Category: Relationships

I am surprised by how many people consider themselves as an empath, because I used to consider this a rare thing. However, in a way, it’s reassuring to all of us to know that there’s more goodness out there than we realize. So I feel disheartened when an highly empathic person is experiencing burnout and retracts from their fullness. This is why, I want to address the three stages of being an empath. So that you no longer see empathy as a problem but as one of your biggest superpowers.

First of all, what is an empath?

In a world where everyone is so concerned about their own problems, you as an empath are naturally able to hold space for other people to share their pain with you. Most people don’t get that kind of acceptance for their emotions. So, in holding that space for them, you’re able to relate to them in a way where they feel like you “get” them and they can count on you for emotional support.

As a result, you attract a lot of emotionally dependent people, and seem to get even the most unfamiliar strangers to share their deepest secrets because they seem to trust you.

In other words, you can walk in most people’s shoes – you’re kind of the exemplification to the phrase, one-size-fits-all.

It’s different from sympathy where you are feeling bad for someone. Empathy is about validating another’s experience without fuelling the victim archetype. You get where they’re coming from, but you don’t enable their sadness. You instead have a natural way of elevating them to a higher perspective.

Many people consider empaths as “naturally gifted” or as born healers.

This becomes a problem for many empaths because they tend to get drained after such healing effects. They begin to see how deeply and intensely this relating to someone else can effect their own energy. And they want nothing to do with it, but they don’t know how to make it go away!

Using the explanation of the three broad stages of being an empath, I’d like to help you understand how holding our empath abilities back works against our spiritual development. And if we learn how to master our empathy as a superpower, it actually works for us.

The Three Stages of Being An Empath

Stage One: The Unaware Empath

At our autopilot, unconscious best, we are constantly absorbing from the world around us. Even those that don’t speak the spiritual lingo casually say things like “bad vibes” or “negative energy”.

It’s because whether we sharpen our skills or not, we all are fundamentally connected. It’s a collective consciousness, which means we can all feel each other’s emotions to some degree. As independent and “self-made” as we consider ourselves to be, we are all an indispensable part of the grand scheme of all life.

It’s like a stone dropping in clear water – the ripple effect goes on and touches every water droplet for lengths!

But the problem arises when empaths take on too much without knowing what’s happening and they experience a lot of mood swings and inner tug of war every time they try to help someone else. I like calling it the emotional sponge effect.

You tend to soak it all in – the good and the bad from a conversation, without realizing what’s yours to deal with and what wasn’t even yours to begin with.

We might spend decades being this way, until something finally shakes us awake.

Stage Two: The Retracted Empath

At this stage, you begin to have a sense of the different ways in which you’re absorbing other people’s energy. It’s normal for you to retract when you see how harmful something is for you.

So at this point, as a retracted empath, its common to think of thoughts like:

• “I care for everyone too much”;
• “I’m the only one that has to understand everybody”;
• “Why can’t people get me like I get them”;
• “I love helping people but I hate being around them”;

And so on. This is the ego-mind waking up roaring as a means to protect you. Nothing wrong with that, but if you keep buying into these thoughts, you will find yourself distancing from the people you used to love being around.

Spirituality 101? Anything that creates more separation in your heart or mind is the ego.

While you don’t need to absorb everything and feel bad about it, you also don’t need to “protect” yourself. There’s nothing to protect, if you’re fully aware of the energy and flow of your spirit. This is another one of those “spiritual myths” that is distracting us from stepping into our superpower.

But then how do you develop awareness of your energy and tune into the flow of your spirit?

• Get used to the idea that you’re susceptible to absorption. Instead of denying or running away from this experience, understand that it’s something we need to accept so that it can be managed.

• A good way to manage this is to practice clearing your energy at the end of every interaction (or at least before you go to bed). Here’s a free, powerful self-healing tool to help you release anything that’s not yours.

• Empower other people by not becoming an emotional crutch for them. While you sit there and hold space for their pain, don’t try to sweep in and save them. This is how they’ll learn it’s okay to cry, but that you’re not the only one that can wipe their tears.

• Also practice being more in the body, and less in the mind. When we’re running away from our own pain, we tend to escape and go into our headspace. But if you can be more “present” in the now, you become hyperaware of the slightest changes in the flow of your energy. And then, it becomes easier to not guess or carry that energy back home with you. You clear it as it comes.

• How do you that? Initially, it helps to work with someone that can guide you through different embodiment practices and teach you a new way of living. Who can you work with? I’m one option. You can set up a complimentary call with me here, if you’d like to. Or you can work with whoever you resonate with, along those lines.

• Use crystals, take salt baths and ground your energy back into Mother Earth. You know, the whole spiritual 101 stuff. 🙂

The Powerful Empath

If you’re the rare type of person that understand pains and has mastered how to transmute it, you are finally able to step into the true power of being an empath. You are a superhero.

For such people, they can make a beautiful coach, healer or therapist because they are able to hold space for all healing – their’s and of those around. Because they were willing to do their inner work, they’re able to help everyone around them dispel the darkness.

They are no longer afraid of being ‘hit’ by the wave of an emotion. They know it’s there for a reason, and they have all the right tools and mindset to deal with it.

Wasn’t that the whole point of ‘waking up‘?

We need more of such people. Are you ready to be one of them?

Concluding Thoughts

If we keep ‘protecting’ ourselves, not only are we digging our own spiritual grave, we are doing a disservice to the collective consciousness.

A simple example I’ve seen of this, is in some of my clients. When I clear some of my stuff, it automatically clears something in them. So many times, it wasn’t a logic that needed to be shared, it was a transcendence of energy that was required.

We don’t need to talk sense into people, because most people already know what they should do. But we need to exemplify how to do it without rejecting the parts of us that are hurting or aren’t perfect.

And when you get to do more of that, it is the most gratifying and fulfilling experience you can imagine! Imagine having that kind of impact on every person, in every conversation? Yes. I see that for you. And I hope you will choose to put on your superhero cape now 🙂

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Ready to take your healing deeper? Let’s talk about it! You’re welcome to setup a complimentary 30-minutes call using this form, and learn how you can set your spiritual plans into action. Don’t see a time slot? Send me an email here instead and let’s chat.

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When Renee reached out to me, I had no idea what I could do to help her understand her brother’s spiritual journey. But she did spark a huge realization. That no matter how empathic and spiritual we believe ourselves to be, our awakening has a bigger impact on our loved ones than we can imagine. And that it becomes our responsibility to help people around understand this spiritual awakening, to bridge this growing gap in the physical plane.

So, I reached out to every single person I could think of who would have some pieces to add to the puzzle. Every volunteer shared their perspective while answering the following set of questions:

• When did you have your spiritual awakening?
• In what ways did your behaviour change?
• Who were the main people to be most affected by your awakening?
• In what ways were your changes affecting the people around you?
• Looking back at that time, what would you do differently to help them understand your journey better?
• How has your relation evolved with your loved ones ever since your first stage of awakening?
• How can the family of the person undergoing an awakening deal with the rapid changes in a better way? What advice do you have based on your experience?
• If you’d like to share a testimonial or insight directly from your loved ones, you can email me separately.
• Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I’ve leveraged the answers to these questions in completing this book.

Collectively, our experiences are from anywhere between a few months of awakening, to several years!

Having said that, it is true that the research and depth of this will be never-ending. I don’t want to let my perfectionist stop me from hitting the publish button, because I believe that done is better than perfect.

So, consider this as a starting point in understanding the scope of a spiritual awakening and its impact on relationships.

The resource is written keeping both readers in mind – those that are undergoing an awakening, and those that surround this person and struggle to understand what’s going on. Throughout the book, I address those people as the “awaking” because I believe it’s a domino effect.

It might start with one person, but it has a ripple effect on every person the awakened one meets. And through that, as the saying goes (and I paraphrase), we transcend generations of ancestral trauma and heal the world around us.

One awakening at a time.

An extract from the book, Homecoming: A Spiritual Guide for the Awakened & Awaking

“I mean, what does it even mean to “wake up”?

Well, there’s no standard definition because the experience is very personal for every person. But what I can explain it as, is finally becoming more present in the moment and being able to see the different habits and patterns that form our reality. And then realizing that we have a choice to behave differently from our past patterns.

This is “spiritual” in that we also come to terms with something “higher” looking after us and facilitating our journey so we can keep evolving and learning from life.

Some may call this power God, others may say it’s the “Universe”. When we dial into that higher stream of consciousness, we are compelled to reevaluate our material needs and the impermanent nature of everything. This also catalyzes an inner wonder and curiosity about other, subtler possibilities beyond this dimension of space and time.

What does all that mean?

Think of your life as being on “autopilot” for most parts. So, you might sit in the car and drive home, but because you’re on autopilot, you might not even realize when you got home.

I mean, you will know you did. But if you had to explain your drive home, you might not be able to give much detail.

That’s because the mind has evolved to register our everyday nuances as involuntary actions and experiences, so that it can focus on something else.

It’s good for us… until it’s not.

It’s not a problem in the sense that we don’t want to have to “rethink” how to open a door or switch gears in the car. But some of our actions in relationships go on autopilot too.

Do you ever find yourself having the same argument over and over again? Only to realize you’re not going anywhere.

This observation is called “awareness”.

And when you have a spiritual awakening, it’s like becoming hyper-aware of your surroundings. You just wake up one day and realize how much of your life has been on autopilot.

There are so many flavours to this awareness, as it heightens.

You could become aware of your toxic relationships, of your emotional outbursts, of the limitations you have taken on because of your past conditioning.

This all leads to a LOT of inner turmoil. And as a result, most people find themselves experiencing an identity crisis.

Who are we, if not someone’s partner?
Who are we, if not for our day jobs?
And who are we, if not the habits we used to swear by?

This immense amount of questioning can lead to bigger questions, like the purpose of life, why you’re here on Earth, and then some. And to be honest, we should be asking those questions much sooner. But it typically takes an external turmoil to “shake us awake”.

That could be a bad breakup or the loss of a loved one to death. It could mean being intensely bored at your job, or something else.

In some circumstances, it could also just be the need of the hour. For me, I had a perfect life, on paper. I was in a high-respect corporate job and was surrounded by amazing friends and family.

And yet, something felt incomplete. I’ve shared more of my story here.

But the crux of all this is – when you are undergoing a spiritual awakening, you begin to lose all ground and clarity.

Even the smallest decisions seem very challenging. And in all this inner turmoil, it is vital to be able to talk about everything with people you trust.

It took me nearly a year before I started openly sharing my spiritual journey with friends and family. I would’ve loved to share this sooner, but I was afraid of being called “crazy”.

Of course, when I did share, none of that happened. People were receptive, even though most of them didn’t really get what I was going through.

I wish that same level of support for every person who comes on this path, though that doesn’t always happen. This is why I’m compelled to put together a few words on the topic.”

(end of extract)

This extract is from the introduction section of the book. We go much deeper into the different mindsets and challenges that happen during the spiritual journey, as well as insights on overcoming the separation that we experience with loved ones.

You can download the book from Amazon (available worldwide), or through the blog as a PDF, here.

Concluding Thoughts

We cannot and should not walk this path alone. Of the different realizations I have had over the course of my journey, one is that we believe we are much lonelier than we really are. Simply because we don’t know how to talk to people around us about all these woo-woo things and share our worldview with them.

And yet, as the world wakes up, more and more people long for deeper, meaningful conversations about life, and beyond. The word “meditation” has more Google clicks than ever!

So now, more than ever, we need to open up and help people around us understand our spiritual awakening. This is one of the core intents of the book. There’s a lot more too, I do hope you’ll read and enjoy this work.

Hold space for the ones that are waking up – build your tribe, both within your circle of known ones, and beyond them. And just know that I am holding space for your journey too. Let’s walk into Oneness together, shall we?

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Ready to take your healing deeper? Let’s talk about it! You’re welcome to setup a complimentary 30-minutes call using this form, and learn how you can set your spiritual plans into action. Don’t see a time slot? Send me an email here instead and let’s chat.

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Add some Love & Light to your inbox. Come join the monthly newsletter to get self-healing tools, insights and exclusive spiritual highlights.