How to Cope With Being Empathic: By Lilly First an explanation of the term "empathy":  According to Miriam-Webster's on-line dictionary - "Empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner." Many people, especially psychics who are having new beginnings with contacting the Spirit Realm find themselves WIDE OPEN with their empathic feelings at first. I know I did. People’s attitudes, both in public situations and private affected me much more, beautiful music made me cry (not so before), arguments made me much more emotionally affected, and I felt like I was  "walking target�?  It was difficult to be out in crowds with this, and situations like Christmas shopping was an ordeal. Empaths having this problem often struggle at first with learning about how to cope with it, and deal with everyday situations now that they are psychically awakened.   The problem is that they need to focus with their Heart Chakra plus interlink it with their own mind, as well.  The issue is that they need to force enough energy from the Mind Chakras into the Heart Chakra to make the blend of the two Chakras "ONE".  What happens is that an Empath is often more in tuned with their Heart and less in tuned with their Mind and when that happens, it causes them to feel vulnerable, sensitive, and much more linked to others�?Auric Fields.  That encapsulates the issue into a higher realm, yet it doesn’t make it better, and eventually the person gets so drained down in their Heart Chakra that they literally cause themselves to be upset much of the time being much more emotional.  They’re picking up too much of what is going around and making it their focus.  You can see that after a while it drains them down much in terms of energy.    WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT:  So with the problem identified, you need to get yourself back into situations whereby you can cope with crowds, remaining peaceful around negative people, (able to stay calm while someone else is angry at the grocery clerk store ahead of you),  calm around your boss or co-workers who are argumentative,  your kids that you are trying to discipline and keep under control, global events, and otherwise situations that can make a psychic much more vulnerable.  Here's some tips: 1. Acknowledge the fact that you are an Empath.  By knowing that you are now like this, you will sense your own responsibility with keeping your "Wholeness of Self" balanced.  It isn't something bad, it really is good, but it can hamper you if you are ignoring the fact. 2. Keep yourself more “close to yourself�?(as in having more of a closeness with your own feelings, more tuned in and noticing how your whole body, mind, and Spirit reacts to situations). To do that you need to make yourself much more important to you.  I’m not saying to suddenly become “self-centered�? but in order to correct an imbalance of any kind, you need to do the right techniques and to do what is necessary.  Get more focused here with your own feelings and how you are reacting to situations evolving in your presence. Put more of an effort into sensing your own reactions and have a pre-planned technique of correcting your imbalance ready to enact.  In sensing that you are first starting to get affected, notice right away the need to link both your Mind and Heart Chakas to be linked together.  You do need to get more into the effort, and that means that you have to be more aware of how you are reacting, and do that more quickly than before.  If you were noticing it way too late with this, it is that lack of quickness with dealing with your own emotions, that makes it harder to recover quickly when someone is yelling at you, etc.  Plan ahead.  I liken it to my air conditioning I have in my home system.  On hot days, I get the AC turned on early to keep the house cool, so when it gets very hot in the afternoon hours outside, my house is maintaining a cool comfortable temp. It may go up a few degrees in the late afternoons, but it's still in the comfort zone.  But if I would forget to do that and come home late in the day with the AC off, it's near to impossible to get a hot house cooled off.   People tend to notice it when it their emotions are already in a strong mode that way.  You see,  a new Empath might think at first that they can “just ignore it�? and then when that’s not working the Empath finds it’s gotten much worse.  That’s when the empathic person tries to break the link and calm themselves down, but it’s much harder at that point.  So getting more in tune with it first, getting a much quicker reaction, next, and to be more willing to make certain changes within your daily life to make it better overall does have a much brighter outcome. Shielding: First, don't take on responsibilities that are not yours to begin with.   Just tackle what you KNOW you can do right now. Empaths tend to put themselves on the "back burner" and allow others to come first. --that imbalance thing).  They tend to avoid confrontations and later regret this, since they themselves have the after-effects making them more upset.  Try noticing when you are first starting to get upset over something or someone.  Do you notice the feelings "welling up", much like a water well that is now rising up filling to the point of overflow?  The Energy of the Emotional Layer is able to affect all the Chakras but starts in the First or Root Chakra and travels up (hence that "welling up" feeling).  Next, try to get more involved with calming yourself down and blocking the energy emitting from others.  Have something prepared ahead of time you know will be effective, and then stick with that routine. (I will give affirmation suggestions later.) Keep yourself calm and do one of two things:  Bless and release it over to the Lord to handle the situation making you not the front-line person here but more of a person standing ALONGSIDE of the Lord Jesus.  Imagine the Lord Jesus standing right beside you with the situation and visualize that He will lead you with what to say and do in any given circumstance.  Then tell yourself that this is where your Heart is now contained, with Jesus inside your Heart and the TWO of you are now completely one with each other.  That way you will soften the energy felt. Deep breathing techniques can also be done so that you can do some Self-Reiki on yourself while you are calming yourself down.  That way you should sense that just by taking a few deep cleansing breaths it would allow for you to deal more with the issue of relaxing your body, too.  Why involve the Lord in your shielding?  Because all psychic abilities come directly from God and with His effort you will always have that level of protection you seek.  Doing techniques yourself like imaging a mirror reflecting back to others or a brick wall shielding you from others only places your hope and trust in something imaginary that doesn't have all that much strength.  When the imagery fails you, and you try something bigger, like a larger wall, all that does is drain you down even more with the effort, and by then your trust isn't strong with the actual effectiveness.  Another thing to mention is that psychics working with their Guides will find that the Guide can easily swipe away their mental image of a wall, just to demonstrate how ineffective that practice is. Keeping in mind that you are always having your empathy working there, you do need to keep in the back of your mind the idea that watching movies or television programs that are highly charged emotional shows will make your mind, body, and Spirit affected.   You need to prepare yourself with this if you do watch some movie that is going to be involving your emotions like this and to "distance yourself" with your feelings while watching the program. Just by keeping in mind that "this is just a movie, and they are only actors" will help.  (Remember this article is about those who are having difficulties being a new Empath.) What I feel works best is to meditate prior to connecting to Spirit for the reading.  During that meditation to pray and prepare yourself emotionally and how specifically to emotionally prepare is to do a "Self Hypnosis" type of conditioning.  You tell yourself (as in giving yourself specific instructions) to not accept anyone emotional feelings other than yourself, to not be connecting so deeply that you will feel their pain at the level it was done to them.  You will not allow yourself anything other than a professional attitude.  You will connect only as deep as you yourself feel comfortable in doing.  Remind yourself that you are here in the NOW and not back in the past, reliving it.  You give yourself a strict outline of what your "DO's and DON'Ts" are you see.  When a psychic Astral Projects which is how most psychic mediums are when they see into whatever is happening with a murder they MUST stand back enough to not sense the Auric Energy that is remaining there at the site of the murder.  They can relive the event, seeing whatever has happened to the victim, yet they must FORCE themselves to stand further back if they are picking up too much emotionally there.  Don't be drawn into it, be an Observer, not a Participant.    If the psychic is not able to do these deliberate efforts, then they shouldn't be doing this in the first place.  It takes a strong psychic to do this without having complications either during or afterwards with the trauma.  Not everyone can be an emergency room nurse or doctor for example, see what I'm saying?  What I say after doing a reading for someone is "I bless you and release you back to the God Within You."  It's always worked for me! © Copyright 2005 - All Rights Reserved