For Sensitives and Empaths
The tools in this section can be used by anyone, but can be especially powerful for empaths and sensitives. You can start by taking the Am I a Sensitive? quiz to find out where you fall on the spectrum.
Empaths and sensitives are often highly intuitive and are more connected to energy - other people’s energy, the energy of land, water, trees. We are made of energy, everything is made of energy. Sometimes feeling all this energy can be overwhelming for us sensitives and empaths. Many spiritual thought leaders will teach us to protect our energy, and while I agree that clearing our energy is essential for sensitives (see my Energy Hygiene resources), it doesn’t mean we’re fragile and we should run and hide from the world.
Our sensitivity is our gift and super power! All that intensity of feeling can be harnessed and used to serve the highest good. But first and foremost we must use our gift to keep our own energy stores replenished. And second, we can harness it to transform the energy of a situation, which sometimes can help improve the well-being of others.
Many sensitives and empaths will give and give to others until they’re completely depleted. Anita Moorjani had one of the most well-known near death experiences (NDEs), and was healed from stage four cancer. She returned with the very clear message that loving and nurturing ourselves first is the most important thing we can do. This is crucial for empaths and sensitives! You may want to check out Anita’s book, Sensitive is the New Strong, which was written just for sensitives and empaths! Another inspirational empath and spiritual thought leader I follow is Christina Lopes who has an amazing YouTube video on how to thrive as a sensitive or empath (watch the full video here).
I’ll share some of my top tools and techniques for sensitives, below.
Quiz: Am I a Sensitive?
Take the quiz here.
The High Heart Zone
Most of this High Heart Zone technique comes from what I learned in a class called Heart Alchemy that I took with Christina Lopes. (It was a fantastic class, BTW.) There are other spiritual thought leaders who speak about the high/higher heart as well - it’s an interesting concept to learn about as a Sensitive.
The high heart is located near the top of your sternum/below your throat. It’s where we feel the purest form of love. If we can recognize the feeling of when the high heart is activated, then through practice we can use it as a tool to connect with pure love.
First, move into a deeply relaxed state by taking a few deep, cleansing breaths. Some people put on soothing music (no lyrics). Binaural beats theta wave music (free on YouTube) with headphones is a great way to enter a deeply relaxed state.
Now place your hand on the high heart (near the top of sternum/base of throat) as you recall a time where you had pure love for someone. Maybe it is a particularly tender moment with a child, or maybe a deeply loving experience with a pet. Sometimes it’s easier to activate the high heart zone when thinking about our pets because their love is unconditional, and the wounds and baggage we humans carry are absent in animals.
I’d like you to recall this moment in as much detail as possible. Replay it like a movie in your mind’s eye for at least a few minutes. Take your time. And as you do, notice the sensations in your high heart zone. Is there a feeling of fullness? Or maybe a warmth or even an ache? There is no right or wrong feeling - each person’s experience may be different.
Make a little imprint in your memory of what this feels like for you, so you can draw on it when you need it, like in the Love Bucket or the Generator Switch techniques, below.
The Love Bucket
A pre-requisite to the Love Bucket is the High Heart Zone (above) - check it out if you haven’t already. The Love Bucket is my approach to transforming dense energy situations. I’ve used it multiple times, and it really does work! It’s simple, but not necessarily easy.
I used to hear a lot about transforming or transmuting dense energy into light energy (i.e., love), but I didn’t completely understand how to do it. As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), this is something I really wanted to understand since I can carry the energy of other people and places like it’s my own. And when that energy is dense energy, it can leave me feeling tired or yucky. Transmuting dense energy is also a special super power of us sensitives! I used to think I needed to do some sort of action - like sending loving thoughts to the person who was contributing to that dense energy feeling in me. But we’re actually doing very little in this technique - it’s more about being than doing. Being pure love - becoming it. The most powerful way to raise the energy or turn up the light in others is to simply raise the vibration and turn up the light in ourselves. And our beautiful, sparkling light will be seen and felt and has the power to transform situations. It really is that simple.
First, move into a deeply relaxed state by taking a few deep, cleansing breaths. Connect with the High Heart by placing your hand in the high heart zone (near the top of sternum/under throat) and tap into that feeling that you imprinted in your memory from the High Heart Zone exercise, above. You may need to call up the pure love memory briefly again to get yourself in the zone. As you practice this technique, you should be able to connect faster and faster.
Now completely fill yourself in that feeling of pure love from the high heart. Really connect with the feeling and crank up the intensity. Imagine that pure love is filling up your body from your feet, to your legs, your belly, all the way up to the top of your head until your love bucket is absolutely overflowing and the love is pouring out of you and filling the room, the town, the region, the planet. Hold the vision and the feeling of pure love as long as you can. Experiment with expanding how far your love energy flows. You may start out with envisioning pure love filling up only the immediate space around you.
You can use this technique around other people - they don’t know you’re doing it. It’s not like you’re announcing “I am now going to fill myself with love to transmute this crappy situation.” You’re just silently getting in the zone and filling up your love bucket to overflowing. On the occasions I’ve done this, I sort of go somewhere else.
If you can fill up your love bucket and sustain the feeling, you will find that there is a shift in the person or the situation. People will soften; situations will lighten. We have an energetic body that surrounds our physical body. It extends outward and interacts with others’ energetic bodies. That pure love energy is permeating the energetic bodies of those around you. I’m telling you, the Love Bucket works! Play with it and have fun! I’d love to hear how it goes for you in the comments, below!💛
WWPLD (What Would Pure Love Do)?
Michael Sandler recently interviewed New York Times best-selling author Neale Donald Walsch on Why Our Beliefs About God Are Creating Chaos (watch the full interview, here). When I listen to spiritual thought leaders, I keep the nuggets that resonate with me, and I file the rest under ‘interesting.’ The part of this interview that really speaks to me is about 16 minutes in when Neal talks about the concept of God as pure love - not just love - pure love. And, he says, “pure love needs, expects, requires and demands nothing in return.” Wow. That really made me think. We can all say we love others - our friends, our family, our pets. But can I say I expect nothing in return when I’m extending love? I aspire to that, but I’m human and I will more often than not fall short. But I will continue to aspire! 💪
The only way I know to align my actions with my pure-love-expecting-nothing-in-return aspirations, is to connect with my high heart. When we are confronted with challenging situations - perhaps our loved ones are disappointing us, hurting our feelings, or not loving us the way we feel we are loving them - we can use the High Heart Zone and the Love Bucket exercises outlined in this section. And while we’re in that pure love state - ask ourselves WWPLD? (What Would Pure Love Do?) And we can always call in our spiritual team for guidance on the answer to WWPLD.
The WWPLD answer may come as a quick, intuitive message, or a ‘knowing.’ Or it may show up a bit later in a song, a movie, a book, or a stranger saying something to us. There are many ways our spiritual team will try to guide us and communicate with us. I promise you the answers will come. When our intentions and hearts are pure, there will always be an answer. 💛
The Generator Switch
As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), seeing other people or animals suffering is really rough on me. If I don’t practice good energy boundaries, I will feel their suffering like it’s my own, and it will linger with me for a really long time. This can be one of the harder aspects of being a Sensitive or an Empath. But let’s not forget that our sensitivity is our super power! The great thing about this technique is that we can use our gifting as a Sensitive to heal dense emotions in ourselves and others. The example I give you here talks about grief, but you could use it for any intense, dense emotion you are feeling. Here’s how it works….
Those of you who live in areas with frequent power outages may be familiar with the concept of a generator. There’s a lever installed in my home that provides energy to the house either using the city electrical lines or using a generator. When the power goes out, we fire up the generator, pull the lever from ‘City’ to ‘Generator’ and voilà - the house comes back to life! The lights come on, the furnace kicks in, and the refrigerator starts humming. All is well.
A friend was grieving the death of a loved one, and I was grieving right along with them. I was really feeling the heaviness of that grief in my sensitive heart. But, I know my sensitive heart also has the power to heal and to transform situations. So I thought, ‘what if I can convert all this intensity of feeling from grief to love and healing for the people who are grieving?’ I thought of the generator lever in my house that switches the energy from city to generator power.
I imagined gathering up all that intensity of my grieving feelings into a compact bundle of energy. I kept gathering it and concentrating it in my body until it was really intense. Some people may feel this in their lower belly, others may feel it more in their hearts. Place your hand on the spot you feel it to help intensify this process. Once you feel like your generator has fully concentrated the power of your feelings, imagine throwing that switch from grief energy to love energy. And as you throw the switch, imagine that intense, concentrated power of love energy shooting out of your body with great force as a sparkling light that reaches the others who also are grieving. See the sparkling light encircling them, comforting, soothing and healing them. You may choose to speak some affirmations of healing and love out loud to create even more healing energy. Hold this vision and speak the affirmations for as long as you wish. When you are done, affirm that your energy must now disconnect, and be restored back to normal. You will feel lighter, perhaps tired. As with all energy work, drink lots of water afterwards and give your body what it needs. Power onward, you shining Sensitives and Empaths! 🌟
Want to learn more about working with your sensitive energy? Schedule an appointment or mention this post in my contact form for a private link to schedule a free 45-minute workshop.
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