We are all connected.
In a world of internet connectivity and the Global Village, the fact that we are all connected is almost a cliché. But I am going to give you a different spin on that phrase by sharing my own experiences.
Let me start with a recent incident. For four days in a row, I had been feeling unpleasant emotions that I identified as belonging to a friend from my corporate work, even though she lives at the other end of the country. The intensity and the recurrence were such that I knew it was something serious. I had had no communication with her for a couple of weeks before I spoke to her on the fourth day. As soon as she picked up the phone I said “OK. You are having a horrible week and in fact, I am surprised that you are even working. Her confirming response was an almost sheepish “How did you know?” before filling me in on all of the details of what had been happening in her world.
This was not an isolated experience. In fact, these experiences now occur almost daily.
I am an empath.
I first heard the word “empath” in the late 1980’s in the context of watching Deanna Troi, the star ship’s counselor on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was to be another 25 years before I would consider using the term to describe myself. In the early 1990’s, I was working at my desk around mid-morning. I felt hungry and thought, “My stomach thinks it’s lunch time, but it’s only 10 o’clock.” At that moment, the woman sitting opposite me looked up and said “I’m starving. I missed breakfast this morning.”
It was at that moment that I knew something interesting was happening to me.
During the following years, I became increasingly aware that the people around me were influencing my emotions, especially work colleagues, even though I was working from home. I still didn’t think of myself as an empath, but I wrote myself a reminder that I put near my desk that read: “It’s not your stuff. Be aware.”
This brings us to the summer of 2012. July was emotionally difficult month for me, full of self-doubt and confusion. I got to the end of the month and realized that the emotions I was struggling with were not my own. In that moment, I realized who the emotions really belonged to and what those emotions were, and with that realization, they melted away. It was an incredible release. Most of August however followed a similar pattern until I again recognized the emotions I was processing and to whom they belonged. Well, I must be a slow learner. I repeated the same pattern a third time through most of September, and at that point I remembered about Deanna Troi and realized “I am an empath.”
I have known many empaths who considered their ability a curse. At this stage in 2012, I knew it was a gift, an untrained gift but nevertheless a gift. I went looking for training.
That December, one of my alternative health care providers practiced a new form of energy healing on me. The next day I phoned a friend of mine in Dallas and told her about this new mode of healing. I offered to practice it on her over the phone. To my surprise, she got it immediately and could feel the impact; I was off! This was my transition from being an empath to being a remote energy healer.
For the next few weeks I worked with two people a day, mostly friends and relatives, but I wanted volume. I knew that the way of becoming an expert was to work on as many people as possible. After a few months, I started working with complete strangers over the internet, usually knowing nothing about them other than a name.
I first noticed how insidious the mind can be, for myself, on the occasion of one of the early times I sat down to work remotely on someone I didn’t know. As I sat down to work on this person (let’s call him Jim), I began to feel angry. Immediately, I started thinking about the cable company that was giving me terrible customer service. I was angry at this organization to the point that I thought “OK, Jim’s going to have to wait. Enough. I need to write them another letter. I stopped myself and realized that the anger I felt at that moment had nothing to do with me nor the cable company, but everything to do with the energy that I was picking up from Jim. I was feeling his anger and my brain wanted to find a rational reason for why I was feeling angry.
At this stage, the information I was tuning into was becoming more and more personal. It surprised me the first time I told a woman what had happened to her and how old she was when it happened. She was a complete stranger to me, I only knew her first and last name, and we were corresponding through email. I had written that she had been 16 at the time of the incident. Her email reply corrected me slightly and said it was actually just before her 16th birthday, but she confirmed that indeed, it wasn’t rape, but the only reason that was true was because she didn’t know she was supposed to say no to her step-father.
That was a shock to me. It is a responsibility to be given that much insight into somebody’s private life (although I honestly believe I am only given appropriate information for the other person). It serves as proof a new client that I know what I am doing as an energy healer. Often when these type of exchanges happen, I give them part of the story, and they then tell me the rest. The whole purpose is one of healing, but it still feels odd to receive intuitive insights into somebody’s deeply intimate life details.
My abilities as an empath are continuing to grow daily. Although, just in case you are concerned about meeting me or other empaths, this still isn’t anything I can do at will. I have no control over when this happens and for whom. I can’t decide to find out all the juicy details about whom I choose when I choose. I only receive the information that is in your highest good for your spiritual journey – nothing more. Bottom line, your privacy is still safe whether you are a close friend or complete stranger to me. This is almost certainly true about all the empaths in your life. They may not know the details about why you are feeling emotional; they will likely know when you are feeling emotional.
My experience is that human connectivity is not limited by physical distance, not by town, not by state, not by continent. The more I share my experiences, the more I realize how many people around the world are experiencing this state of being for themselves. I know this is a new idea for many of you who are not empaths. I simply ask you to entertain the possibility that, in whole new ways you may never have thought possible …