Empathy and
Your Vocation:
The Calling to Care
Power comes not from the barrel of a gun, but from one’s awareness of his or her own cultural strength and the unlimited capacity to empathize with, feel for, care, and love one’s brothers and sisters.
addison gayle, jr.
Empathy links us so we can care for each other, and how better to accomplish this great goal than within the circle of compassion that we call “work”?
Take a moment to consider your own relationship with work. Even as a child, you felt compelled toward greatness. You knew that you were here to make a difference, largely through your work—which, when it reflects your spirit and spiritual gifts, is called a vocation or calling.
Maybe you are living your calling, or perhaps you are still searching the stars for that unique purpose. Perhaps you’ve been operating on this highest of levels already and didn’t even know it, writing it off as “just parenting” or “making a living at a job job.” The truth is that if you are employing your empathic and other intuitive gifts, you are living your destiny. There might be more gems to uncover, other careers to explore, new roads to walk, but you are on-purpose. Increased understanding of your empathic gifts and greater skillfulness with them can only further enhance your vocation.
One of the unexpected pearls related to empathy is that understanding your empathic style can actually help you figure out your all-important calling. Want a clue about your calling? Well, it will have to incorporate your spiritual gifts.
In this chapter, we’re going to explore the various applications of empathy at work, showcasing each style, one at a time. We’ll emphasize ways you can use each style to bolster your work success and look at examples of these empathic styles in the working world. We’ll then cover a few tips on how to best access and apply the three main techniques for compassionate empathy in this context. Finally, I’ll share a few ways you can use but also disguise your empathy in workplaces that aren’t amenable.
Know that this information applies whether you are paid for a living or not, whether you work for someone else or for yourself. Your vocation isn’t dependent on money but on following the call of your soul.
Empathy at Work
How does your empathy look and function at work? The following descriptions will help you better understand and use these vital gifts.
Physical Empaths: The Solid Super-Person
Have you ever watched a Superman movie or show? Superman and his marvelous superhero companions are physical empaths, hard at work saving humanity from itself. Extraordinarily physical, they can literally move matter to do what matters. (Needless to say, as superheroes they have other finely honed skills as well.)
If you’re a physical empath, your physical body is not only your human uniform but also your soul’s traveling vehicle. It will register anything and everything that you are called to know, feel, or fix in this mechanical universe.
Physical empaths can end up in any profession, even parenting and homemaking, but they are always dedicated to providing materially for others in one way or another. They often walk this earth as healers, as they are so attuned to others’ physical maladies. Many also make their way into the financial sector because they know that money is anything but optional on this planet. Of course, they could also be football players or coaches, jewelers or clothiers, but whatever their job description, they are devoted to enhancing others’ physical existence.
As has been clear throughout this book, physical empaths must guard their health, avoiding the tendency to take on responsibilities that are not theirs to carry. Avoid giving yourself away; save some of that money for yourself. Conversely, avoid gluttony and greed. Your commitment to physicality can lead to obsessiveness if you don’t prioritize balance in your life. Remember to support your physical self by paying attention to your mind, emotions, and spirit.
Emotional Empaths: Feelings, Anyone?
Decades ago, I started in my first corporate job. One of the female vice presidents took me aside and said, “There is only one rule: no emotions. Ever. If you are going to cry, do it at home.”
An emotional empath might believe they should just pack their bags and stay at home if that’s the attitude in their workplace. You can no more stop sensing others’ feelings than you can desist from feeling your own. Fortunately, this gift is ideal for a variety of professions, even if you are rooted in a corporate environment.
Emotional empaths excel in tasks that require kindness, mercy, compassion, care, and the human touch. Many therapists, training professionals, parents, social workers, human resource experts, and creatives are emotional empaths. You don’t need to confine yourself to the so-called helping professions or creative arts, however. I have an emotionally empathic client who is an accountant, but not in the typical spreadsheet sense. She hires and places people for her company’s accounting teams because she has a knack for sensing who would be happy at which jobs.
Of course, the emotional empath has to be careful not to get emotionally used up at work. Sensing everyone’s feelings is exhausting, and it’s easy to become overextended. Make sure you balance your emotional receptivity with the opposite, including plenty of exercise, fun, alone time, and time spent with people who listen to you, not only the other way around.
Mental Empaths: Organizing Another’s Canvas of Dreams
Knowledge-based mental empaths are valuable assets in the world of work, as they can easily distinguish what is occurring from what should be occurring. They also know how to problem-solve to close the gap. Able to easily read people, especially their motivations, they can create systems out of a weaving of intuitive information and logical data, both meeting specific objectives and attaining higher goals.
Mental empaths are brilliant in professions that require research, project management, analytical skills, problem solving, reasoning, and motivating others. They are excellent at working in for-profit or nonprofit organizations that require these and other skills. Their organizational abilities also lend themselves to making wise financial investments or running a business in a logical fashion.
If you are a mental empath, watch out for people and systems that rely on your abilities and forget to give you credit. Some might prefer to throw mud at you instead of bettering their own performance. Know, too, that some people might not like you, seeing you as too picky or analytical.
Natural Empaths: Get Thee Outside—
or Bring Outside Inside
Natural empaths let their love of nature serve as a trusted guide, seeking always to represent their fellow natural and celestial companions. Their attunement to sensing what natural beings and forces are going through is often accompanied by shamanic instincts and the ability to link with the spirit-based natural energies as well as the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual sensations their connections are experiencing.
Natural empaths are always happier working outside or bringing a little more of the outside into human-made places and spaces. Plant-oriented empaths might work as gardeners, landscapers, forest rangers, or agriculturists; animal lovers could be vets, dog walkers, bird watchers, or fishery specialists. Naturalists oriented toward physical healing could become herbalists, naturopaths, or organic chefs, and those with a strong dose of emotional empathy might become psychic animal communicators or dolphin trainers. Naturalists with visual capabilities could become green builders, interior designers, or feng shui masters. There are hundreds of different types of jobs for a natural empath.
As we’ve discussed throughout this book, it’s important that a natural empath establish correct boundaries—the five steps to compassionate empathy is an excellent method—so they do not lose themselves in their love of nature. As well, a natural empath can be especially sensitive to the variety of inorganic substances and EMFs found in work environments, often including noxious chemicals, artificial lighting, and buzzing computers and electrical lines. I recommend that you use some of the amulets made to deflect EMFs; those made by BioGeometry are especially useful. (See the Vesica Institute site for medallions, listed in the jewelry section of their online store.46) Also, remember that people are natural beings too; each one of us is deserving of love and service.
Spiritual Empaths: Making Ethics Top Priority
The kit bag of a spiritual empath includes some of the most important of divine qualities: values, ethics, mission, morality, consciousness, and goodness. These factors are facets of love that bring heaven a little closer to earth.
Spiritual empaths can fill any type of job but often fill the role, if not the title, of priest, coach, pastor, rabbi, or spiritual counselor among their fellow human beings. You are the person who senses whether others are fulfilling their destiny or not, acting with integrity or not. You are the person who also senses negative agendas and lies.
If you have a shamanic bent, you might also attune to the presence of angelic or demonic forces and be aware of their effects on individuals. I know many spiritual empaths who have ended up as addiction counselors, essentially exorcising the dark forces that are steering their clients wrongly, or therapists doing the same for their patients.
Be careful not to believe that another’s evil, malignant, manipulative, or immature choices are your fault. The fact that you sense truth doesn’t mean you are in charge of teaching others to follow it.
Shamanic Empaths: One Person, Many Worlds
Shamanic empaths often struggle to find their place in the Western world because there are few places in it for someone with so many sensitivities. While in the indigenous world, they can openly call themselves shamans or priest-healers and do everything their gifts enable them to do; in the contemporary world, however, they must often disguise themselves behind one or several of their gifts.
For instance, a shamanic empath excelling in physical empathy might become a holistic doctor or chiropractor; a shaman with a strong emotional orientation could work as a therapist who performs regressions for current or past lives. A shaman with a leaning toward mental empathy might become a transformational life coach, while those inclined toward natural empathy could lead group treks to Machu Picchu and other natural wonders or enjoy life as organic farmers. The shaman empath who has a strong relationship with spiritual empathy can excel at helping people remove entities and cords (energetic connections to other beings) or make the great transition through death into the afterlife.
If you are a shamanic empath, know that you deserve to have your own life. You are not only here to serve the living and the dead, the worldly and the otherworldly; your life counts too. The help you provide to others? Partake of some of it yourself.
Applying the Five Steps to
Compassionate Empathy at Work
At work (or even play), the three techniques I introduced in chapter 5, including the five steps to compassionate empathy, assure you proper energetic boundaries, guaranteeing you the space and breathing room required to make sure you don’t fall into any of the empathic traps such as overextending, sympathizing, or being manipulated. Following is a synopsis of these steps as they apply to issues of work and finances.
When you are dealing with purpose-related issues, I recommend that you ask the Divine to work through your gifts to provide insights.
Preparation: Conduct Spirit-to-Spirit
step 1: Ask for and Acknowledge Needed Information
Focus on the work situation at hand. You might be thinking about a project, concentrating on a financial issue, or sitting in a meeting. You could be strategizing your future career or determining your ultimate spiritual mission. What empathically delivered information do you need directly from the Divine to steer you right or provide necessary insights? Spend a few moments making sure you are also pinpointing the exact goal the Divine wants you to focus on.
step 2: Conduct Compassionate Assessment and Ask for Assistance
You now want to remain open to the stream of empathic information you need to better understand the nature of your question and related insights, advice, or information. Sometimes we’re shown situations from the past as a way to explain how we got into a tough situation—why our job doesn’t suit us, why we are confused, why our money issues are strangling us. If you sense that you need to acknowledge past or present errors, start by receiving compassion from the Divine, and make sure to apply the same to yourself.
step 3: Ask for a Divine Response
It is time to step aside and allow the Divine to move unimpeded. Clear your mind and ask the Divine for direct advice about your purpose or specific issues related to it. Purpose-related information is ultimately about our life mission, the reason we came to this planet as embodied spirits. It is the calling that makes our hearts beat and our souls sing. Our purpose encompasses not only our soul lessons—the sometimes “hard knocks” experiences that stretch us to love when we’d rather not—but also activates the spiritual perfection that we’ve already achieved underneath the human mask we wear.
While asking for the Divine’s responses, know that the sky is the limit. You can request radiant empathy; you can ask for insights. Always available are healing streams of grace, which can carry anything from inspiration to opportunities your way. It can also be helpful to request that the Divine open the path to the future, moving away obstructions and blocks. When you feel complete with step 3, it can also be helpful to ask the Divine what role it will continue to play as you move forward. This way you are assured of constant contact.
step 4: Take Action with Humility
This step might involve any number of activities. It could include several action steps such as checking the Web for jobs or writing a résumé. It might involve an attitude shift such as starting to believe in yourself. It might also include using your radiant empathy gifts and sending energy to others, to a situation, or even into a vision or goal the Divine asks you to hold for your future.
This step can actually continue long after you meditatively commence it. Taking action toward purpose is an ongoing process, one with no clear walls or parameters. After all, when are you not “on-purpose”? Is your spirit off-duty after you’ve punched the clock and headed home for the day? Are you any less your essence simply because you are sleeping or making breakfast?
For instance, a spiritual action could involve asking for a dream that could assist you in making a work decision. It could include baring your soul to a friend, sharing childhood wounds in order to be clear about patterns that need to change. Because spiritual purpose is about your spirit, which is the totality of yourself, almost anything in your life can be labeled a purpose-driven activity. As you can imagine, however, this kind of thinking can also be a setup for workaholism, the loss of balance in the drive for success. One of the reasons I propose that you devote yourself consciously to asking the Divine to show you what actions to take is to refrain from overactivity. By paying attention to what the Divine and your own guidance suggest as important activities, you indirectly release yourself from doing other things.
After taking the actions you first feel directed toward, also ask to keep receiving signs and omens as you move forward. The Divine can continue to share with you through your emotions and perceptions, or perhaps by literally maneuvering your physical environment or body into certain activities. Natural beings might show up to assist you, or your own sense of right and wrong or a conviction of goodness might show you what to do (or not do). Shamans might receive dreams, visitations from invisible beings, and more. Stay in touch with the Divine to remain in touch with yourself.
step 5: Surrender the Outcome
We never really know what the Divine has in store for us or what others might choose to do or not do. Life is a journey, a blessing, and a continual unfolding of the unknown into the known—and work is that same kind of ever-unfolding blessing. Embrace each opportunity and occurrence, and remember that the Divine is with you.
Disguising Empathy at Work
As much as I wish I didn’t have to say this, you might sometimes need to disguise your empathic abilities and responses at work. I wonder how many CEOs could get by with a statement like “I feel like you are sad” or which accountants can directly state “I know you’re lying.” There are ways in which each empathic type can reveal their empathic insights and still come across as businesslike with bosses, coworkers, employees, vendors, or other work contacts.
For instance, an emotional empath can use body language to address a workmate’s emotions. People trust those who mimic their facial affects or body states, while compassion is implied by adding features that show you care. Blend these two sensory communications to genuinely support another.
Do you sense someone is sad? Slightly tilt your lips down while leaning forward as if to provide comfort. Is someone angry? Pucker your forehead but shift backward in a vulnerable position, validating the other’s anger but opening your heart to emphasize that you are not afraid.
You can also use language that indicates sensitivity to the other without directly stating their emotions. If the other person is scared, you can package your affirmative validation by saying something like “this research project is scary” or “wow, I got nervous that I was late.”
Mental empaths can easily bolster others’ egos or performance by using uplifting statements that contain positive beliefs to cancel out their negative ones. A simple comment like “your project is a valuable contribution” can disengage another from their feelings of inadequacy.
You can also employ calming techniques if the other person is trapped in anxiety or a poor self-image. Many a mental empath assists other individuals or a team by leading people step by step into a more optimistic outlook or set of activities. For instance, you can say something like this: “How about if we first examine the numbers and then see what they mean?” Creating a logical framework allows others to do good work and expand into their best selves.
Physical empaths, like emotional empaths, can also use body language and employ props to creatively assuage others’ issues or fears. One of the most successful female executives I have ever met confessed to me that she could sense all her employees’ issues in her body. She couldn’t exactly make comments like “Bob, your aching shoulder is stopping you from focusing at work” or “Jamie, I sure wish you’d deal with your alcohol addiction.” Instead, she used the environment to help her.
The executive filled her office with knickknacks, as well as a variety of coffees, teas, and food items. She might hand Bob a small stone, one that energetically heals body pain, and laughingly tell him the stone asked to spend the day on his desk. She might serve tea to Jamie during meetings until Jamie finally confides in her, and she can then set Jamie up with a treatment center. Physical empaths, as this CEO demonstrated, can always use their ecosystem to do their work for them.
Natural empaths often work with beings or forces of nature, even if they are not formally paid for their efforts. Their greatest challenges, as we’ve seen throughout this book, are oversensitivity because of a high affinity to feeling the suffering that happens in nature and reactivity to artificial substances or energies.
The secret to surviving as a natural empath in a polluted world is to access natural assistance. For instance, imagine you’re a forest ranger who feels the pain of all woodland creatures. You might link to the living spirit of a star to send healing energy to wounded animals. You might carry specific stones such as pink quartz, which emanates love, to remind yourself that the Divine has it all handled and you don’t need to feel guilty for what you can’t control.
Let’s say that EMFs strip your energetic boundaries of their ability to protectively buffer you. You might slip a little pink flannel square in your pocket; pink flannel absorbs EMFs. Wash the flannel patch every day and reuse it. You could also wear rubber-soled shoes, which keep you grounded and send negative energies into the ground, and fill your office with plants and stones.
Are you a spiritual empath? It can be difficult to represent right from wrong when almost no one else does. Equally problematic is your ability to determine who is on-purpose and who is not. If you want to use your gift and still remain popular, refrain from telling anyone that they are a liar, hypocrite, embezzler, or thief. It’s far better to use positive suggestions such as “I know you want to do the right thing, so how about if we do this?” or “Let’s use our ethics as our guide and try it this way.”
Because of your spiritual sensitivity, I recommend that you eventually make your way into a company or business that represents your core values. Businesses often need ethical project managers, coaches, team leaders, and other visionaries. Be who you are, and the rest will happen.
Shamans stand out in a normal business like a cactus in a rose garden. They are often seen as prickly, oppositional, or unusual, so make this work for you. Become the “go to” person for problem solving and truly thinking outside the box. Without making yourself sound weird, infer that you have a strong intuition and offer just enough meaningful input that people start to believe in you. Find the people in your office who are interested in the same type of invisible things that you are and form an alliance, supporting each other in the subtle exploration and application of your gifts. Know, too, that you might work best alone, almost like an undercover consultant. After all, you know you’re not really alone—there is a world of a thousand angels there to help.