Aloha,
I'm Reverend Cindy Palus and I've been thinking a lot about what is real and what is not real in relationship to empaths.
This is a very deep and important subject.
Now I've been an empath for a long time and I've often said that I believe empaths are very very sensitive to what's going on energetically in many levels.
So as we meditate and as we grow and as we develop our awareness and our sensitivities,
We start to feel and see things in a different way than when we began.
And as we become more aware and more sensitive,
What is important to realize is that we do have to remember and have that anchor of being here now and at the same time of that awareness of being totally here now,
Knowing that many other people that we are around are not in that same state as us.
There's many many many levels of consciousness and awareness and a lot of those areas that we live in in our daily lives are part of the dream state,
The Maya.
And you know that Maya and the dream of what we're living is so very believable and it includes a lot of drama.
Have you noticed that?
Have you noticed how life is full of drama and when we go to movies we want a good drama,
Right?
We want to really get into that drama and feel it.
When we read a good book we want to feel like we're there,
Right?
But that's all just of the Maya learning experience time.
And if you've studied a long time you understand that that isn't real.
It feels real.
My gosh,
When you're suffering and when you're going through that drama and the pain,
It feels very real.
I've had many friends leaving and dropping their bodies recently and my family just lost a beloved dog and they're just devastated.
They're heartbroken.
They miss that dog.
They love that dog so much and you can't tell anyone who is in that place that,
Well this isn't real what you're feeling.
You cannot because what they're feeling is what they are feeling and they have to feel that way in that moment.
They choose to have to feel that way and we don't have a right to try to change the way they feel or think.
But at the same time part of us must remember that that isn't our drama.
We can feel it.
We can sense it.
We can be aware of it and we can have great compassion.
We can pray.
We can be involved in any way we can to help.
But it isn't our real reality.
Our real reality is being in a place where we are experiencing the true part of life in this very moment,
This connection of existence that is explained very well in the Heart Sutra.
The Heart Sutra is one of the deepest and oldest Buddhist teachings and from that teaching you can experience detachment.
It talks about how everything is nothing.
Emptiness is form.
Form is emptiness.
Now we can sit and meditate and reach that place of awareness of like,
Well yeah yeah this energy field.
It's just energy and yet in this energy field there is so much going on in the Dharma that is part of the drama because that's where we learn our lessons.
This is a razor edge they talk about,
The razor edge path.
And the most valuable thing you can do as an empath I believe is to learn to respect and understand other people's feelings and other people's dramas.
To support them and have sympathy and compassion without taking it on as our own drama.
And this is something that has to be learned to be done skillfully because if you don't do it skillfully people will think you are uncaring and they'll feel you're cold and they'll think you're not really there as a person who can help.
And that is not the case but by being in a place of awareness of your true reality,
Of the true energy of existence and understanding detachment but at the same time as being detached,
Being aware and compassionate.
This is one of the things I love about Buddhism.
We can follow Buddha's story of course that's when he left his wonderful beautiful home where he had everything when he saw the suffering that other people went through.
And it took him a lifetime to just figure out what's going on with the suffering in the world.
But at some point you do awaken and there is so much going on right now of people leaving and transcending and energies changing rapidly and awareness growing more and more that we as a person who is aware and a meditator needs to use all of our tools to be present,
To hold the light,
To feel the love and release all that is not ours that we can suck up and sometimes empaths are like sponges that you can just soak all of that energy that you are here and around right into you.
And that's why if you are an empath you have to guard that part of you that is going to be impacted.
For one I do not watch movies that are violent.
I do not engage in watching blood and guts and shooting.
I feel it too much.
I literally will have dreams about it at night.
I don't know if that's the case with you as an empath but you learn after a while that if you watch this you're going to take it into your energy field even though you know watching a movie isn't reality.
But your mind and the sounds and all of your senses pick up all this dream and the difference between a dream and reality in your subconscious mind can get very mixed up.
For a moment think about your dreams.
Have you ever had a dream that felt so real or perhaps a nightmare where you believed where you were going in the dream was really happening and then you wake up.
But part of you is still thinking about that dream that in-between state of going but in this dream I had a dream I was going on a road that was very curvy and the road was getting smaller and smaller and it was a winding road and all of a sudden what was holding that curvy road up on a cliff that cliff was going away and it was like there was no more road to go on.
So I woke up.
There's no more road.
But in the dream if I'd kept on going well what would you experience right?
Nothingness leaving the body.
But there's a similarity there to life in our dreams when we go through these scary things we believe they're really real but then we wake up.
So this dream-like state is a thing we can learn from and what we can learn from is how to wake up.
There are lots of tricks you learn in meditation tools that I call from the sacred toolbox to learn how to be able to wake up to activate your awakening.
Come in very handy for empaths and of course breath is one of the most important tools because when you learn how to be aware of your breath and just breathe through a situation you will find that you can become centered,
You can be grounded,
You can learn how to observe more and you can disengage from a rather intense situation where there's a lot going on that you don't necessarily want to take on to yourself.
Now we all know about breathing.
Breathing 101 is so basic but you know what I've been working on it since I've been 13 years old every day and it always works and I still find myself having to go back to beginner's mind and get aware again of the power of breathing.
So let's just do some breaths.
I know it's very simple basic 101 but let's just relax first because we know going into meditation it helps to have our back straight and it helps to totally let go of any tension we can align our body from our head and our chakras and into our throat into our heart chakra into our third chakra into our navel area and the second chakra and the base chakra.
We know that when we align this we can breathe deeply and we can cleanse our breath sweeps mind but it also sweeps and clears out our chakras.
So let's just breathe in breathing in to the count of four and holding and breathing out and releasing releasing releasing and releasing and then holding out.
We're doing a four breath square breathing practice right now and I want to remind that as you breathe in you are doing a cleansing breath breath that sweeps mind and as you hold your breath at the top you are not thinking you're holding your breath breath is activated by your thoughts and if you hold your breath you're still in your mind and then as you release release release release think of the word real what is real releasing real leasing real leasing you are releasing and that is real you're releasing for an empath to be able to release and clear and cleanse your mind and your body and your emotions and your chakras is so valuable just breathing in holding your breath and releasing letting the real you that light fill your body and your mind breathing in holding clearing your mind and breathing out and releasing any of the stuff that's the drama that's the junk that you may have picked up just releasing that all releasing any worry ah just sign up ah just let that energy of a ha feel good as you release ah breathing in now breathing out ha in Hawaiian the word ha is breath breathing in ah with an Hawaiian aloha aloha is presence breathing in the presence holding that presence and breathing it out with a ha breath breathing it out breathing it out breathing out you should begin to feel yourself getting lighter you should begin to feel yourself feeling the energy of charging your mind your body your emotions let's just keep breathing breathing in and holding your breath and releasing and letting go just release everything any tension anything that's gone on that isn't real let yourself completely feel that nothingness embrace it and breathing in deeply and holding your breath expanding your mind and ha releasing releasing releasing releasing continue to just breathe don't think just breathe following your breath in holding your breath and breathing out breathing in light feeling yourself with light and releasing and letting go ah letting that energy going all the way out through your body all the way down your legs your knees your calves to your toes now feeling yourself with a light that goes up six feet above you six feet below you all the way through you six feet on either side of you six feet in front of you six feet in back of you you are now in a clear loving space of protective light sense that light feel that light that light is your armor that light protects you that light keeps negative energy from being around you it's your shield use the shield breathe every morning in meditation put the shield of light around you to protect you throughout the day and when you finish your day at night breathe again take a circle of this wonderful spiral of energy light from the highest and let it come down and completely cleanse your entire aura your mind your body circling around your entire body and out completely cleansing you every night before you go to sleep and put the armor of light around you again before you go to sleep because if you are an empath you're very psychically aware of energies also and you can pick up energies from many places in the subconscious and beyond and you want to make sure you protect yourself there as well for do the prayer protection I've shared before and use these tools and allow yourself to recharge yourself in all the ways I've talked about before by taking walks by being in nature by meditating by praying by listening to wonderful uplifting music and by being aware of what is real and what is not real and by disengaging from the drama that other people may be going through and by being that presence of light that presence that can help by being in the light for those that are in the darkness I thank you so much for listening and being present here in the light in what is real god bless you always
