thoughts come up, bring your focus back to the breath.
4. In your mind’s eye, see the red candle burning in front of you. The flickering flame represents the Hebrew letter Yod (
), the microcosmic divine flame present inside of everyone. In a sense, this is the light of Adam Kadmon.
5. Envision the candle flame slowly growing larger in size, consuming the candle itself. See the single flame gently and peacefully flickering despite its overgrown size.
6. Witness the flame take a featureless human shape. At this point, begin to slowly whisper “Adam Kadmon,” repeating the name for as long as you wish.
7. When you feel ready, whisper the following (or something similar) to the figure before you: “I call upon you, Primordial Man, Adam Kadmon, to realign my energy as an empath. My deepest innocence is a spark of your purity. Please revive my deepest essence, outshining all conditioning and corruption.”
8. When you feel as though you have communicated your intentions and they have been heard, take some time to share space with the divine figure before you. Sense its purity and goodness, its ability to bring an empath back to their emotional and spiritual center.
9. When you’re ready, whisper, “Please enter me and revive me; bring me back to myself!” Knowing that you are safe and protected, visualize the figure entering your physical body. Allow your body to respond however it sees fit. You may find your body seizing or physically reacting; simply allow this. Visualize Adam Kadmon fully merging with your physical body.
10. Finish by envisioning this sacred energy instantly radiating out from you, shining like no other light in the universe. See the essence instantly radiating from your every pore, shining in every direction and in every dimension simultaneously in one great flash of light. Understand that this is helping to cleanse your soul on various levels, penetrating time and space.
11. Take some deep breaths and slowly come back to your body. Express gratitude however you see fit, declaring love and thankfulness for the spark of divinity within you. Finally, remember that your soul has chosen to be human in this lifetime and to navigate the experiences it endures. Allow the candle to burn down, and eat the apple to ground your energy, choosing to remain in a peaceful and reflective state of mind for the remainder of the day.
16. Seneca, Epistle LXXVIII (78), “On the Healing Power of the Mind,” in Moral Letters to Lucilius (Epistulae morales ad Lucilium), trans. Richard Mott Gummere, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_78.
17. Y. Tibi-Elhanany and S. G. Shamay-Tsoory, “Social Cognition in Social Anxiety: First Evidence for Increased Empathic Abilities,” Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences vol. 48, no. 2 (2011): 98–106, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22120444.