The Role of the Empath

I have multiple blogs, each focused on something different. This is my spirituality/personal growth “working” blog where I explore ideas and try to refine them into something workable. I’m one of those folks who is also very practical – if I can’t use something, not interested. In one of my works I made a comment that struck me and I wanted to explore it further.

I never really considered myself an empath before but in the course of writing I talked about my role as the empath of my family to work through inherited familial karma because my family weren’t yet able to do it themselves. I spoke of being at funerals crying for people I barely knew – but feeling the heavy and profound sorrow in the atmosphere was literally too big and deep for one person to handle, so I cried with and for them to help them express it down to a manageable level.

It’s been doing things like this that made me aware I am an empath, and my work on emotional intelligence means I know when the emotions that want to come through me are MINE or not.

Have you noticed that this time in our history seems to be unique? As if the world is going crazy? I was listening to an episode of Next Level Soul interviewing Dwayne Anka (Bashar). He summed it up beautifully, and he’s far from the only one saying this kind of thing. The summation: we as a people – a species – are getting ready to move into something new because the planet is moving into something new. In order to do that, we have to shed a lot of the darkness that we have accumulated over our collective thousands of years of history. No culture is innocent of travesty, no people are clean of injustice. Our challenge now is to purge the poison without becoming re-poisoned.

Why would we let this darkness go? Because part of this awakening includes seeing how we are One – that I have lived as the oppressed, the oppressor, the indifferent, the murdered, the murderer, the dutiful, the slacker, the shaman, the crazy… Because I can see that We are One, and when this is truly known it means that I would no more harm you than I would harm my own self.

As part of the shedding process, first it must come up to be seen.

To be recognized. Felt. Honored. Processed.

And released.

It’s the release part that seems to be hanging up a lot of folks. These old cultural/familial wounds which were not addressed due to reasons are now pouring out all over the place — an emotional toxic waste spill. I also see it being used to stoke old lines of division for political and dark ideological purposes. These old wounds being poked and picked at to renew the poison and spread infection.

We have a choice. Individually is where the power lies, and when enough individuals make a choice one direction or another then the whole begins to move. I’ve spent literally a life time working through multiple levels of karmic build-up, feeling the rage or the pain or the wounds, recognizing them as 100% valid and real … and then letting them go. As an empath, that’s my job. My role. My purpose for being here.

Confront the wounds, without becoming them or inflicting new ones. Feel the pain, the anger, the fear but keep it in perspective for it is not MINE.

I am a paranormal romance junkie, and one of my favorite series is Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling and Trinity Series which features regular humans, a psychic version of humans, and a version which can turn into various animals. The whole series revolves around the psy and their fear of their emotions and what they’ve done in an attempt to crush their emotions out of existence. The class of psy they had to crush first to accomplish that were the Empaths. The empaths begin to figure very prominently in the series, and they are the soul healers. Their psy gift is to take away pain/fear/confusion/etc from someone else into themselves, and then they process through it before releasing it. A marvelous series that I highly recommend because it’s actually extremely relevant right now! But her concept of empaths are right down the line, my own concept.

We have a great deal of empaths in the world right now, but many of them are overwhelmed, don’t understand their gift, are swept away by the emotions bombarding them, or get confused and think the emotions bombarding them ARE their emotions. The Alchemist (you’d think I listen to her a lot, but I actually don’t) has an excellent episode on the 2nd wave of Ascension in which she addresses this level of emotion very nicely. But I think it’s the light workers among us, especially the empaths, who have the heavy lifting — if we can recognize what is going on.

At this point, I’ve had a LOT of practice. If I’m sitting there and a wave of sorrow just wells up … I cry until I don’t need to anymore. Then I’m fine. It wasn’t my sorrow in the first place, why would I be affected by it? I’m just the pressure release valve, venting the extra pressure so the person who does own that emotion can actually manage it, hopefully effectively. I’ve felt rage come out of nowhere, and I’ve got enough practice that I know how to channel into something productive rather than going on a rampage. I actually enjoy when effervescent joy sweeps through me, but it’s less common.

A crowd is exhausting because the level of emotional onslaught can be quite trying. I’ve learned to shield a bit, recognizing “it’s not my emotion, let it pass until I’m ready to engage”, but some still leaks through. The empath part of me and the karma-releasing aspect is why I can see what is going on with groups and families and people. And while I can see it, it’s rarely a welcome thing to have pointed out.

So how can I get the message to my fellow empaths? We are not only needed, we are vital. Humanity needs us at this juncture to a nearly critical level, and the choices we make will literally set the capacity and pace for humanity’s ability to walk a path of Love. While I now understand why we have the Victim Mentality expressing in such abundance, I know that it’s also time to start processing the pain and letting it go. Karma is emotional energy that has not been let go within one lifetime. It’s the things we hold onto, the things we just can’t seem to let go of or forgive. I’ve worked through about … maybe 3 lifetimes worth of issues? plus some gender issues, some family issues, and some cultural issues. They started “easy”, the training-wheels-are-on version, and now they are getting harder. I see the issues I’m working through now and I’m having a much harder time, but I’ll get there. It’s what I’m literally built for in this lifetime. I’ll bet many of the empaths are, once they find their true strength.

I have no idea how to spread this message. So here is me tossing a pebble into the ocean and hoping the ripples will go around the world. Choose to acknowledge any pain and rage, honor it by recognizing it, then let it go. It doesn’t matter how old or how egregious the wrong. It’s not ours. Feel it, then let it go. Choose love. Act from love.

Every act, every thought, every word out of our mouths shapes the future. I choose love, to shape a better world, a bigger world, an expanded world, a world which can hold the higher vibrations trying to come through.

I am an empath, and it’s my job to help transmute the darkness that humanity has built up and stored within our collective psyche. I will not shirk this important task, nor shrink from the gravity of it. I am not alone, as you are not alone. Together, we make a difference.