Client: In a recent silent meditation retreat, there was somebody I felt an energetic connection with, but there didn’t seem to be a reciprocity. In the past, I've experienced some kind of energetic connection or communication with somebody in the group and it felt like a playful energy between us...a kind of background energy.. [Orion: Yes, dancing in the energy.]
But this time it was almost like somebody taking energy. I felt like they wanted the connection, but didn’t want to acknowledge connection. I later thought that person might have to wanted to do the retreat correctly, staying only with his own thoughts, but perhaps other levels of his mind spilled out looking for connection. I stopped the connection but was left feeling I was somehow not acceptable to this person.
Orion: We agree with your perception that the energy connection was not reciprocal. Perhaps just as you said, the person did want to do it 'correctly' and follow the rules and intention of the retreat. Lack of clarity can arise when we come together in a space of connection, but it is not set up for being in an energetic world together.
The deeper issue here is the confusion and discomfort an Empath - who is comfortable in receiving, extending and sharing energy - feels when this experience is either not acknowledged or in exchange. You are not alone in this at all.
It is always most challenging for an Empath to be in unresolved situations. It is especially difficult when there is, perhaps, the pull from another for the Empath to be understanding and responsive, and yet the other person may not be conscious of that very pull. Thus, you clearly sense the 'pull' to be responsive, to feel exchange, to experience that as a 'win-win' situation, which is the most satisfying result for Empaths.
Such moments may remind us to consider more esoteric ideas of Empath nature that embedded within the Empath capacities is a resonance with the energy of what we call 'Empath Culture'. If you had a world where people really related on true Empath energetic levels, then these types of situations would always have to come into resolution. Having things unresolved or not in balance and exchange, would create a dissonance among the connected community. The community would have to devise a way to deal with energy that didn’t re-align, because they are all on and in the same alignment.
Empaths in this reality have to consistently remember and recognize their amplifiedreceptivity. They have to consciously pause in their responses and remind themselves, 'When I have these feelings, does it necessarily mean this person won’t share with me. Does it necessarily mean that this person doesn’t like me? Does it necessarily mean I’m unacceptable?' In your recent retreat experience, the idea that the person wanted to stay unto himself for his own reasons, would be the most useful and accurate consideration.
Discernment of what is received is, overall, the most challenging aspect for Empaths and one that has to be revisited again and again. There’s a lot of information around today about the idea of Empaths. People are attracted to the idea of being Empathic; are seeking how to be an Empath, but our focus has been on supporting those who have discovered their Empathic nature in living in this individuated and guarded world.
Empaths are having a more saturated experience of connection and need skills to manage their experience. And even more than receptive, Empaths find they have the ability to actually to move towards another person, to send and receive energy in a very natural, unconscious way that many others do not do. Understanding Empath nature and honing your skills to live more easily in the world is the responsibility we hope every Empath is willing to take on. The world is as it is and you are the traveler with a different nature. Yet, we feel it is that very difference that you are here to share.
Client: I was taking a channeling class with a professional Tarot card reader and in a light- hearted way, he said that he was afraid of me because he thought I could read his mind. This confused me as I don't feel I can do that...
In this case, you probably had intuitive, empathic responses to him which were attuned to what he was feeling or thinking, but had not said aloud. He was accustomed to using the Tarot cards to focus his own receptivity or perhaps he was comfortable as an interpreter archetypical meanings in the cards and not his own receiving. In any event, it is disconcerting for many to have a conversation touch on things unspoken.
The Empath has to really keep in the forefront that what is easily available to you or 'natural' for you, may not be typical for others. Acknowledging your own differences will support you to find balance when others do not mirror your acceptability. Being self-aware lets you be more at ease that others do not see or feel what you do and that ease lets you accept them with more clarity and compassion.
No one is all acceptable to everyone, every time. The response may have to do with us - our actions, our differences - but typically it has more to do with the other and all the things they are bringing to the table. And while discernment of this situation is challenging for the Empath, even more so, is letting go of trying to resolve the situation, of having the other person see your point, where you are coming from, as they say.
Empaths always want to keep going back to a situation and continue the attempt to resolve. Again, in an Empath culture continuing to attempt to resolve would be essential. But this feeling cannot drive the situation in this reality. Instead, hold the thought, 'Is it wholly true when I experience not being acceptable? What works for me to re-find my balance,' which might include the very fact that you cannot - as in 'Oops… this is a time I’m just going to have to feel out-of-balance until it aligns itself.' There is a pull for the Empath to dwell on or return to the emotional point of feeling unbalanced and it is useful to learn to interrupt this pattern. 'I'm dwelling on this. I'm returning to this. Let it go for now.'
Empaths are challenged to feel balanced when they are not the movement of re-balancing, because their receptivity and extension of energyalways feels like movement to them. You are exactly right when you said you cannot force engagement or force someone else into alignment because, actually, that would not be alignment. One might be able to 'force' someone to be together but that is not what we see the spiritual energetic of alignment, where beings move from awareness and recognition into a place of Unity.
Client: With the person on retreat, I felt so strongly that he was like my mother. I tried to talk myself out of those feelings.
Naturally, every person will bring their own history into play in response to others. In your case, the closest person to you, your mother, often did not recognize your intention as you meant it, often did not 'see' you as you were or wanted or needed. And further, she labeled these differences as something wrong with you. So the early child readily learned the model of 'When someone else doesn’t respond to me in I am intending, it means something is wrong with me.'
Again, it is essential for the Empath to discern and then move toward rebalancing their own responses and feelings in the situation. From that clarity, one can also respond to the essence of the other person, rather than those qualities that are impacting you, 'hooking' your 'pushing your buttons'. 'I want to find another way within myself to be with this.' This is the actual resolution option that is always available, although at times it may feel really challenging or less satisfying to move into.
Empaths also need to remember that we do get resolutions from others, as in, 'You know I used to be afraid of you, but then one day I realized, it was my reaction to you.' Such resolutions are often the ones we ourselves do not create or if you are the initiator of resolution, it’s after some time when the person involved has made their own changes.
Empaths forget that the another's system of understanding and resolving can be distinctly different and separate from their own. This is especially so because Empaths often do not experience people as distinctly separate from themselves. They have to learn this discernment and apply it over and over again.
Empaths move into and recognize the connecting elements between people before they recognize separation. This is the core discernment we make about Empath nature - that an Empath is other than empathetic. The Empath must learn to clearly recognize and reiterate that this is a reality of individuation, in an actually emotionally guarded society. Most people you interact with may beopposed to merging with you, opposed to this shared space of unity of emotion that is not within certain parameters and models. In the very least, they are uncomfortable with it and have limited models for it.
It is always a challenge to be consciously aware of that which is innate. How easy it would be for an Empath to say, as you did, 'We can just dance in the energy in this workshop,' You may indeed get one or two people who see or feel that, but you may also get thirty-five other people who don’t or think, 'I can only dance in the energy of the universe, not another person.'
Again, this is why the Empath has to truly get and embody the concept that they are an Empath, and get how it is different. The main practice for any Empath is developing discernment, and with that, increasing and applying all ways of discernment and recognizing all the areas and arenas we have to bring discernment to.
Remember, Empathic energy can have a merge quality, and many people are fearful of merge. The culture holds individuation as the primary focus and value and has not yet formed strong models on how we are individuals within community and in relationship and together at the same time. One may wonder, 'Who am I if I merge? Does that mean the other person is the stronger one?' The energetic principles of Unity culture are present but the true recognition and incorporation of that interconnectedness of all things is still a nascent energy on the planet. Yet towards that end, we see the arise of the recognition of empathy and what we call Empath qualities.
Esoterically, we feel the energy of Empath culture itself is trying to experience individuation and Empath evolution through that. Perhaps your own discoveries here may be experienced as part of an energetic guide experience to an Empath in another reality or realm of consciousness. Individuals are comfortable with the idea of having an energetic guide in their life, but they don’t seem to consider there could be some parallel to that to someone else. So if there is an Empath culture out there, perhaps some of those people are dreaming and having meditations in which an Empath person is also an individuated being.
While we consider these ideas within the realm of possibility, we do not emphasize it much, as people have a tendency to make such ideas to concrete. These ideas are more like metaphors and models to consider. Metaphors pointing towards things that language is not broad enough to accurately capture. The ancient axiom of 'Know Yourself' continues to be a truth worthy of deep and ongoing exploration, especially for those with a different sensibility, a different nature than the typical. Add to that curiosity about the self, acknowledgment moving towards acceptance of the self, and the world feels more comfortable and in that, more expansive.
Orion
excerpted and edited, with permission and appreciation, from a personal session, 2014.
Greetings from Elisabeth
We look forward to hearing from you....