Embrace Your Gifts:
The Joy of Empathy
To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.
stephen covey
Every time I read the last page of a book, I feel like I’ve ended a journey. My vacation, work trip, odyssey, or voyage is over, and now I take stock before I return home. Are there gifts to share? Did I really buy that wild outfit I’ll never wear again? Do I carry souvenirs that will remind me of my time away?
Regardless of whether or not I can still close my suitcase, the best excursions are those that leave me changed, my soul touched in ways that hint of transformation. This is the mark of a successful journey. This is what occurs when we have learned and grown, not only shopped and toured. When this is the case, even the idea of “home” takes on a different meaning. It becomes more than where we live, whether this “where” is our physical abode or our bodily temple. It becomes the way in which we express the immortal spirit that houses what really counts: goodness, faith, truth, and, of course, love.
My sincerest wish is that, although our time together is drawing to a close, your own empathic journey is far from over. After you turn the last page of this book, I hope you will retain a new, deeper, and expanded awareness of what empathy is, how it works, and the myriad ways it manifests. More importantly, I hope these understandings now belong to you—that they no longer remain locked in the words but become embodied within you. If this has occurred for you, the questions you’ll want to ask yourself include the following:
- What will I do with my increased understanding?
- How will I put these spiritual gifts to work to enrich my own life and that of others?
With a solid foundation in the empathic gifts, you now know that empathy is a gem with many facets. You have no doubt seen yourself in some of these pages as you have discovered its physical, emotional, mental, natural, spiritual, and shamanic aspects. You have had many opportunities to consider where your own empathic strengths lie and which areas you might like to further develop. You have become familiar with the qualities that masquerade as empathy but, in fact, serve to undermine it; you are learning to discern the difference. You know that there is empathy that only involves receiving and empathy you can radiate out to others—and that all empathy takes place at the energetic subtle-body level.
You know that there is a thing called impaired empathy and have had a chance to think about some common mental and emotional challenges in this new light. You may have had difficulty or confusion related to empathy in the past. Whether this is true for you or not, you now have tried-and-true tools to guide and protect you from this point forward, all safely tucked inside your empathy medicine bag—or maybe it’s your “shopping bag,” full of items for a new wardrobe, additional ways to show yourself to the world.
The full power of empathy belongs to you now. I have placed the keys in your hands with pleasure. When you embrace the empathic gifts, you become a living, breathing antidote to our society’s empathy deficit disorder starting now, on this day. You are a counterweight to the widespread narcissism of our age. And this means that whether or not you decide to use your empathic gifts to engage the role of empathic healer, you are nonetheless a healing force in this world simply by means of your conscious presence.
The most powerful journeys are never over. If you are empathic—and if you have read this book, you are—what remains is to embrace your empathic gifts with joy as you continue this voyage called life. Please do not be concerned with the destination. It is the pathway itself that is your true birthright: connection—the very fabric of love.