E m P a T h S (1)

I have never found more of myself relating to almost anyone or anything in this world like I have with the book, The Happy Empath's Workbook written by Stephanie Jameson. I've always felt misunderstood and judged and never fully accepted. I spent a lot of time on my own. As practically an only child, practically only because I have four siblings that I didn't grow up with, except for the first few years of my life. Only one in the same household apx. 15 yrs. my senior. It was often lonely and sorting through emotions was difficult. I was considered "too sensitive" as a child, was told to have a thicker skin and stronger backbone, as a result I learned to keep a lot to myself. I learned to bottle up my emotions and not express them. Later on in life when I did slightly express how I felt, it became "You overanalyze things." So I began to internalize everything. It was painful but I learned to swallow my feelings. Over the years in exploring my spiritual journey I've realized I've been an empath. So many things made sense.

I'll just share some of the dots. An empath is an individual that is sensitive to their surroundings and has heightened awareness to their environment as well as someone who is particularly sensitive to situations or subtle energies around them, when it comes to how other people feel or have felt at some point in time. These energies and emotions they take and internalize or adopt. It doesn't matter how small the feelings of someone is, they sense them none the less. It is often commonly associated with burn out, because an empath feels what others are going through expressed or not. There's nothing that an empath cannot feel or sense. Think of a sponge and water. The sponge is the empath and the water is the feelings or energies of others. No matter what, a sponge will absorb water, you can't tell it not to. It doesn't matter if there is a mm of water; it absorbs it. It doesnt care where the water came from, if it has a brand, what the brand is, color; it simply does not discrimainate. An empath will pick up or absorb energies of strangers; those known to them, young old, culture, race, gender; it doesn't matter. Feelings are feelings, energy is energy and nothing or no one is exempt. Even animals and nature too, but I'll get to that shortly.

Now every empath is their own person. I want to make that clear. However, they often times share different 'gifts' or abilities with each other. Some empaths are physical, intuitive, emotional, mediums, nature empaths and a few more. You can summize what each are but I'll give a synopsis.

Physical empaths are those that will feel the physical ailments of others, they'll pick up on something being wrong, sometimes before the other individual. I experienced this personally. For about three years I had an unusual pain in both my breasts especially my left; it would be sharp and extremely painful. Then I learned my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in her left breast. Thankfully my ancestors and the beautiful spirits in the world offered her healing and strength to carry on and she is here, strong as an ox and I'm so very fortunate to have her with me and others that love her.

Intuitive empaths are also considered psychic and often times get their information through the event of a dream, or astral projection or precognition. Dream wise, I often times dream and it walks straight- where everything is as it happened. Then at other times I've decoded the dream and received information. It's a beautiful and an ugly experience. I've predicted death, I've predicted sickness. I've predicted big changes. I've gotten advice. I've predicted babies and their genders. So many things i've been made aware from dreams.

In terms of astral projection, the activity of leaving one's body and going else where, often times associated with floating in the air when one is in deep sleep. I have done it once and it was a trip and while doing so I found it scary but also exhilerating. In that state I must say I learned the secret to doing so, but to be honest the media has toyed with my readiness to consiously attempt to do so since.

Then precognition. This is where people foresee an occurence. It can happen in a multitude of ways- what people consider 'psychics' to be which is 'fortune tellers'. Oh and no they do not need a crystal ball. If you ask me, most people who use crystal balls play into the assumption of the wider society. The people who get their information from movies and fictional books.

Mediums are what I consider moderators. The go-between two parties/individuals. Often times this is associated with spirits on the other side. They communicate with them on different levels in different ways and well, have that information for themselves or share with someone else. I once knew two individuals who had spirits talk to them out of nowhere. Both were taken off gaurd and both of them said the experience was to say the least, not pleasant. Not because the spirits did any physical harm or horror movie inspired but because they were surprised and had anxiety that this could happen at anytime. One guy I heavily considered dating, but when he shared that, I was a christian so I was scared and broke whatever 'it is' was. Where I am now, that would intrigue me but certainly not scare me. However, I'm not interested in developing that aspect of my spirituality so it can stay over there; way over there. I don't have a problem with them communicating via my dreams. When my father passed, he visited me and told me what he wanted to wear for his funeral and certain things he would like and where to possibly find them. I hadn't spoke to him in almost two years, if you're wondering he's been a toxic fixture in my life. Anyways, he came to visit in my dreams and I am fine with someone I know communicating in that way. I don't want someone showing up where I can physically see them in front of me. No sir.

Nature empaths are individuals who connect with the energy of nature/Mother Earth. They are able to connect with her energy and sense changes hence make predictions. It's not only the weather or the elements or even the universe's changes but also animals that a nature empath can connect to. For me animals tend to speak to me. However, it's not a strong skill I have where all animals do, all the time, but more so after being around a specific one for a time or in some unpredictable cases where I pick up or sense something. For me, sadness in an animal is something i can pick up on quite easily. Also, sickness. There are instances where I've predicted something wrong internally with my sister's dog that I treat as my own, having some unseen physical ailment prior to their being a physical indicator. This lead us going to the vet and finding out that he had bladder stones. Oh another experience for me was when I was about 12 years old, my mom, sister and niece went to a resort in the more rural area of my home country, Jamaica. When it was time to leave I had an overwhelming desire to stay. My sister and mom chalked it up to me being a 'spoiled child' and decided we were going. On our way home which would have took about six to eight hours. We were stuck in a flood where the water covered the wheels of cars up ahead on a narrow bridge which laid over a river that was overflowing, muddy waters were running wild. The rain was fierce. We were trapped. Where we were was slightly better but not much. The water was about half way up the tires and we could see that from viewing the car of similar size right in front of us. We could also feel the car beginning to slightly sway a tad bit. There was no where to go, no where to move, no turning back. We were stuck and would have no choice to go forward. We were absolutely terrified. Looking back I realized it was mother nature who spoke to me. I remember that moment so many years later as if it were yesterday. The energy in the car, the brutal force of Mother Nature and the lesson learned.

Then there's other specific abilities such as clairsentience, clairaudience, clairvoyance, claircognizance. All are specific channels of psychic information. In short, clairvoyance is seeing things that will happen. Clairaudence, hearing things that will happen. Claircognizance is knowing things will happen and clairsentience, feeling things that will happen. I've had experiences with all of them.

For clairaudience I've heard my brother calling my name years after he passed, most of the time it was always in his prior bedroom that became mine. Clairvoyance, claircognizance and clairsentience fused together, and I had a strong feeling that I would have my sister come knocking on my door to tell my mother and I some bad news and that she did; months later she came and told me and our mom that my father had died.

I'll be writing more about my experience as an empath but in a nutshell, it's an entirely different worldly experience and often times we leave the table feeling misunderstood.