Healing Anxiety in Empaths

Hope Some years later, I found the book ‘The Highly Sensitive Person’ by Elaine Aron. I read the book and for the first time I thought to myself: ‘Hey, I like myself! I sound like a very nice person!’ The book brought many things to life, I was happy to know that I was not alone and that there were other people who felt about things the way that I did. But it wasn’t until I found a book on Amazon on being an Empath that I felt that a book was written ‘about me and for me.’ Of course, there are many amazing books, but this little volume ‘Empath, How To Protect Against Energy Vampires And Empower Yourself By Leveraging Your Special Gifts’ by Paul Kain really spoke to me. I had a very happy and enlightening hour in my favourite coffee shop reading it. You might like this one too, or you may find another one on Amazon that you prefer. Either way, I recommend reading books on being an Empath because they can help you to understand this trait that not everyone has but that we do and need to come to terms with. Another book that I found helpful was David Keirey’s ‘Please Understand Me 2.’ I did the little test at the back of the book (don’t we all love personality tests?) a few times over the years and I consistently came up with the personality type of an INFP. The letters all mean something about one’s personality and preferences. ‘I’ means that I have a preference for introversion, ’N’ means that I am intuitive, ‘F’ means that I am a feeling type and ‘P’ means perceiving and relates to how I make decisions (I like to keep things open-ended). Knowing my personality type and getting clear about being an Empath and all that they entail have helped me deepen my self-knowledge and awareness. Being an empath is not easy. We don’t choose to be empaths. We are born this way. We are made to be people who feel things deeply and experience life intensely. The best thing about it is that even every day life can provide us with a sense of wonder and the presence of something greater that us. The smile of a baby can melt our hearts, a friendly dog can make our day, kindness from a stranger can make us feel on top of the world, a favourite song on the radio can fill us with supernatural hope. The difficulties of the traits are the flip side of all the good things, but they come with life too for an empath. The fact that we are so easily hurt, easily wounded, at times can be paralysing. We can take rejection and criticism to heart and we can feel these pains in our flesh and bones. The best way I found to cope with the pain and sometimes despair that I can feel with these kinds of suffering is to engage with prayer and meditation. Sometimes good music or walking in nature can also bring a sense of balance back. I have learned to accept that my heart is so sensitive it is just like a little child! As we grow and mature we get better at taking care of ourselves and sometimes ‘not wear our hearts on our sleeves.’ Really. Not everyone has to know how we feel deep down inside. Some people just don’t deserve to know. We learn that we can’t take care of everyone else’s problems and they can’t take care of all of ours. As we get to know ourselves, and respect our empathy, we can be better agents for it and help where help is truly needed and leave the rest. Not because we are cold hearted, but because we have become wiser in mind and heart. Being an empath comes with great difficulties and great privileges. It is difficult to feel things so strongly and it is a great privilege to be so full of love for sentient beings. We need to understand about empathy, about being an empath and how and where to best deploy our talents and skills. As we embrace this trait, life becomes something that we are not afraid to face because we have (or are coming to have) a hard-won sense of who are. Consider: Your feelings about being an empath. What are your greatest joys, triumphs? What have you found difficult?