You can feel it before you enter the room. The stirring of emotions. Anger, sadness, anxiety, joy. And now you feel unsettled. Perhaps you were with a depressed friend and now you find yourself sinking in depression. Or you, ask your lover what is wrong and he/she says nothing and you know in your gut something is wrong, they just don’t know it, yet.

Empaths are people who are in sync with the energy around them. They can feel the energy and emotions of others, animals, plants, and even the planet.

This can be overwhelming and suffocating. As often times, empaths struggle to separate themselves from the energies they pick up. Many empaths suffer from depression and anxiety.

However, empathy does not have to be an emptying and traumatic experience. It can be a source of healing, power, and unconditional love.

Tools to help:

1. Know you. Awareness and acknowledgment. Listen to your gut. Address your needs. It is easy to become a sponge sucking up everyone’s emotions and losing your own. Know when you are overwhelmed. Know when to set boundaries. Know when you need time to decompress and sort through the web of emotions you are tangled in. Take time each day, to ask yourself, "Is this mine or someone else's?" If it's not yours, see number 3, Boundaries. If it is yours, what do you need to do for yourself? What is your feeling trying to communicate with you?

2. Body check-in. Empaths bodies are highly sensitive. Many empaths also struggle with physical health problems. Check in with your body. How is it feeling? Tense? Light? Heavy? Take time to acknowledge what your body is feeling. Check-in for messages about what your body is picking up on.

3. Boundaries. Being an empath doesn’t mean you have to hold someone else’s emotions. It just means you are aware of. You can bring their attention to what you are feeling. But you don’t have to hold it, because it’s not yours to hold. It’s theirs. So, give it back. Taking it on does no good for you or them. Even by acknowledging the feeling, you are releasing it.

4. Support system. Have people you can turn to. That you can talk to. Those people who will listen to you. Those people who will jump in the hole with you and just be. Don’t discount your pets, if you have them. Dogs, cats, and horses can be incredibly healing allies.

5. Intention. It is helpful to set an intention each day for how you want to feel. How you want your day to go. Intentions can be powerful in helping align with your highest good and not be a sponge for other people’s messes.

Self-Care tools:

1. Crystals. Rose Quartz is the crystal of unconditional love. Carry this stone in your pocket to remind you that you are unconditionally loved. As well as, that to love others you don’t have to take on their stuff. Black Tourmaline is a protective crystal. Carry this crystal to give you an added buffer between you and the world.

2. Colored light. Before you venture out of your house, or room. Before you deal with the world. Surround yourself in a bubble (or any shape that feels good) of light, any color, just not black. Throw in some glitter, because glitter is reflective and negativity can bounce off of your glitter.

3. Force Field. Start with the colored light above. Now imagine that you are inside a force field, only this force field zaps away negativity and all that does not serve your highest good.

4. Salt bath with aromatherapy and herbs. Epsom salt or Himalayan salt is very cleansing. After a long hard day, take a bath with either salt. Set the intention that the salt water is taking away all that has stuck to you, consciously or unconsciously. You can also add fresh lemon or lime juice or essential oils of either, both are also very cleansing and clearing. You can also add fresh lemongrass or lemon balm which are also very clearing.

5. Release and Refill. Great to do at the end of the day. Get comfortable, either sitting or lying down. Set the intention, out loud, that you are, “Releasing and letting go all that no longer serves you consciously or unconsciously for your highest spiritual good.” Allow it to drain away, going into the Earth to be recycled. Once you feel that you have released everything. Let the Earth’s energy spiral up from the Earth and fill you. Let cosmic energy spiral from the sky through your crown and fill you. As you fill yourself, say, “I love me!” and “I love you!” Set the intention that you are filling you with you. Other great ways to refill you with you is doing something you love. Being in nature and laughing (either in nature or not).

Being an empath can be amazing. It can help you connect to people and even help people better understand themselves. Being an empath doesn’t have to feel like a burden or a weight. It is your magical power, that helps you navigate your world.

The Empowered Empath