Step Five of intuition: Shutting down the Chatter

Empathy

Today I'm discussing the controversial topic of the rather new 'Empath' existence. Not to be confused with Empathy and the use of. My opinion goes against the trend and will challenge people who call themselves 'an Empath'. I did too, once but I eventually saw the light and I'm all the better for it.

I will take you on a jaunt before making my point, for clarification purposes and all I ask of you, is to be patient. All will be revealed.

Empathy, at its simplistic level, comes from a place of choice and the ability to feel compassion for others. Not everyone chooses to give a damn about other peoples feelings but there are those rare jewels that do and with no need for thanks. These people have strong boundaries but are moved to act when compassion is required. They require no payback and don't feel the need to fix, they just feel empathy and have a moment that blesses an individual quite out of the blue. These fleeting instances can come from sources unexpected.

The Cambridge Dictionary calls it, "the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation.

Gift of Discernment

Second to this amazing unicorn of a person are those who are spiritually born with 'the Gift of Discernment'. A very old term and almost forgotten, unless in religious circles but it still exists. This person is able to pick up on frequencies that spread across the emotional spectrum and decipher which the person in front of them, is working from. These seers have always been incredibly important to kings, noblemen and communities. This gift allows them to tap into peoples motivations, helping to protect their communities to spot, would be, charlatans. Those who have the gift of discernment or have the ability of being empathic - and are either of a mature age or character - don't see it as their duty to intervene on any individuals pathway; helpful, yes but they don't enable, they observe. They might pray for you but they are a spectator mostly. Why? Because they understand personal boundaries and respect others; even if those around them do not respect there own. But that's another topic for another day.

What is enabling.

To enable someone, is to stunt personal growth by intervening in their learning process. It stunts their own capacity for personal incites and/or stops short the space needed to develop their own strategies of living on this mad planet; rock bottom, is sometimes the place where people learn the best lessons. Am I saying we shouldn't help people? No, not at all. The issue I'm talking about here is doing 'stuff' for people when really they should be doing 'stuff' for themselves. If a friend or relative asks you to do something that they are perfectly able to do but they know you can do it quicker, better and with less stress to themselves and you agree, then you've just enabled. This is important to note because people with empathy or the gift of discernment will decline and go away and let you struggle, knowing that you'll be able to do it, eventually, and will have learnt a valuable lesson in the process. It doesn't feel nice to drift away or say "Sorry, no I can't" when people close to you want help but it's not healthy to keep doing it either for yourself or them.

The Empath

And then in came the phenomena of the Empath, on stage right. Instead of the wise, we have the withered and harassed. Where we have inner strength and restraint, we begin to see people calling it a heavy burden that is almost unliveable to cope with. Where we see self-control and self-reflection we now hear empaths talk of their gift as an affliction. They spend months on blogs with much moaning and gnashing of teeth, at the heavy burden they bare. There is a lot of talk, which smacks of victimhood and they enable each other with passed around sympathy and support groups. What the heck is going on here?

Now to my past transgressions

For decades, I had experienced also an overwhelming sensation, when around other people but I didn't understand the why's and whereof's back then. I, like many others, searched in the dark and eventually came across this term 'Empath'. It sounded about right, so off I went with my new found title and all was well with the world until my spiritual guide pulled me up short, after about a year and pointed out a few discrepancies in the narrative. Below I hope to clarify my understandings as well as my rectifying of the established narrative.

In the beginning ...

I would be in a room full of people (which I love by the way) and after 30 minutes I would become anxious and jittery. For a while I became convinced I was an empath (I'd read about it) and so put it down to that. I read more, learnt how to navigate this "spiritual danger zone" and got on with my life.

I'm convinced otherwise now and for very good reason which is why I asked you to read about people who use and experience empathy and the people who have the gift of discernment.

It might be shocking to read and painful to face but the empowerment from recovering from a false diagnosis and a misleading narrative is immense. I promise. The outcome of facing the lie, is so much better though, than remaining in it, as I explain below.

Empaths - What they are reported to be.

There has been a huge marketing like movement of understandings on the concept of Empaths over the last few decades and I'll admit I fell for it, for a while. But here I'm going to challenge the concept.

Empaths are described as individuals who have the ability to sense peoples emotions and be able to differentiate the emotions of what others are feeling. They reportedly act like energy sponges which is why they don't like being around people, especially large groups; too many peoples feelings and they just can't cope with it all. There is a host of things that empaths can do to cushion these experiences and loads of groups for them to join. I've even taught on the grounding effect of the 'Bell Jar' technique, to many, many clients and it truly works; if they choose to use it. Many don't though or won't because the empaths perceived condition enables them to believe it is beyond their control which means that they don't have to do anything about it. Plainly speaking; it is an excuse not to work on themselves. Progression takes work and effort and a willingness to change and spiritual progression is just as hard and taxing as anything else we need to overcome in this life but it holds its own rewards and can take us to a more powerful place.

What I believe they are actually suffering from

I write this with the knowledge that I will be entertaining empaths coming to this site and my hope is not to threaten your existence or experiences but rather help you enter a world which is far more easier to handle and that actually makes sense.

People have made a small fortune from this movement and a whole load of unfounded, made-up, speculation has been born and innocent people have walked into this business because nobody has challenged it. For those people I can only apologise because the authentic spiritual people in our community should have intervened years ago.

Now as a former younger woman myself who believed all the empath rhetoric, I feel I have the authority to give my opinion on this matter and as a now mature woman who has come out the other end, it is my honour to say that there is another way, a better way to look at this subject and deal with what is actually happening.

The trigger List

All empaths have a variety of things in common: stressful or traumatic childhoods or experiences. Controlling (although some by passive means) parental figures, underdeveloped or non-existent personal boundaries, lacking in seeing others boundaries, overthinking, lack of self-empowerment skills, auto-immune conditions, emotionally-led speech, behaviour or body language, underdeveloped personal accountability, negativity or pessimism or a naive illusions (denial), martyrdom and a propensity for feeling sorry for themselves in general. Seeking others to enable them (which is unfortunate because they often have debilitating auto-immune conditions, due to a life-time of stress). Not lastly because I could go on, but at least for now, the need to help people endlessly and put themselves last (inner-child rescuing complex?) but here's the key to this whole sorry state of affairs; it's actually about 'control' (see below for more details).

These on my shortened list are, I admit, painful to read. I get it, I was there. That was me too. My guide didn't want me in that emotional position either but that is what I was like before I sorted myself out with the much needed and loving help from my guide.

I have met a ton of empaths over the decades and they always have at least most if not all of these characteristics with a few other things dotted in for good measure.

The big red flag for me, came about as I was some way forward on the path of spiritual development (there is no end by the way) and the clarity hit me, how this narrative made no earthly or heavenly sense.

How this delusion came about

Without getting into deep conspiracies of who is too blame, I can say that its motives were to disempower great swathes of potentially spiritually gifted people who could be awake and progressive.

The motive? It made them victims instead of powerful beings, it turned them inwards, into spiritual navel gazing individuals, putting a full stop where there should have been a comma on their road to spiritual clarity and progression. And it needs to stop.

So what to do?

First, let's look at what you're most likely experiencing and go from there.

As a Hypnotherapist, I have witnessed too many clients to count over the years who start talking about their parents in a doting fashion (red flags go up straight away, by the way, when doting talk starts) and then slowly, the family stories are revealed where blatant acts of cognitive dissonance are waged upon them as children, that has invariably prevented them from having crystal clear clarity of their truly toxic family dynamics. The twisting of what is truth and what is not their fault or issue is blurred and navigating these scenarios as a child and then as an adult becomes a primary goal to meet.

When a child has undergone years of abuse, of one form or another, they will find one way or another to survive it. Children will either learn to desensitise and distance themselves: numbing emotions, avoidance of feelings OR over-sensitise themselves to their surroundings, making them super alert to potential signals of dangers.

After the age of 10-12 yrs of age this method of dealing with their experience of life so far, is set in stone. You can manage it, you can heal, you can heal particular areas and resolve issues but there will always be a propensity to stick to your chosen safe, guarding, method. Which method, is all down to personality and temperament; your mind will always choose the easiest root.

Slightly off shoot for a sec

There is a good argument that trauma can cause the awakening of the spiritual side of us but one persons trauma is not necessarily another's and I'm undecided about this as I have witnessed very spiritual people who haven't experienced any abuse and abused children who are neither spiritual or call themselves empaths.

Back again...

Whether the child registers the abuse or toxic dynamics as an adult is irrelevant at this point but the propensity to be in control as much as possible is paramount. To serve the master the child quickly learns to check for energy changes in the room and within the person present. Their goal is either to maintain the equilibrium or energy of the care-giver (and what I mean by energy are nuances, body language, the state of the room, small tells of what is and what will be). So, for example, when the child walks in a room she/he will clock 'no TV on and sitting quietly' can mean a whole host of things in a volatile home - these are all indicators which the child with learn to take notice of subconsciously. This management skill has kept the child emotionally or physically safe, most of the time. Or so they think. It is a great survival tactic in a child's head but it's an appalling way to live as an adult and a poor spiritual gauge to keep, if you want to progress in your spiritual life and also in the workplace if you wish to help others.

For one, without recognising the differences of frequencies properly, you can, and empaths do regularly, misinterpret peoples frequencies, misread a room and individuals they don't know. Motives; good and bad, can be misinterpreted, otherwise why do empaths have so many toxic leeches around them. Two, looking at Maslow's Hammer theory on cognitive-bias, if the only tool you have is a hammer, you can be tempted to treat everything as if it were a nail. In other words, there exists amongst empaths, the propensity to red flag everything. This all doesn't ease their stress levels which urgently need to be lowered for health reasons.

Thirdly, lets look at control. Empaths regularly profess that they love humanity and its this love that makes it impossible to walk past somebody who is in need.

Let's look at some simple explanations of what's really going on here. Firstly rescuers are made but not all rescuing events are undertaken by professional emotional rescuers.

Survival Mode

Let's go back to the child in survival mode again, they are trying to control the atmosphere as much as possible and to do that, there are a thousand and one ways to try to accomplish this. It won't work 100% but if a child feels that it did, even partially work once, then they will keep to that method/s forever until they finally learn to let it go as an adult. It is about control though. For a good reason but it's still about control. Empaths main goal, as adults, subconsciously speaking here, is to keep the atmosphere 'within their head', calm and peaceful.

The issue is that everybody else needs to also be on the empath's same agenda too. So these children grow up always trying to control their environment or people and this doesn't alter as they grow up.

In simple terms; sub-consciously speaking and we're talking about the inner-child here, "I'm trying to keep my space as calm as possible but here is a person who has brought in illness/sadness etc, etc, etc. I must fix this!" So in order to fix this matrix glitch, the empath must resolve this, then she will feel better again". And I'm not even going to begin explaining about the inner child rescuing rational because that makes it even more obvious and most of us know about that already.

How I changed

Firstly, I learnt to have boundaries. I learnt how to set mine up but also to respect others. Just because you see somebody in need doesn't mean you have the right to jump on in there. What about the Karmic lessons that you may be robbing them of, what about the 'enabling' facets to your relationships that you may be installing which will hinder their personal growth and your relationship. I learnt the valuable lesson of minding my own business unless asked, for the long term betterment of the other. I learnt the value of listening instead of fixing. I learnt that all I'm responsible for are my own thoughts, feelings, motivations and actions.

Second, I learnt to stop worrying what others thought about me. Period.

Thirdly, I cannot control others vibrations and neither should I try (they are on their own journey so I keep my nose out) but I can control what I choose to receive from them. Below is a video where I go into how to do that.

Fourthly, I worked on accountability. Instead of looking at a relationship and feeling blue, I looked again at what part we all played and what red flags I had chosen to ignore just because 'I wanted to help', or 'wanted a friend'. One extra thing I have learnt is that 'wounded dogs bite'. So if you don't want to get bitten, stay away from wounded dogs.

Now before people get this twisted, I'm not saying you can't help people but by getting clever at spotting individuals who like being victims and who like being enabled by others, will help enormously from being drained of energy by these individuals.

Fifth, I worked hard on self-empowerment and self-confidence. Don't let others thoughts about you, rock your sense of worth. Most peoples perceptions are skewed anyway by their own insecurities.

Six, I learnt to like my own company and found the centre of heaven within me.

And that is how I went from being an emotionally-led 'empath' to a balanced spiritually led human being - well, I try anyway ;o)