Tag Archive for: subconscious

Connection with water.jpg

Years ago someone called me an empath. I was like “what is that?!” Back then, it wasn’t a mainstream term. Even as I am typing this, my computer still insists on automatically changing “empath” to “empathy”. All I could find at the time was that an empath was a sensitive person. OK, I had been told I was “sensitive” and “too sensitive” since I can remember…so? Then I learned that an empath was someone who could easily feel other people’s emotions. Ohhhh…

For a while, I felt special and validated that someone called me an empath. All those times when I felt bad about being called sensitive like it was a bad thing. Now look at me, I could feel someone else’s feelings, sometimes before they could even make sense of them themselves. How do you like me now? I thought. But it’s not all as glamorous as it seems to be. 

Empaths make really good teachers, nurses, therapists…you get the idea, the caregiver type. So what do caregivers usually do? They take care of everyone else, put the needs of others first, take on everyone else’s problems, sometimes to the point of burning out. 

My husband asked me the other day whether someone is born an empath. As much as I would like to give the credit to the Universe for this ability, most empaths – and I say most because I don’t like to generalize although my personal belief is that this is true for all empaths – have suffered trauma, especially childhood trauma.

When you experience trauma at a young age, your survival depends on your ability to stay safe. For that to happen you learn to recognize very quickly any sign of danger. Your brain is constantly scanning for any deviation from the baseline: a change in the caregiver’s tone of voice, how heavy the footsteps are, how fast someone is walking, what words they say or not say, any movement in their eyes or whether someone speaks or not etc. That’s how you decide how to respond to the situation in a way that ensures your safety.

Just like any other skill, after years of practice, you become really good at it. And you take this skill with you into adulthood. People will come to you to tell you their life’s story or to get advice. Also, you might draw narcissists into your life because…well, darkness cannot exist without light.

If you think or know that you are an empath, then you probably also like being close to the water. Water purifies and clears the extra energy that you carry. If you don’t live close to a beach (and let’s face it most of us don’t) then I recommend showers to release the stress and energy you don’t need. Place your hands on the ground. Walk barefoot outside. Hug a tree (c’mon it’s a thing now, no one will make fun of you!) Spend time in nature or with animals. Watch movies that make you laugh.

In a word, take care of yourself first.

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Do you believe that it can get better? 

This was one of the best questions I’ve heard in my life! It stomped me by how simple and yet revealing it is. In my 40+ years, I’ve seen plenty of health practitioners and no one, NOT ONE, asked me this question. And here I was, talking to my acupuncturist and she asked me: do you think it [i.e. my health] can get better? 😳 I paused and thought “Holy crap!” 

How we think about life is what we get out of life. No, none of us asked for difficult things to happen, and yet, how do we look at them? Is it something that happened to us or something that defines us? 

Think about it. Have you ever talked to someone who’s always overworked, over scheduled, who’s always responding to things because “it’s always something” as if they can’t do anything about it? Why do you think that is? Let me share a short story with you.

Some time ago, I was talking to a potential client and they knew more than I could possibly ever know about their condition. They’ve done their research, they’ve been living with it since childhood so they had all the information they needed. Even more than they needed. They came to me for help, and yet every suggestion I made was met with a variation of “that’s never going to work for me”. And you know what? They were right and I told them that. It was never going to work because they didn’t believe that it could get better. And that’s fine. At that time they were not ready for it to get better or they did not need it to get better. What they needed was someone to listen, to empathize. So I did just that, because that’s what they needed.

The point of the story is that when we are ready for things to change, they can change. The first step is in our conscious mind. Then the subconscious will make it happen. So what do you say? Do you believe that “it” can get better? Whatever your “it” is…