Sound familiar?

As an empathic, intuitive person, I have always had people come to me for advice, or just to vent. Over the years, even before I became a professional intuitive and energy healer, I heard variations of this theme many, many times. I have also uttered variations of this more times than I care to admit.

The truth is that there are no hard-and-fast answers that work for every person in every situation, but I’ve caught myself uttering some suggestions so many times over the years that I decided to share the basics here (and also on my FAQ page). Let’s take some look at some of the common ways people say to me “I’m intuitive and empathic, and I give too much of myself. Please help!”

 

When I am in a good mood and feeling confident, my guidance is just there and I follow without questioning, sometimes not even aware that I’m hearing it. It always turns out to be good. But those times are few and far between, and mostly, I struggle with knowing when my intuition is speaking to me and what it’s telling me. At those times, I get stuck in the struggle of indecision. 

I completely understand your difficulties. Problems with hearing and trusting your intuition when you’re not feeling good are incredibly common, even among professional intuitives. Lower-vibrational energies such as fear and anger make it hard for everyone to hear their guides’ helpful voices. That’s why even professional intuitives need to seek out colleagues for insight sometimes, especially regarding situations they’re just too close to. So, you’re in good company, I promise!

If you have read or listened to my Year of Shadow and Light posts, you’ve witnessed some of my struggles with this issue. One of the many ways to improve your ability to hear and trust your intuition is to practice with an oracle of some sort (cards, runes, pendulum, bibliomancy, etc.) just a little each day. That’s what I did. At the beginning of this practice, especially when you’re doubtful or fearful, you can take a few moments to listen to what you think your intuition is telling you about the oracle’s message, and then check it against source information about the oracle (the book that came with the cards, for example). On days you’re feeling more confident, you can lean on your intuition to give you more information about what the oracle means, without consulting other source information. If you practice just a little each day—5 or 10 minutes at most—to ask what you most need to know about the day ahead, you’ll see tremendous progress in your intuition coming through more clearly—and in your ability to trust your interpretation.

I have also discovered I am an empath; my moods can change from one extreme to the other in the blink of an eye without any apparent influence. I never used to have a problem with controlling how I reacted, and I could release the sudden emotions, but I have had a lot of difficulty recently. I’ve also recently learned that objects affect me as well, and I now have a very hard time determining what energy comes from where. I’m uncertain if what I’m hearing and feeling is mine or someone else’s.

As a fellow empath, I understand your struggle. I’ve known since I was a teenager that I am empathic, but just knowing doesn’t necessarily make the skill easier to use. There are lots of ways you can get clarity on which emotions are yours and which belong to other people.

For example, as soon as you get up each day, envision yourself surrounded by a pearly white or pink energy that keeps your energies separate from the energies of others. While envisioning that barrier, set the intention that the barrier allows you to understand other people’s feelings without experiencing them as if they were your own.

If you find yourself in a group of people or in some other situation in which you feel overwhelmed, stop, take a deep breath, and imagine a brick wall shielding you from the overwhelming energies. Think of it like taking a few minutes to go to the ladies’ room to “powder your face.” Of course, you’ll want to let the barrier down later, but putting it up can give you a few moments to catch your breath, figuratively speaking, and step back to analyze which emotions are yours and which are not.

When you’re first getting started, it’s easy to accidentally leave little holes in your energetic barriers that allow other energies to come through. Practice envisioning this barrier all around you—including on top of your head, below your feet, and behind your back—without any holes. This can take a lot of effort in the beginning, so I suggest that you practice putting up and taking down these barriers in easy, low-consequence settings until you’ve gotten the hang of it.

Once you can put up and take down these barriers without too much effort or concentration, and you’re pretty certain these barriers are without holes, begin to notice how you feel with them around you (without others’ energies coming in) and then without them. This helps you become more familiar with how your own emotions manifest—how your physical and energetic bodies respond to your own emotions, compared to other people’s energies.

 

I cannot focus most days, and once I do finally get focused, I am usually interrupted by someone—usually a family member—which frustrates me and sometimes even angers me! I need a solid and easy-to-do routine to connect with my soul that doesn’t take much time to practice early in the morning before everyone else in my family is awake. I have to get in tune with me again.

When we’re tired and stressed, we have a harder time maintaining our emotional sovereignty, just like we have problems hearing and understanding our intuition, so of course it’s important to do something each day that grounds you and calms you. Like you said, you need some time to yourself, when no one else is making any demands on you. My husband and I had the same problem after our son was born.

Then we discovered two books: The Miracle Morning and Sleep Smarter. Doing the Miracle Morning Life S.A.V.E.R.S. and correcting our sleep habits have made a huge difference in our lives. We now are calmer, feel more energetic, and are less resentful of each other and the kids. These books have made such a difference to our lives that I wrote about our experience as a guest on someone else’s blog. (You can read that post here. Information about both books is also provided on my recommended reading page.) The beauty of the Miracle Morning is that you can see benefit even if you do the Life S.A.V.E.R.S. for as little as 5 minutes a day. Of course, some days, the kids wake us up too early, or we’re sick and can’t find even 5 minutes for them, but doing as many steps as we can consistently each day, every day that we can, really does make a big difference.

I used to love doing things for people to make them smile or help them in some way. Now I feel resentful about my unchecked giving nature because I feel I am being used. My family seems to expect that I will drop everything to cater to their desires. They seem to “live and have fun” and I am always too late from working without pay to join in. If I stop the chores, the gross mess will build up and no one else will touch it or even complain about it. When I request—sometimes even demand—that my family help, it is met with resistance. Worse, they sometimes rebel, or even ignore me. Sometimes I want to literally walk out and stay gone for weeks or months. I feel guilty for wanting this sometimes, yet I feel I deserve to be treated better, and they deserve to learn the value of working for what you want to accomplish.

The key phrase that stands out for me here is “unchecked giving nature.” I hear so often from giving people that they feel like they’re being used or taken for granted. You must learn how to check that giving nature. I’m not saying you should stop giving and helping others, but you do need to establish healthy boundaries. Most of us who are giving and like to be helpful—actually, most people in our society in general, I think—have not been taught the importance of healthy boundaries. It is essential that you establish healthy boundaries, or you will find yourself frequently depleted and resentful.

You’re correct that you deserve to be treated better and that your family deserves to learn how to do things for themselves. It’s a hard balance to find. You have to figure out how to stand up for yourself and how to tell them no sometimes—in a way that is possible and sustainable for you. It will require that you decide BEFOREHAND what you will and will not do for them, where you will take a stand. But to be able to figure out where you draw the line—and, most importantly, why you draw the line there—you’re going to need to get yourself to a place of calm and clear thinking, which is going to require (almost) daily personal time that grounds you. Find something that gets you out of your head, where all that fear and anxiety just bounces around endlessly, and into a place of no thought, just clarity.

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 My Story: My Year of Shadow and Light

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