Hey,
This is Ish,
And in today's talk I'll be going over a key weakness in empaths,
And how to work on it if you do relate to being an empath.
So you may be wondering,
Well,
What is an empath?
So the term empath is used in various new age and spiritual circles,
And what it refers to is someone who is highly attuned to the energies in the room and the emotions off of other people.
So they can pick up on other people's emotions a lot faster,
And they are also described as being highly sensitive.
So there is some overlap between an empath and a highly sensitive person.
An empath will also have,
Because of their high sensitivity levels,
A lower threshold for stimulus.
So with that comes an advantage and disadvantage.
The advantage is that they can pick up on and process various inputs from their environments a lot quicker,
And take more time to dwell on it,
And uncover the hidden meaning behind whatever is going on.
But the disadvantage or drawback is that they can get overstimulated really fast.
So what would be,
Let's just say,
A 3 out of 10 for most people when they are experiencing a challenging event,
Can be an 8 out of 10 for an empath.
So they can get frazzled very easily with a lot less.
Now,
Let's go over what may create an empath.
So there are different,
Obviously,
Explanations for that.
I'll go over two.
So the first is that some people just naturally have certain meditative or spiritual gifts innate in them.
So,
For example,
Clairsentience is one of the four clairs.
So these are psychic abilities.
And clairsentience is closely related to the abilities that empaths naturally have.
So it is ability to sense and know certain things,
Just from your emotions or gut feelings.
So again,
This comes back to this ability to be highly attuned to yourself and the environment all around you.
You can also argue that empaths and more sensitive people have a more active and engaged mirror neuron system,
Where they can feel the emotions of other people a lot quicker.
Then the second explanation is actually that being an empath is actually a trauma response.
And I've also read that too.
And I can also see where this is true,
Because there is a sense of hyper vigilance.
And if you are picking up on emotions,
You shouldn't be moved that much where you are losing centering.
So that's actually a trauma response rather than heightened sensitivity.
But regardless of how you get there,
As an empath,
What is tend to be underdeveloped is an aspect of equanimity or balance.
Now equanimity is a highly prized spiritual quality.
In all contemplative meditative traditions,
Equanimity is a state of balanced,
Which should not be confused with indifference,
Or apathy or not caring.
It is a quality of the mind and heart where you're open and loving,
But you're not pulled by things all around you.
There's a certain sense of balance and groundedness.
And in Buddhism,
For example,
Is known as one of the beautiful factors.
And it is also a factor of enlightenment.
And it is also a boundless quality of the heart,
Which is known as the Brahma viharas.
The Brahma viharas are essentially sublime and boundless qualities of the heart.
And there are four qualities which are actually the same but looked at from different lenses.
And the fourth and last is equanimity.
And in Buddhism,
There are also some mantras that give you an idea of what equanimity embodies.
An example would be your happiness and suffering depend on your own actions,
Not my wishes for you.
So again,
It takes the responsibility off of your yourself to change other people's emotions,
And try to,
You know,
Fix things,
And rather just have an acceptance of the actions of other people rather than getting involved,
Which is something empaths tend to do.
Equanimity is also about not being caught up in things.
So again,
Having this evenness of mind,
Where you are not pulled by forces all around you,
You are not chasing after things,
You're not pushing things away,
You're simply at peace with whatever happens.
And there's also equality of not having too many preferences,
And you're just okay with whatever happens,
Whether the good things happen,
Whether bad things happen,
You know,
You will be okay.
And a great quote that points at this level of equanimity,
It was by the third Zen patriarch,
Where he said that the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
And you'll find that when you start to lose this aspect of yourself that is trying to grasp onto things or change things or,
You know,
Reject things and is overly pulled by things all around you,
And you're just okay with what happens and you start to let go more,
You'll find that this quality within you starts to grow,
And you are actually just stable in all circumstances.
Now,
Again,
I do want to remind you that this equanimity is built off a foundation of love and goodwill towards other people,
And being compassionate and rejoicing in happiness of other people.
But again,
This equanimity quality is needed,
So you're not pulled by the emotions of other people,
The distress by other people,
You know,
If they're causing chaos in your life,
You're not trying to overly fix things and doing things in a codependent manner.
And by definition,
Equanimity is actually the opposite quality of being an empath,
Because as an empath,
You take the emotions of other people for your own.
And here you are having a little bit of separation there,
Where you can empathize and understand what other people are going through,
But you're not overly reacting to it.
And,
You know,
Causing yourself chaos in the process,
So you gain inner stillness and peace.
So again,
These qualities are in balance where you want to have love that doesn't have equanimity slip into apathy.
But at the same time,
You want to have this balance,
So you're not overly wrapped up in things all around you,
And you're off center.
And I feel that with a lot of empaths,
They tend to be more on the side of getting into the emotions of things and getting over involved.
So they need to equally ground this with the balance of equanimity or developing this ability to let go more and more,
And to be okay and accepting of circumstances that arise.
And this is an ongoing practice.
Now,
The next thing is they can learn to be grounded.
So we can practice more meditations based on emptiness,
Of stillness,
Of rooting your attention down into the lower parts of your body,
Of actually getting physical exercise and focusing on the physical body rather than focusing on more emotional and spiritual aspects of your human experience.
And I've actually made other talks on being grounded and what being grounded means and how to develop it.
So you can go check that out.
The next suggestion I have for empaths learning to develop this strength and groundedness is actually learning to be strong.
And maybe this isn't emphasized as much in spiritual communities,
But it is very important to also develop strength and perseverance.
Oftentimes,
What I've observed is if a practitioner develops a lot of emotions and sensitivity and being attuned to their emotions all around them,
But they lack this backbone or strength and this ability to persevere,
Well,
They can be overwhelmed really easily.
This is where you have this new age stereotype of this person crying all the time and is easily moved by very little things.
So again,
You want to balance this out by learning to push through and sit with tension.
Now,
Of course,
I do again want to be mindful that when you are training yourself to sit for longer periods of time in meditation,
Things from the past will come up in your practice.
So again,
You want to handle this responsibly and be okay with slowing down at times.
But you'll find that you do also need to take that initial effort in developing a practice to seeing how more you can expand your practice as well.
So if you're only sitting for lectures,
Say five minutes a day,
See if you can do up to 20 to do 30 minutes a day to go up to an hour.
If you're already at an hour,
Try to do two hours.
So again,
You're learning to sit with discomfort and just push through.
And you'll be surprised to see the level of strength that you can learn to develop.
And you also gain confidence in yourself.
Because if you're able to handle the discomfort in your mind or tension in the body and aches and pains,
You're able to go through it.
Then you gain confidence in your own abilities to be mindful and to handle whatever comes your way.
Because you know,
You can sit through it and you'll be okay and you can let go.
Now the next thing that pets can do to work on this quality of not being swayed by their emotions as much as to study cause and effect.
So start to look at the karma of actions.
So if you say take a certain action,
What is the outcome behind this and start to study this.
And when you start to look at things through a discerning eye,
So having a bit more separation and looking at things and observing things rather than reacting to things.
This will help develop more of that logical discerning aspect of yourself rather than the emotional body which may be already as it is highly attuned.
So you want to have this balance.
And speaking of balance,
I'll leave you with this last point of you want to find again this balance of wisdom and compassion.
This is talked about in Buddhism as two wings of a bird.
So there are this duality where you have these different concepts of being one with everything and then again being nothing,
Fullness and emptiness.
Wisdom and compassion is another where you want to have this balance of being compassionate to other people and having this heart based mode of responding to the world,
Which is what empaths kind of naturally do already.
But you again,
You want to balance this with wisdom,
Which is looking at things from a more cool eye of discerning things of looking at things more objectively of being balanced or develop equanimity of being mindful.
So these are all qualities that emphasize the wisdom aspect of things and looking at the nature of reality for what it is.
And when you find you can do this,
You'll be firmly grounded,
You'll be able to access your natural abilities as an empath of being sensitive of being attuned to things.
But you will have this added benefit of not being swayed by the emotions of others of how the world is what's going on in the world,
How your mind is and you have the sense of gravity and centeredness and balance.
And when you're able to step into this balance of both being sturdy from within of being balanced,
But at the same time giving your natural gifts to the world of sensitivity,
Of receptivity,
Of observation,
Of intuition,
Of kindness and these other factors,
Well,
Then you can both give to the world and also give to yourself in a way that is healthy and beneficial and balanced and regenerative to everyone involved.
So hope you found this helpful.
Thank you.
