A couple of months ago, I thought that I was closing in on suffering from a burn-out. All the signs were there: extreme fatigue (with sleeping 10-12 hours every night on the weekends and days off), feeling down and downer, growing impatience, general exhaustion bordering on laziness.
That was worrisome and then some.
It all lasted until a couple of weeks ago.
For the record, I’ve known for a while that I am an Empath, but I didn’t know that it’s not a curse. All the contrary! When controlled, being an Empath is a good thing, especially when you’re a psychic Empath (the psychic part I’ve known about for years). However, when not controlled, it’s no fun at all and had I not learnt what I learnt a couple of weeks ago, I would’ve become a total hermit (although I still and will always need time alone, a lot of it, only not all the time).
What’s an Empath?
Before hopping into the books I’ve read, I have to explain what being an Empath is and entails.
In short, being an Empath is being an emotional sponge, which means that I absorb the emotions and, sometimes/often, physical pain from people who surround me, be they people I know or, yes, complete strangers. One of my pupils is sad? I feel it. One of my colleagues is in physical pain? I feel it. I take the bus? Damn, that’s daily torture, getting emotions and sensations from complete strangers all the time!
That, in short, is being an Empath. Scratch that. That, in short, is being an Empath who doesn’t control their abilities. And until a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t control mine at all, making daily commute hell, parent-teacher meetings a pain(ful chore), etc. The list can be long.
Books to help the Empath
I think that I was looking for a book by Judy Hall when I came upon the name of Judy Dyer among the recommended books. What I do believe is that it was a nice twist of fate. This is how I found Empath: A Complete Guide for Developing Your Gift and Finding Your Sense of Self which, incidentally, is on Kindle Unlimited, so I borrowed it and started reading it.
As I wrote in my Amazon and my Goodreads review (which is one and the same), it is the perfect starter book for someone who just found out that they’re an Empath, or for someone who wants to know if they are an Empath. Then I learnt a very important technique to remove what I had absorbed either during the day or during a specific moment, or while I was surrounded by strangers and swarmed with alien emotions (i.e. sensations and emotions that were not my own): the 4-6-8 breathing technique. This did wonders and, coupled with the morning and before bed meditations recommended, helped me tons and made me feel more like myself, more energetic, more, well, zen!
It’s also after reading this book and moving on to her second 100% Empath dedicated book, The Empowered Empath: A Simple Guide on Setting Boundaries, Controlling Your Emotions, and Making Life Easier, that I realised that the reason I was even more drained than usual was because of someone in my entourage, whose issues were so overpresent that it was, simply, draining me of everything I had, and that when this person what absent, I was feeling like myself again: energetic, happy, smiling, full of humour.
So I’ve learnt to add some of the things I’ve read in that book to shield myself better, and I am working on setting boundaries, which is probably the hardest thing for an Empath to do because we are compelled to help and hate to disappoint people, which makes saying no a complete ordeal.
As she does in the first Empath book, Judy Dyer talks about the importance of nutrition, but mentioning mostly the importance of becoming vegan, which will not happen for me. (I like my red meat too much to turn a vegan.)
This brings me to the third book I’ve read: Empath Power: Grounding, Healing and Protection for Life!, by Diane Katherine who is, herself, an Empath and a prolific writer about all things dealing with Empathy. If there are things in this book that I had already read about in Judy Dyer’s books, or that I already knew (still, it’s good to see them again from a different brain), there were also many important things that I learnt, like, yes, nutrition, and not from a vegan perspective!
Nope. This time, it was about healthy foods, yes, but also the importance of staying hydrated, which I then realised I wasn’t doing enough to begin with. There were also many grounding techniques, yoga and meditation tips, and so much more helpful tips to help and protect the Empath that I am!
The good thing about these books, for those who would like to read them? The three of them are on Kindle Unlimited! (So I borrowed them, read them, and liked them so much that I bought them afterwards.)
Feeling much better
This long post to say that thanks to these two authors, I now feel much, much better and don’t consider being an Empath as being a curse anymore. Actually, it seems like my choice of career has a lot to do with my being an Empath, as does my love of music and my need to create (either with knitting and crochet or with writing).
Yes, there are times when I will completely open myself to receive sensations from people, like I did with a certain meeting with parents, or because I wanted to absorb some of a pupil’s sadness and deception after she had a bad sports performance. What I needed, afterwards, was only to center and ground myself again.
For the curious: my verdicts
I did review all three books on Amazon/Goodreads, but for the curious, they were all worthy of a good amount of stars, respectively 4, 5, and 4.
So I highly recommend them (and will read more from both authors, plus I’ve started following Diane Katherine’s blog, full of tips and more for the Empaths, by an Empath).
Caro's Reads 
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