Have you noticed how hard it is sometimes to maintain your own vibration when people around you are struggling? It’s easy to feel good when everything is going well, and when your family members, friends and coworkers are in a good mood.
Very often, however, people have stuff going on! This usually has nothing to do with us, but for sensitive, empathic people, we still feel it.
A lot of the work I do with my clients is around navigating situations like this. How do we practice feeling good in the midst of the real world, with other people, feeling lots of feels?
It’s a lovely gift to be sensitive enough to experience the feelings of others. However, when it is negatively impacting you, that becomes a problem.
Whether it’s a child going through a difficult time, or a spouse who is struggling emotionally, or a negative coworker, picking up on the energy of others can feel draining and deplete our energetic system.
Luckily, there are some tools that can help! It is possible to maintain high beautiful energy no matter who around you isn’t.
As a therapist, I hear many stories that are negative all day long, and so I have lots of experience practicing ways to hold my energy in a high frequency, no matter who is in the room with me and how bad they feel.
During my internship training in graduate school, I used to cry with my clients. I had a hard time not thinking about them when I went home and feeling overwhelmed with their emotions in sessions. I remember feeling terrified that I wouldn’t be able to be a good therapist. I asked a professor I respected how it would ever be possible for me to not feel everyone’s feelings so strongly.
Her words were so helpful for me, and I remember them often. She said that my sensitivity is my greatest gift as a therapist, and that it allows me to help my clients give words to feelings they have never expressed in order to heal. That was so helpful, and over time I have developed my own ways to help people without becoming overwhelmed with how they feel anymore.
Some tips that work for me and my clients are:
1. Stay out of worry:
I used to worry about my clients and hope that they would “get better.” Over time and experience I now trust that they are already whole and healthy. That they have the power to heal themselves, and that evolution is not a race.
Everyone is growing at exactly the perfect rate for them. There is not wrong or right, and even things that seem like “problems” are simply opportunities for growth and learning.
Imagine them happy, healthy and well. This creates a positive vibration that not only helps you feel better in the moment, but also sends positive energy to them as well.
2. Stay present and grounded:
In order to remember to not worry, and to be in touch with your own intuition and feelings when you are with others, it is vital to practice being present and in your body.
Multiple times a day, and especially when you are around someone who has challenging energy, imagine beautiful white light flowing up from the earth into your feet to ground you.
Frequently check in with your own emotions by placing your hand on your belly and asking yourself, “what am I feeling?” This allows you to know what your feelings are for you as an individual, not the ones you are picking up from other people.
3. Take breaks:
As you practice checking in, it will allow you to know early on how your energy shifts when around someone who is feeling more negative.
When you notice that your energetic system is having a hard time staying positive around them, step away.
Go do something to fill your energy back up and feel good again; listen to music, go in nature, go on a walk, take a nap, exercise.
It doesn’t help anyone to force yourself to hang out with someone who is in a negative space or try to force them to feel better, so you feel better.
4. Let them be:
Empaths have a tendency to want the other person to feel better, so they feel better.
This is not your job. You just need to focus on feeling better yourself and allowing the other person to figure their own emotions out.
Empaths are so good at reading other people, we are often aware of what others are feeling before they are. Just because we can feel this, however, there is no need to force the other person to become aware of or change how they feel in order to make ourselves feel better.
5. Energetic boundaries:
Energy is everything. Practicing visualizing energetic boundaries is a super helpful tool in maintain your own energy around someone challenging.
One easy way to do this is to imagine a bubble of white light surrounding you. This bubble makes you feel good and positive. It only allows in positive energy, and any negative energy from the outside bounces right off.
Practicing this will help you to feel light, safe, and energized. It helps you to stay in your own lane, and in touch with how you feel and what you want, instead of the other person.
6. Keep doing your own work:
This means doing your own practices and self-care every single day. It means focusing on things that make you feel good, even when you are in conversation with someone that is going on and on about something negative.
Exercise, hydrate, meditate, get support, etc.…the better care you take of yourself, the easier it is to let any negativity bounce off of you.
I understand that it’s hard. I never thought I would be able to do what I do without absorbing other people’s energy. But it is definitely possible! I have seen this with myself and so many clients.
Once we are able to prioritize ourselves and our own vibration, miraculous things are possible!
Read more about Anxiety Treatment with Shana Olmstead.
