The joy of being sensitive: A page from the life of an empath

The joy of being sensitive: A page from the life of an empath

I’ll be honest with you. I am a sniffling, teary eyed, moody brat. In a word, I am sensitive. And I am proud. That being said, now we can get on with the real topic of this article: being an empath. I am an empath.

This does not mean that I fall to pieces when I am in large crowds of people or that I pull my hair out when I am around dysfunctional family members. What it does mean, is I have the ability to feel way deeper tha
I would sometimes like too.

When I was a kid, being an empath was not only scary; it was dangerous to my physical health. By this I mean, that my sensitive nature was considered a weakness in my family and this weaknesses often met with the Mississippi “hickory stick” alias switch.

Still, no matter how many times I found myself on that long walk to the back yard( adults not only used the switch, they made you pick your own) I could not help the agonizing pain(or sometimes pleasure) that came from picking up on other peoples moods and emotions.

I was called crazy. I was called cursed and evil. I was called sick. But, never once was someone clever enough to call me an empath. Life as an empathic child was pretty horrible.

Not only did I feel other people to the point of feeling as if I was becoming them, but I also heard and saw images that I could not explain.
I heard the voices of adults and children; saw flashes of scenes while walking by houses and buildings; and often had vividly detailed nightmares that I could not explain.

Added to this, I often knew what my mother and brothers were feeling and would often carry their confused emotions along with my own.
By the time I was ten years old; I’d already had my first mental melt down. The first would be followed by another one four years later.

It was during the later of these mental melts, that I learned what was happening to me. I noticed that I seemed detached from myself in many ways, and that I was constantly picking up the emotional baggage of other people.
Without knowing clearly what I was doing, I did my first self grounding technique. I visualized myself as an energy surrounded by light and saw all other energies connected to me being gently pushed away. By morning, while still weak and tired, I felt stronger.

In my late teens, after being introduced to various metaphysical, spiritual and self-healing techniques, I looked for information that might help me understand better what I was going through. I was certain of a few things: I was not evil, I was not crazy, and I was not sick. But, I still needed to find more clues to the state of being I had inherited.

It would be years before I would come across information on being an empath. I read books on channeling (something I had also been doing for years without realizing it), clairvoyance (another blessed gift), psychic development (an added life bonus ), and much more.
While each of the things that I read about was certainly a part of me, they were not developed as much as my ability to feel energy to the point where I felt like I was the person. Finally, after an internet search, I chanced upon a book called the “Book of Storms” (mysilentecho.com). The writer Jodoa Tai Alexander, I later found out, had already made his life transition-and was no doubt-teaching in other realms.

No other collection of information fit who I was more perfectly. I am now in the process of fine tuning my empathic abilities. I know how to turn off the sound-so to speak-and when to turn it on. I know too, how to shield myself from other peoples overly oppressive emotional states, while sending them light, love and peace at the same time.

Being an empath is not an easy gift to hold. Yet, it has shaped the person who I am and given me a greater sense of compassion, understanding and love for the human condition. So the next time, you see someone who you think is too sensitive: realize that they are probably just tuning in to the frequency of you. You can learn a lot from an empath.