acceptance
Extend Yourself The Grace Of Forgiveness
If you are an empath you may believe that forgiveness should be easy for you, or at least easier than it is for others. But I’ve spoken to many empaths and highly sensitive people over the years who all struggle with forgiveness.
One of the main issues with forgiveness for the empath is that we feel another’s emotions intensely, literally as our own. This muddies the waters considerably, because it tends to blur boundaries. Blurred boundaries can often lead to a closed mouth for an empath. Why? Because it is difficult for us, especially in childhood or in romantic relationships, to know where we end and another begins.
It is easy for others to manipulate appropriate boundaries with an empath, or to erase them altogether. All the empath knows is that there is pain, sadness, a sense of frustration, or anger. If you are an empath, then the question becomes are you angry with them, or yourself? Should you have been able to foresee the catastrophe happening, the relationship ending, job imploding, and so on. This leads to self-doubt and the rehashing of incidents that occurred years ago…with no resolution.
In the meantime, every time an empath thinks about the situation, past or present, we feel it…and the cycle continues.
Yes, you are empathic, intuitive, even psychic, but that does not make you immune to being human, neither does it make you all-knowing or all-seeing, especially when it comes to your own life, childhood or relationships.
Do It Anyway
No matter what we go through in life and with who, we always come back to the same place… a familiar place of being alone. The thought occurred to me the other day that we come into this world alone, and we go out alone.
Though we may be surrounded by others, at the end of the day, we are still alone when we go to sleep at night. Even if we are married, or in a relationship with someone who sleeps next to us, we still enter into the sleep state or dream state, alone.
Have you ever noticed that people who are comfortable being alone, have somehow mastered being alone without being lonely? There is a true comfort, freedom, and delight in being by oneself, alone. When we are alone, we can take an honest inventory of our life, who we choose to spend time with, and also decide how we wish to spend our time.
The relationship arena seems to be one of the most challenging areas of life. We all fall into traps and pitfalls that can steer us away from our natural state of happiness , which we come home to when we are alone. However, relationships also seem to provide a fast track for our own personal growth by revealing how we interact with other people.
Our relationships point out areas within ourselves that may require growth or increased self-love. Simply put, relationships show us exactly where we need to focus on to come back to a state of wholeness.
The Power Of Gratitude In Difficult Times
It is just as important to express gratitude and appreciation when we face the difficult times in our life, as it is when things are going well. In fact, it is even more important to express it during the hard times.
When our lives are on a downswing, the last thing on most people’s hearts or minds is to be thankful, or in a state of appreciation and joy. When we are struggling, our soul tends to be more aware of the negative energy of what is going on around us. This can ultimately attract the manifestation of even more negative energy, stressful situations and unpleasant events. In the end, even more bad days will come our way.
However, when we decide to stand strong and stop the downward spiral of our energy, and to be grateful for all of life’s lessons, whether good or bad, our energy begin to shift for the better.
When I pay my bills (a task that most of us really do not enjoy), I always write thank you under the last entry in my bank journal. When I think of the reason for doing this, especially when it means spending money on things that are not tangible and sitting in my hand, the explanation comes very easily. I am saying thank you for actually having the money to pay these bills – the hydro bill so I can have lights, the gas bill so I can have heat in the winter, the credit card bill for those urgent things I had to purchase, and the medical bill that allowed me to purchase the medication I need to keep my health in check, and so on. Even though these things may not be material things that I can feel or see every day, it means something at some point to make my life better.
Learning To Love Yourself
Sadly, my inner-critic began speaking to me at a relatively young age and continued to do so well into my 20s and beyond. Personally, I feel this played a large part in me losing my job at the age of 24, during the 1980s recession. It was a time in which work was so hard to find, and when I finally did, even more negative self-talk began to have an effect on my life.
With no job and no money, I felt worthless, stupid, disliked, and that I had no potential whatsoever. Most fortunately, however, I proved myself to be wrong and later found, from experience, that the way to a happier, more confident and fulfilled life was by learning to slay that inner critic and start loving myself. Furthermore, you can too! Here’s how.
Firstly, remember that you do have a choice. Which one will you listen to: your inner critic or your inner guide? I remember the time when I told my family I was going to start working in the spiritual field. Yes, they laughed and said to me that it would never work out for me, and I that I could not do it.
Sadly, this boosted my inner critic once again, but at this particular time in my life, circumstances and the need for a more fulfilling job made me look at things from a different perspective.
Humor – A Message From My Guides
We encourage everyone to remember the expression, “Laughter is the best medicine.”
Gossip and rumors abound. People overreact to perceived slights and unintended insults. Hair-trigger tempers flare and social media platforms expose issues for all to see. Friends interject their opinions without all the facts. Disagreements become exacerbated in the resulting spotlight. Politics can be polarizing. Stress levels are through the roof. Road rage is no longer an isolated incident. You can feel surrounded by potential conversational landmines.
At times like this, it is important to step back, take a breath and take a break. Come back to the issue with fresh eyes and determine whether it is truly worthy of consideration and comment, or whether it is a tempest in a teapot that will pass on its own. If necessary, deal with the issue using logic and forethought, rather than high emotion.
In times of stress, seeing the lighthearted side of anything can seem difficult, if not altogether impossible. However, there are some ways that you can soften the impact.
If you can come to terms with the idea of worrying only about those things you can really control and take the necessary action to control them, it will make it much easier to compartmentalize and to choose where to focus your thoughts and resources.
Apologies From The Other Side
Departed loved ones have come through to me many times over the years with a message of apology for how they treated me, or one of my clients. There is typically a common thread in these spirit messages: they didn’t know better at the time, but they do now, and they now see things differently. With the apology usually also comes great regret and remorse, acknowledging the pain they caused us.
For anyone who has been on the receiving end of abuse, I have come to believe that there is also a lesson in this. For me, the lesson has been learning to love myself. I was a people-pleaser for most of my life, and to some extent this is probably still the case, but there is a lesson in this too, in learning about self-love and learning to put my own needs first. My experience has been instrumental in enabling me to identify with others, and, in turn, I have become more able to help others the best I can.
I love the teachings of the spirit guide Emmanuel, as channeled by the late Pat Rhodegast. Emmanuel says, “If we were not meant to have done something, we would not have, but that it was all appropriate at the time.” I seem to recall his teachings stating that this does not mean that we should condone the harsh treatment of others.
As adults, we have more choices, but when family and loved ones treat us harshly, we often hope that things would get better, or that perhaps they were just having a bad day. I personally would do just about anything to please them, desperate to get their approval. Others often commented on and in hindsight they were right, but I would continue to hope.
Healing Painful Soul Memories
Every moment in our life creates a soul memory. Some of those memories are wonderful, and some are dreadful. The most horrific memories can be buried so deep, that the are no longer conscious memories, but they still affect how we move forward in life.
For example, a person who was sexually abused as a child may gain excessive weight or become self-destructive in their habits, in order to punish themselves, or to protect themselves from being the source of someone wanting to abuse them again. Because this abuse can happen at such a young age, the child may not have a conscious recollection of it until something in the present triggers it. They often have the barriers of protection they have created, but they do not know why.
When a trigger comes to surface that brings up a subconscious soul memory, it needs to be dealt with, or it will start to eat away at all the enjoyment in a person’s life. It will ruin their relationships, friendships and even work relationships, because the person simply cannot function at their true and full capacity with joy in their soul.
How do you heal painful soul memories? It takes a lot of work. It does not happen in a moment, or overnight. It is a matter of looking at each aspect, one at a time, forgiving what happened, forgiving yourself for carrying it for so long, and releasing it from your soul memory.