Hello Everyone,

Happy holidays to you and your family! We find ourselves at the time of year for family and friends to gather around one another, sometimes for the first time in a long while, and reconnect. This time of year can be filled with good times and happy interactions. However, along with all of this holiday cheer, we often eat too much, drink too much and, for many of us, feel too much. Being an empath, especially during the holidays, can truly have it’s challenges. And so many of you are empaths that I thought the subject warranted its own newsletter. After all, what better time to offer some support to my ‘fellow feelers’ out there than the energetic festival that is the holiday season. What exactly is an empath? An empath is someone who can feel how someone else is feeling, even if they are not going through the same situation or experience. Empathic folks have fewer filters than regular people. They have extra sensors on their energetic fields and are able to receive more information via these receptors. Like an antenna, an empath receives emotional input from other people and their surroundings and is tasked with the job of filtering this input in order to survive. The problem is, in my experience, most empath’s don’t know they are emphatic. They just think they’re too sensitive or need to grow a “thicker skin”. They may have been told all their lives to “toughen up” or to stop being a baby. Many empaths feel ostracized, like they don’t fit in. Does any of this sound familiar to you? It can be incredibly draining to be an empath; especially if you’re unaware of it. Empathic people tend to require more alone time in order to transmute the emotions and energy of others that they are constantly picking up on.

Here’s a short list of traits that are common to empaths:

* Empaths are highly sensitive
* Empaths absorb other people’s emotions
* Empaths tend to be introverted
* Empaths are highly intuitive
* Empaths need alone time
* Empaths can become overwhelmed in intimate relationships
* Empaths are targets for energy vampires
* Empaths have huge hearts and sometimes give too much

Once you realize that you are an empath, the next step is to realize when the feelings you’re having are your feelings and when they are someone else’s.

Many of you will be spending time with family over the next few weeks. And, in my experience, there is no better petri dish for empathic stimulation than family and old friends. For many of you, your empathic tendencies started at a very young age and your family and friends are quite used to you engaging with them in this way. It can be awkward to shift these engrained dynamics. So for this holiday season, try a few simple techniques as a way of honoring your energetic and emotional body.

1.) Separate your energy with loved ones. Think of 5 neutral differences between you and them and name them to yourself. As long as the differences are neutral for both parties, the energy will separate with ease. (i.e. I’m a woman, he’s a man, I have green eyes, he has brown eyes, etc.)
2.) Once you’ve separated your energy, say this beautiful mantra as a prayer of protection and good intentions for your family and friends: “May they be happy, may they be healthy, may they be filled with love. May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be filled with love.”
3.) Spend a little alone time outside if possible. Being in nature is a great way to transmute energy and recharge your batteries.
4.) Begin to see your empathic abilities as a gift that is available to you to offer you a greater sense of compassion for yourself and the world around you. These abilities are helping you know yourself more deeply and create better boundaries with your energy field.

Understand that just because you can feel how someone else feels, it does not mean you have to do anything about it. Sometimes it’s enough to simply state that you understand how someone else is feeling. After all, most people just want to be seen and understood. Being an empath means you already understand how other people feel. What a gift! Give yourself permission to be the sensitive being that you are; unique and multifaceted. There is nothing wrong with you. Your sensitivities are your strengths. Remember this:

“Our innate capacity for empathy is the source of the most precious of all human qualities.” Dali Lama

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Sweet Blessings,

Angie Arkin

angie arkin intuitive healer