Shielding: Living in the Calm

As an empath, I absorb energy around me. Until yesterday, I have never been successful at controlling that. I found a great empath communitiy  and joined. I learned a couple of visualization techniques to shield myself from all the energy I absorb. One involves a symbol that I can use to remove excess energy that I have absorbed and another that involves visualizing my cells moving apart, creating space for the energy to slip past. Empaths must constantly clear this energy or life becomes extremely uncomfortable. Trust me on this. I’m 56 now. It took me this long to find out that I can actually control what happens to me.

Until yesterday, I never knew what true calm felt like. It’s an amazing feeling. I envied others who could stay calm in difficult situations. Heck, I envied others who were calm in calm situations. Because it isn’t always about the situation. Sometimes it’s the other person. Empaths refer to these people as energy vampires, not because we actually think of them as vampiric in nature, but that being around them seems to actually drain us of our energy. Even thinking about them can do it, whether you’re with them or not. I seem to be attracted to these people because my life is filled with them. Most of the time, they have no clue what effect they have on me, so it’s not intentional on their part. We’ve all been around people that seem to project energy outward. We call them flighty, or intense, and they seem to raise the energy level in the room. Public speakers can be great at this. No one means to hurt me, but I’m affected anyway.

Sometimes I can ride the energy and it’s positive. But mostly, it’s confusing being so overwhelmed when nothing outward is actually happening. And now I have some tools to deal with all of it. I use the clearing tool to “clear a path” in large stores so that I can get through the moment quickly and get out of there. I’ve always done that without knowing I was doing it. Apparently it’s another technique empaths find helpful. I’m sure most of us do thing to deal with this without even knowing we’re doing it. So finding a community of empaths who know how to do these things is such a blessing.

Empaths with an extreme outward focus, as I have always been, don’t take care of themselves. Their entire live is lived in service to others, forgetting themselves entirely. Well, not entirely, and that leads to depression. We can never get out of the trap we eternally find ourselves in because we don’t understand that how we feel isn’t our fault. It’s no one else’s either unless the person is doing something intentionally. We think we’re insane, although we’re completely sure we’re not. But when your focus is external, you believe whatever others say about you. It’s a response not reflective of truth.

I’m not going to tell any empaths out there what to do, but that link to that community is at the beginning of this post.. 

Life CAN be better..I promise..

UPDATE:  At the store today, I saw my former dentist who, after committing insurance fraud against me, wrote me a scathing two page letter excoriating me for refusing to continue using him as my dentist, and I walked right past him without feeling anything. Without shielding, I could have never done that..