energy exchange
Spiritual Self-Care Empowers The Empath
Because empaths spend a great deal of time experiencing the emotions and feelings of others in a very visceral way, spiritual self-care is especially important for us.
Work, family, friends, and intimate relationships, not to mention current world events, can take a toll on anyone, but they can be especially overwhelming for the empath. That’s why it’s important for empaths to be clear about which feelings and emotions are their own and which are coming from external sources.
Empaths are often compared to sponges, as they tend to ‘absorb’ all the energy and emotions around them. Sooner or later, the empath’s energy field becomes overwhelmed with energy imprints, residue, and attachments, and cannot absorb any more.
Instead of adopting a spiritual self-care routine to maintain their health and well-being, some empaths tend to engage in self-destructive behavior or self-medicate with food, alcohol, caffeine, or even drugs in an attempt to find relief. In the worst cases, this can result in a complete breakdown or worse.
It’s obviously wiser and much healthier for empaths to find a more constructive way to recharge their energy and center and ground themselves. Also, bad lifestyle habits will do nothing to shield your aura from outside energies.
How To Thrive As An Empath
Empaths have the unique ability to deeply experience and understand the emotions of others. While this gift is a wonderful source of compassion, strength, and connection, it also comes with its share of challenges.
Living as an empath can be a double-edged sword, as the heightened sensitivity to the emotions of others can lead to emotional exhaustion, boundary issues, and a constant struggle to maintain one’s emotional well-being.
One of the biggest challenges empaths face is emotional overload. Empaths tend to absorb the emotions of those around them, whether it’s joy, excitement, sadness, anger, depression, or fear.
This emotional absorption can be so intense that it can become overwhelming to the empath, leading to feelings of confusion, restlessness, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and even physical symptoms such as headaches and fatigue.
Managing this constant influx of emotional energy can be mentally and physically exhausting, sometimes leaving empaths completely drained and in dire need of some solitude and self-care.
The Basics Of Reiki
Reiki is popular concept in modern spirituality, metaphysics and energy healing. It is therefore good for anyone interested in these fields to have a basic understanding of this technique to engage in discussions with likeminded people in a meaningful way.
The term reiki is a combination of two Japanese words. Rei means ‘divine wisdom’ or ‘divine power,’ and ki means ‘life force energy’ or ‘vital human energy.’ Reiki is therefore a ‘divinely empowered life force.’
Reiki, or rather the system of Reiki, was developed in Japan a century ago by a Buddhist monk known as Mikao Usui. He was a renowned spiritual man who dedicated his life to being of service to others. While seeking spiritual awakening on Mount Kurama, north of the Japanese city of Kyoto, he was divinely inspired with the gift of Reiki. It was introduced to the United States in the late 1930s by Hawayo Hiromi Takata, a Japanese-American woman who received training in Reiki in Tokyo and became a master practitioner.
Although it is more commonly known only as a form of energy healing, true Reiki is in fact a comprehensive spiritual practice and a conscious lifestyle. Yes, it involves the healing of the mind and body, but it also proposes living in total peace with oneself, and being aware of your own unique purpose and spiritual light within. The system of Reiki seeks to remove the layers of fear, worry and attachments that conceal our innate brightness of being.
The Seven Layers of The Auric Body
Psychic perception or extrasensory perception is the ability to perceive information beyond the five normal senses. This ability is harnessed and used in all forms of psychic readings and mediumship.
The aura, also known as the subtle body, light body and human energy field, is an egg-shaped field of energy that emanates in different colors from us and encloses our entire body. The overall size, shape and dominant colors of our auric field is influenced by our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
Psychic connections can be made through different layers of energy in our aura or personal energy field, of which there are seven. Each of the seven auric layers are associated with the seven primary chakras or energy centers of the body, and reflects specific, personal aspects of our being. The auric layers essentially function as protective energy ‘sheaths’ or ‘buffers’ for our light body, similar to the layers of our skin protecting our physical body.
Psychics and mediums can access these auric layers to do many different kinds of readings and energy healing. Clairvoyant psychics do not only feel or sense these energies, but can also ‘see’ the size, color and shape of people’s auric energy.
Today, there is also modern photographic technology that can capture some of these energy layers of an individual’s aura in a visual image. Aura photography dates back to the 1930s and was discovered by Semyon Kirlian, a Russian inventor, when he found a way to capture the energy fields of living beings using high-frequency electrical currents.
Protect Yourself From Negative Energy Attachments
A neighbor once asked me to smudge her home and bless it, because she felt there was a lot of negative energy there. She could just ‘feel it.’ People lived below her that she could hear arguing until late hours in the night, using foul language. They would chain smoke too, to the extent that it would rise up through the floorboards. It made her feel sick and caused her to have migraine headaches. Apart from that there were also some old ‘cobwebs’ of trapped negative energy that she wanted me to some and clean out.
She had been dealing with the ups and downs of depression for as long I’ve known her. She is one of the sweetest people you could ever hope to meet, let alone have as a neighbor. She is very kind and always there if you need her. She would be very social at times, inviting friends from church over and entertaining friends regularly, for several weeks, and then she would suddenly feel overwhelmed by the chaos and drama of the people around her, feel drained and depressed, and withdraw from everyone. Then you would not see her for weeks, sometimes months.
I told her I felt that she needed to protect herself energetically and shared with her ways that she can do this. I explained to her that sometimes, when we engage with people, we can pick up some of their negative energies. Even if they are seemingly good people, who go to church and so on, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these people are free from negative energies, or worse, unwanted spirit attachments.
The Law Of Vibration
The metaphysical laws that govern our existence are known as the Universal Laws. The most well-known of these laws in mainstream culture is the Law of Attraction, but it is less commonly known that this law is inextricably linked to another important metaphysical influence in our lives, namely the Law of Vibration. These laws are in fact two sides of the manifesting ticket that determines whether we will be receiving more ‘good,’ or more ‘bad’ in our life.
When I first discovered the Law of Vibration, I learned that absolutely everything in the universe, both living and inanimate, is energy vibrating at different frequencies. Everything therefore has an energetic vibration, from the magnificent energies of the sun, moon and stars, to the simple energies of an ant or a blade of grass.
Why is this important in terms of the Law of Attraction? Well, because according to the Law of Attraction like attracts like. In other words, we attract into our life those things that match our own energy vibration. How we are ‘vibrating,’ and what we resonate with, will determine the results of what we attract in our lives.
When our vibration is consistently low, dense, and negative, then we are more likely to attract similar negative manifestations and more unpleasant life experiences. But when we exude a higher, lighter, open, and positive energy vibration, we experience more joy, fulfillment and good fortune, and manifest more abundance and prosperity!
Some people are always smiling, have lots of luck, and good things always seem to happen to them. But this is not because they are special people, or just very lucky. It is their vibration attracting in so much good, blessings, and good fortune.
Energy Awareness Is The Foundation Of Self-Care
As sentient spirit beings in human form we are constantly interacting with the energies of other people. This energy exchange can be a very positive, uplifting experience, or very toxic and draining.
Those of us who are empowered empaths or highly intuitive can typically discern if someone’s vibes are one way, or the other. Healthy or unhealthy. We usually know what kind of incoming energy we are dealing with.
But if this energy awareness does not come naturally to you, it is vital you develop your ability to discern the difference, because there is always an energy exchange whenever we interact with others. For this reason, I often encourage my clients, who are struggling with their energy balance and maintaining boundaries, to practice meditation and do related energy healing and protection work.
An unhealthy type of energy exchange that I frequently assist people with is when they have someone in their life who is narcissistic, entitled, toxic, or has a victim mentality. For example, just this week I helped someone who has been entangled in a deeply stressful, draining connection with a friend who was constantly placing her in the uncomfortable position of having to play therapist, counselor, and nursemaid.
It’s one thing to sometimes be there for a partner, friend or relative when they are going through a difficult time and need some support. But it is quite another when it becomes a constant, on a daily basis, with no apparent end in sight! Enough already. It is also pointless to try and support someone else with their mental health challenges when your own well-being begins to suffer because of it.
