I’ve always had an incredibly intimate relationship with death. For many, death feels like the ultimate mystery, where everything you know and love is snuffed away whenever anyone’s time has come. In my experience, death has never been a thief, but a doorway into liberation for those who dare to leap without the need to look. Not from book knowledge or anything else but the razor-sharp instincts of my intuitive guidance, death has always felt like a friend.
From this kinship with death, I’ve often been called into moments of existential crisis, as members of my family stood between worlds. Whether it was my grandmother, my dad, or even my mom, I have helped each of my closest family members cross over into the afterlife due to an inexplicable ability to be calm, centered, and open at the peak of emotional intensity.
I remember being at their bedsides, surrounded by family members who were already processing the loss of the loved one that hadn’t yet let go. I say this with absolutely no judgment for their experience. If anything, I’ve judged my own experience, thinking that expressing a lack of sadness or disarray must mean I am far less caring of a person. While many of my family members played out the conditioning of not being able to be open in time of loss, I always entered the scene grounded, joyful, and happy to see everyone—including those about to pass. This wasn’t a planned-out approach, but just how openly I meet moments of uncertainty. When life becomes a big question mark, I literally feel the wheel of time stop. While this might frighten the ego structures of most people, it actually brings me profound amounts of peace. This is because the energy that enters to escort a soul back home to the light is the level of consciousness I have embodied for many years. It’s called samadhi, or a state of uninterrupted living meditation. For some people, samadhi can only be accessed in the afterlife. As awakening beings, we are able to access and embody the consciousness of life after death without having to die in order to live freely.
I remember people looking at me as I greeted my dying loved ones with joyful smiles. They may have been heavily medicated, or deranged, but the fits of torment and waves of pain they felt before I arrived subsided soon after I entered the room. I don’t think of this as a special power I bestow, but the rightful privilege to be a vessel for the light to do its best work. Less than an hour after I arrive with smiles to soothe the hearts of all, my family member takes their final breath, leaving this world for the next chapter of existence that welcomes them in.
I’ve often been asked by my relatives, “How do you do that?” My answer is simple. I feel so good about where each person is going that it soothes their nervous system into peacefully letting go. Having visited heaven when I was eight, I know firsthand the transcendent glory awaiting every heart at the end of their journey. I feel it is my duty to do all that I can to bridge both worlds energetically, to allow the end of one lifetime to simply be a doorway into the next highest level. Looking back, this is how Golden Rule #4 was introduced to me.
The fourth Golden Rule says, “Feeling better helps everyone heal.” As energetically sensitive beings, we tend to develop co-dependent relationships mainly due to worrying that our light will be too bright for other people. We often feel bad about our happiness because of the unhappiness other people may have in their lives. Because we don’t want anyone to feel left out, we wind up lowering our vibration so that other people have companionship. Then we have to work as quickly as possible to help other people heal as a way of returning to the happiness we’ve abandoned in ourselves. From a personal perspective, this was the exact pattern I played out for the majority of my life. When you are energetically sensitive, you are known as an empath. An empath means you often match and mirror the emotions of others. Why does this occur? What creates this empathic tendency to abandon your happiness and become just as displaced and unhappy as those around you?
To understand this, we look at the play of energy. Whoever is having the more intense sensation or is more committed to their experience, is the one who wins the energetic game. The one who’s more entrenched or committed to their emotional experience dominates the experience emotionally. The person who’s not as committed winds up matching the other person’s experience. This can go one of two different ways: It means that if you are around someone who’s more committed to their victimhood than you are to your light, then you’ll wind up feeling their victimhood as your own. Equally so, if you are more committed to the light than someone is to identifying with their pain, you can radiate a frequency of light that invites their subconscious mind to match the vibration you’re transmitting. You can be a mirror that reflects the light of their soul and unravels the attachments of their ego, depending on how committed you are to the light within you. All too often, the light realms can feel like passive states, while the shadow realms feel more aggressive in nature. When a very loving but gentle person stands in the presence of an aggressively reactive person, because their shadow is more intense than often your light is illuminated, you are likely to lower your vibration to match them as a companion in their pain. That’s why we empath. To innocently ensure that no one suffers alone or feels excluded, only to lower the vibration of light we were born to shine.
Don’t dim your light in any way. Shining less helps no one transform. Let’s say you’re in the presence of someone who’s unhappy. Maybe for this person, there’s a benefit of being in the presence of your light, but they could only bask in your brightness for a few minutes before needing to integrate all the light you shine. At that time, they will either become upset, push you away, storm off, or find an excuse to go somewhere else. If you’re in your ego, you’re likely to take it as a moment of rejection. If, however, you’re rooted in your soul, you will acknowledge it as a confirmation of what is best for this person’s journey. There is a specific amount of time anyone is meant to be in the presence of another. When the time has come to integrate all the gifts they have received, they may seem suddenly avoidant. If they are exposed to the light of another longer than need be, anger may arise. This helps the modern-day empath view the ego’s perception of rejection as the soul’s awareness of redirection—always being guided to where one needs to be for their evolution.
Everyone wants to be warmed by the light of the sun. But if you stay too long, the light that warms you starts to dissolve the things getting warmed. Metaphorically speaking, to be dissolved by the heat of the sun is only to merge into and become the thing that was warming you.
When shifting from ego to soul, you are becoming one with the light within yourself. One of the first steps of becoming that light is allowing yourself to shine at full capacity—no matter the circumstances in view. It’s not that people can’t deal with your perfection, it’s that people don’t know how to deal with their own perfection. An ego would rather see itself as imperfect because at least it’s understandable. That which is understandable gives the ego something to manage and maintain. There is no role in perfection. There is nothing for the ego to do. This is why it settles for lesser, more understandable versions of self.
In order for you to shine your light, without first needing every ego in your life to sign a waiver releasing you of any liability that your light is going to bring into their reality, it is essential to develop the soul’s attribute of trust. Trusting that what you bring forth within you, as the light of divinity for yourself, for your family, and for your world, is going to help each person you meet. It may or may not be immediate, but it will always be the very gift each person needs to complete each stage of their journey. This is why it requires trust for you to shine your light into this world. A world that is meant to be healed by a depth of goodness most people can’t receive unless they work hard enough to receive it. In truth, no hard work is required. Just a steadfast willingness to remain open, even when every heart around you has found ample proof to justify shutting down.
Whether read silently or spoken aloud, the mantra that helps you cultivate the soul’s attribute of trust is:
My happiness is a service to all.
Your happiness is not the end result of shuffling the furniture of your life in a more preferable way. The secret is learning to enjoy being around people, even when they don’t enjoy being around themselves. In recalling the wisdom of Golden Rule #2, those who blame you are unhappy. Therefore, someone who is mean, nasty, and unhappy doesn’t like being who they are. The unfortunate thing is, people who don’t like being who they are often make it not so easy for other people to be around them. That’s the deepest truth of the statement “misery loves company.” Our job, our mission, as empaths, is daring in the most authentic way to creatively find ways to enjoy being around those who don’t enjoy being around themselves. From this space, the light you shine, no matter how others respond, helps to free others from the patterning of their most ingrained reactions.
Can you dare to admire the people who are difficult for you to be around? What can you authentically admire about them? Even if it begins with, “I admire the qualities they are helping me cultivate by being around such a difficult person.”
What is this person helping you cultivate? Greater patience? Deeper forgiveness? Is their closed mindedness or emotional rigidity allowing you a chance to be more open-minded and heart-centered?
What happens in your experience when you dare to admire the people who are the hardest for you to be around?
When you’re a conscious being, anything you encounter has been created to make you more conscious. If you’re an unconscious being, anything you encounter is likely to create more unconscious responses—that is, until you’re ready to wake up. When consciousness awakens, it only becomes more awake and conscious. As an empath, you’re already on that trajectory. Prior to birth, you’ve already surrendered, which is what gave you the strength to incarnate and be as you are. Since you’re already waking up, all life can do is wake you up further. In order to do so, all life has to decide is what combination of characters, outcomes, situations, and circumstances you require in order for your light to shine at full capacity. In every breath, that’s what life is doing.
When you embrace the wisdom of Golden Rule #4, you cultivate the attribute of trust. If you trust that your happiness is a service to others, your well-being will be an agent of change—a catalyst of growth that helps everyone heal. Feeling bad for other people feeling bad doesn’t help anyone feel better. But, daring to feel good about the uniqueness and innocence of others helps those who feel bad to accelerate their healing.
Each of us incarnates with a specific amount of density to dissolve, while also having a vast array of light to shine. In an oversimplified spiritual approach, you have been led to believe you must first cleanse yourself of darkness before your light has permission to shine. Nothing could be further from the truth. The arising of light occurs through inspired moments of selfless action. Meanwhile, the density of shadow you are likely to transmute throughout this lifetime occurs through the reactivity of emotional response. In truth, the more often you act from a selfless space, the less reactivity arises from the actions of others.
It is not the countless hours you put into dissolving darkness that creates space for your light to shine. Instead, it is how open and receptive you are to serving a will beyond the threshold of individual gain that allows a transcendent light within you to come to life for the well-being of all. Working around the clock to clear your darkness, as if it’s a prerequisite to shining your light, is only the approach when thinking of spiritual evolution from the conditioned lens of an education system. Needing enough credits in order to advance in grade may be the proper structure for evolving egos, but when it comes to the evolution of your soul, it is merely the amount of well-being that you pass along to others that determines the trajectory of your advancement. Since every reaction could only be the next gift to receive, it is your willingness to feel good about the contributions made on behalf of all that allows your happiness to serve the expansion of the whole.
The kingdom of heaven welcomes every being into the light, no matter the trials or tribulations that define their struggles. If heaven maintains such an open-door policy, why are you working so hard to be who you are? Perhaps there is a deeper truth that begs to be explored. Maybe it is only known the moment you let go.