When you are an empath, you feel other people’s emotions and energies as if they’re your own and you’re very sensitive to stimulation. When you’re an empath you can feel very misunderstood, most of the time parents don’t know how to deal with it. But don’t get it confused with it being a disorder because it is not. It is partially in your genetics and partially from your environment in your upbringing.
If you are born in an abusive environment that can cause you to become very in tune with your abuser’s emotions to protect yourself. Or you can become very empathetic if you have really codependent or very nurturing parents. Like most things, empaths seem to be on a scale where you can be a little bit of an empath or on the extreme scale.
It is super important to be careful who you tell you’re an empath to as some people like manipulative and narcissistic people will claim to be empaths to better connect with you. But really they are just using it as a way to manipulate you further and get your trust. That is why it is important to uncover some ways to protect yourself as an empath.
It is important to have alone time to recuperate and to center yourself. It is super important that it is alone time because when you’re with someone else you take on their energy. So you need time to sit with your own feelings. This is the time where you can destress and journal. You can write in your journal about things that have happened, your feelings throughout the day, your thoughts. Just to be able to get those feelings out. Or it’s time for you to meditate or be creative. You need the downtime because you’re so hyper-sensitive and always have so much going on you need the downtime to release and process what is going on.
One place that is really relaxing to be at for alone time when you’re an empath is nature. Because we are all energy, you feel better connecting to nature. Electronics and wifi are all things that are unnatural so when we go back to our roots it helps us feel grounded. And also it is a place where we don’t have to take on other people’s emotions or energies.
If you don’t have alone time you can get to a point where you’re having a lot of anxiety or depression or even physical symptoms in your body.
You need to differentiate your feelings vs everyone else’s. When you walk into a room and you are feeling very many different emotions or someone is telling you something emotional, you need to ask yourself “Is this my emotion? Or is this someone else’s emotion?” And it would be helpful to name the other emotion that is not yours so then you can disassociate. So when you name it you can say ” Here comes Agatha with this emotion that is not mine but someone else’s.”
Also, you have to understand you are imagining the other person’s emotion, you don’t entirely know. They may be feeling something at a different level but because you’re used to feeling things at an intense level, you imagine that they’re also feeling the same thing. So you need to change your perspective of understanding that, that person needs to go through their tough journey so they can learn the lessons they need to learn. It can be hard because when you’re an empath you naturally want to jump in and help but sometimes people need to work through their feelings and go through their pain to become stronger.
You can still help and be supportive but you need to be in the background supporting rather than front and center taking it all on.
Visualizations are super helpful. Your brain does not know the difference between imagination and reality. When you imagine things your brain feels like it is actually happening. These can be helpful when protecting your energy.
One visualization that can be helpful is a shield. So in your alone time if you’re feeling a lot of different emotions you can visualize a shield protecting you from that emotion, especially the negative ones. So you can imagine that emotion coming and then you can imagine putting the shield up. Another visualization that can help is putting the emotion behind you. So rather than feeling the emotion on you or in front of your face, you can imagine it behind you. That way you can feel like you’re leaving that emotion behind.
The last one is you can imagine sending it back to the universe. You can imagine that energy being a certain color and then imagine sending it back. All of these can help you to release all these different emotions you’re feeling so you don’t just carry them with you.
Meditation teaches discipline and can also help balance out energy. It can make you very focused and peaceful and it helps calm overstimulation. It is a way to retrain your brain from the same stories that replay in your mind. There are not many things that can give you the same sensations meditation can give you.
The way to meditate is just focusing something. Focus on a visualization, guided meditation, affirmations to help discipline your mind. Your mind is bound to wonder but it’s your job to bring it back to what you want to focus on. This calms your entire body and mind from being overstimulated because it is bringing balance back to your core and taking control back.
A boundary helps you and the other person understand your capacity. Knowing what you will and will not tolerate and what you’re able to handle. boundaries are fences we put up to protect ourselves. So as an empath you need those boundaries to protect yourself. As an empath you a natural healer and giver so it can be easy to get burnt out, drained, and taken advantage of. So you need to understand your limits and you need to get comfortable with saying no.
Maybe a limit of yours is that you need to not answer the phone after 8 pm or you can only spend a certain amount of time with certain people. And understand it is okay to say no. You don’t have to explain yourself, it’s okay if you’re burnt out or overstimulated or you just don’t want to do things. So really determine the boundaries you need to set especially with others’ emotions and with toxic people.
You need to be aware of your needs. What overstimulates you? Is it lights? Sounds? Conversations? The news? What drains you? Now when those things do affect you what do you need? Do you maybe need to limit how much you’re around them? Do you maybe need to go in a closed room with no lights to center yourself again? If someone is taking advantage or being extra negative, you may realize you need to set more boundaries or speak up for yourself and be more guarded. You need to sit with yourself and identify how you react to things, your triggers and what do you need? When is a time to help and when is a time to sit this one out? How do you respond to this stimulation? It is all about figuring out your balance.
There are some really cool parts of being an empath. You can feel happy moments intensely and you can experience things at a higher frequency and you can have deeper connections/understanding with others. The downside is you feel others’ negative emotions and manipulative people will try to take advantage but it’s okay because you’re aware of that. You know to put up boundaries to see who is worthy of your trust. You now know how to protect yourself.
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