And so it begins

April 10th, 2013 changed my life with one simple sentence from a dear friend of mine. "You know you're an empath." Huh? What did she say? It's very few and far between that I am shocked silent, but this time I am. I considered myself to be a spiritual person, despite the fact that organized religion scares the crap out of me. But I know. I know there's a God. I know there's angels and spirits and an afterlife. How? I couldn't tell you honestly. I just know. It is what it is. I keep my religious beliefs to myself because I truly respect the right of others not to believe. But I digress.

I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it for a few seconds. Swallowing hard, I will my mouth to work again and kind of pretend that didn't just happen. I do the best I can to keep up with the rest of the conversation... but DAMN! An empath? What in the world is an empath because I have no idea. So like most people this day and age, I run to the computer as soon as the phone call is over. I trust Carol and I've always believed in her because she knows so much more than I do. Her connection with God and the angels and the spirit realm is something I openly envy. But honestly, I'm 31 years old and I've never heard of this or even known it exists?! What is wrong with me?! Plus what's wrong with her for not telling me this in the 3 years I've known her? I'm sure she'll tell me I wasn't ready and honestly, she'd be right. I wasn't ready. I knew I was sensitive, but I never knew how much of that was real and how much I was making up because I wanted it to be real. Since I seem to be being so honest, I do remember her telling me I was sensitive and spiritually gifted and my skills would emerge when the time was right... but... well but nothing. I have no retort for that so I'll just throw up my hands in the air and say C'est la vie!

For 13 days I have done research and reached out to other empath groups and worked on developing my spirituality, but I'm so overwhelmed. After all of that research and pouring through people and websites, I'm still left with the question, "Now what?" What am I supposed to do with this? Does it make me weaker or stronger? I don't even tell most of my friends because I'm very sure their feelings about me will change and not in a good way. Like me all those years ago, they just aren't ready. So what's a girl to do with this "gift"? Well as I research I see there's a lot of people asking the same questions I am. There's a lot of people feeling lonely, isolated, and adrift in this gift like bottles floating through the ocean regardless of whether they've known their whole lives like me or not.

So for all of you out there that say "Now what?" I say, "I don't know!" I don't have all of the answers. I'm on a learning curve too, but why not compile everything I know so far, and put it out there for other empaths?

In my first ever post on this blog, I will tell you what every single empath needs to know and that is how to shield yourself! You can't live a full life being swamped and bombarded by the emotions of others, be it human, animal, nature, or objects. It's not fair to us. It debilitates us and makes us want to be hermits. I don't know about you, but I look GOOD in a tan, so being a hermit is out of the question. Plus, I'm not sure my kids would appreciate that either. To properly shield yourself takes time and practice, but like all things, becomes second nature.

The first thing you need to know is it's all in your head! I know that sounds silly, but it's true. It's all about imagining and believing. So if we can all channel our inner Albert Einstein here for a minute I'll explain some solid techniques that work quickly and hold strongly. Twice a day, morning and night, imagine everything bathed in a pure white light made of pure love. (I can feel some of you raising your eyebrows in skepticism. I'm not nuts... I just play one on TV. HAHAHA!) Picture yourself shining like a star; bright, brighter, brightest. That light is made of God's pure love and the only thing that's allowed in is love and light from God and the angels. I know some of you don't believe in God and that's okay, but you'll need a strong image of whatever you do believe in because it takes some serious faith and will to keep this steady. I've tried all kinds of images to hold the negative energy away from me, but really I end up drawing it to me and the images fade.

I used to use a big, pink, fluffy cloud. I pictured it surrounding me, not letting the negative energies in, only the good stuff. I pictured the good stuff shining through like when the sun shines through clouds... but this didn't hold! I don't know why, but it just didn't. The white light does hold for me. Maybe it's because it's easy for me to picture myself as a star shining bright. I picture it burning up all the bad like Claire Danes in that movie Star Dust! Now that's a powerful image and easy to hold! Don't forget to do it twice a day and soon it will become second nature.

In light and love;
~A