Gently Unwind (video)
What IS the difference between being an empath and being empathic?
As a child I constantly heard that I was too sensitive and people were frustrated with me because I was emotional. Sometimes I used to wonder why I was the only one crying and why other people weren’t crying!
Didn’t they feel the pain of the situation that was bringing me to tears?
Now I know, they did not feel what I felt. It wasn’t until I was an adult and took myself for years of counselling that I discovered I had a natural ability to carry other people’s burdens. I learned phrases like “empath” and “burden-bearer”. They may momentarily feel empathy for whatever the situation was, but they don’t actually take the feeling home with them, they don’t identify with it and struggle to find their own center again.
Are you a burden-bearer?
If you feel like you are carrying burdens, you are.
- News stories may affect you in such a way that you just can’t shake the feelings from them. If you’ve been exposed to negative stories, they seem to linger and affect your mood. It’s not as easy for you to shake those moods. You likely avoid the news and don’t watch TV much. As a child I was sometimes told to watch the news because it was important to be up to date on current events. My poor mom had NO IDEA what this did to me until one day she noticed that I was standing watching a story about someone having died in an accident and tears were streaming down my face. I was maybe 6 or 7 years old. Thankfully, that was the last time I had to watch the news. I do not watch the news to this day.
- You suddenly are feeling really strong emotions about a person, a topic or something and it almost seems as if these are not even your opinions or feelings. It might even feel like something has taken over inside you. You might be asking yourself, “Why did I say that? Why am I feeling that? I don’t know I felt that…” It feels like it’s just not yours and sometimes you wonder “Am I THAT permeable???” (Yes, you are but it’s actually pretty easy to shift this…ask me how.)
- People are always telling you you’re too sensitive or to toughen up. I certainly heard that one a lot growing up. (…also…”crybaby” was my nickname for a few years)
- You’re a pretty good listener and people seem to tell you their troubles all the time. In fact, you frequently find yourself having phone conversations where you never actually speak after “hello”. The other person talks until they stop and feel better. Unless you have the energetic skills built to withstand this, you usually leave the conversation quite deflated and tired.
- You may attract people who really suck your energy and you are not sure what to do about it. Some people refer to this as “energy vampires” but I was always afraid of vampires as a child so I don’t use that term. I’ve learned many ways to feel great even when I can’t remove that person from my life. I can teach you how to do this too!
- It feels like people are subconsciously picking up on how goodnatured you are and sometimes when you walk into a room you feel as though you’ve stepped into a thick soup. Almost as though your primal fight/flight/freeze/faint response has kicked in. If people are stressed, you seem to feel stressed and don’t know quite how it happened. If people are angry or frustrated, and you weren’t before you walked into the room, you feel off balance and have this urge to hide in the bathroom or something. It may take time before you even become aware that all those feelings are NOT YOURS. They’ve stuck to you like a burr in the forest.
It’s actually not that hard to find your center and stay there. The hard part is remembering those negative feelings are JUST NOT YOU. It’s not your fault and it’s a beautiful sign that your boundaries are being tested. You can master this, by the way! There are nurturing ways to care for your gifts (yes, being an empath is a gift and not a curse) and it just takes practice.
Ask me how
What is AFT (Aroma Freedom Technique)
AFT – Recovering from trauma
AFT is a step-by-step process using essential oils to trigger a permanent shift in how we experience ourselves and the world.
AFT is a tool for clearing traumatic memory. AFT is a tool for clearing blocks, negative memories and stressful memories. You do not have to believe in the process for it to work and be effective.
Introducing the aroma of specific essential oils at the right point in the process of recall can break apart this memory complex and thereby restructure the implicit learning connected with the memory. Results are consistent with the most recent research on Memory Reconsolidation.
How does it work? We use beautiful, healing essential oils as part of the healing process because essential oils affect the memory centers of the brain extremely quickly.
Memories that are stressful or traumatic are stored based on the feeling of the event, not on the details of the event. The memory is stored as a complex of images/thoughts/feelings/body sensations. Our emotional learning is based on this memory complex. When specific essential oils are used at the right point in the process of recall, they can break apart a memory complex and restructure your connection with the memory.
Our conscious mind makes assumptions. Our conscious mind assumes that the memory creating stress or trauma is the one we consciously present. This isn’t always the case. With AFT we allow the unconscious mind to access our memories and present us with the events we may have forgotten or have not connected with our current concern.
AFT is an amazing tool to use as part of intuitive counselling. We honor what arises in each session regardless of what it is. Sometimes the events that are recalled seem unrelated but it’s the energetic imprint of that event we are healing.
What I Really Think About Law of Attraction
Have you ever had days like this?
So…I’m wondering if you’ve ever experienced LOA working even when you were not feeling positive?
We hear all about this in the manifestation world/business/goal achievement world that you must feel good for the LOA (law of attraction) to work in your favour. Hmmmm….I don’t thing so.
I’ve noticed in my life that it’s visualization and time spent in quiet envisioning my miracles, hopes and dreams and NOT the emotions from day to day that seem to make things happen.
I have soooo many experiences of this that I do not believe how we feel day to day really even matters.
It’s how we picture and live in that picture and REALLY FEEL that we are in that image we create. THAT’S where the feelings matter.
Negative day to day feelings don’t matter nearly as much as seeing ourselves succeeding even with the negative feelings.
I guess if Law of Attraction really is a law then it doesn’t really matter what I think! It’s going to work it’s magic in my life regardless.
Intention, intention, intention…that’s where the gold is.
Interconnected universe {#4 in my series on resilience}
Knowing, also, as even the scientific world attests, that we are apart of an interconnected universe, in which the smallest movement of a butterfly’s wing could actually have an effect on the whole system, I can imagine that each of us generates ripples of influence through who we are, what we do whether we love and if we pray and that someday we shall know.
(Jean Shinoda Bolen)
Friendships.
People who can access friendships during times of transformation and tumult, experience greater resilience. And it only takes one friend.
I’ve been so lucky! I’ve had a handful of friends this year who have listened to me, called, texted, messaged, skyped, prayed, imagined, laughed and laughed and laughed and sat quietly and taken it all in. They’ve just been present and that presence has increased my balance and made it possible to quietly move forward.
They haven’t been the friendships I’ve nurtured in the last 15 years either.
Go figure.
They have been super old ones from childhood and high school. And super new baby ones from my new life as an intuitive life coach.
Fascinating. (to me)
Resilience + A Super Simple Map to Check Your Location {#3 in my series on resilience}
I was in the midst of a series of posts on resilience when my own life rose up in a huge distracting way and I needed to put all my mental, emotional, spiritual, financial resources toward facilitating this HUGE shift. Reserves of resilience were required.
Resilience.
There is soooo much research now on this topic from studying survivors + thrivers of the various holocausts around the world, survivors of abuse, survivors of extreme challenges, thrivers in business.
Dr. Borysenko says knowing the Map of the Territory (3 stages) is helpful in navigating your own life challenges and impending transformations. Sounds simple, right?
1. First you die to who you were.
It’s understanding that whether it’s an illness or a life challenge, you realize you are no longer who you were and you have yet to become who you will be.
For me, I had to die to the idea that my marriage and home life were workable. That life was clearly over. That dream died. Quickly. Unexpectedly. Once I accepted this I moved and took charge completely of creating a new beginning.
2. The Limnal Phase.
Be patient with the unknown. You are at a threshold of a new life. You are living in the time between no longer and not yet and you can’t rush through. You have lessons to learn.
So much of the last 3 years of my life felt limnal. Who was I after closing my children’s music school? Will I be able to successfully work as an intuitive life coach with my new training? Who am I without all the people and activities that kept my life in place?
Even though this crumbling of my marriage really should logically require time in the limnal phase, I feel that walking away from that world was right at the edge of my limnality.
3. The Return to Life.
This is where you come back to life. You return with a soul that is deeper, more compassionate and wiser.
I’ve moved back to the city. I’m back in the throes of the energies of a more urban life. Back at the gym. Meeting new people. I’m starting to imagine my life beyond all my losses of the last few years. I still rest more than I used to. But my appetite is returning. I’m cooking. I’m beginning to create in my art studio. I’m playing with my favorite folk orchestra again.
It’s a beginning. I’m juuust on the edge of my new life. Not always happily. Yet.
Not always able to not look back. Still I’m not imagining that old life will return. It’s over. I have a new home. I’ve accepted that many friendships will not travel with me into my new life. I’ve been shocked to discover some childhood friendships are the strongest ones in my life. I’ve leaned on them with gratitude.