5 Things Empaths MUST Know! (To Survive & Thrive in 2022)

Empaths need to know these 5 things moving forward, otherwise their energy is going to continue to get drained. They're going to continue to feel like they're obligated or responsible for everyone else's energy, and they're really not going to feel clarity on who they are and why they came here. So this video, I'm going to show you the 5 things empaths must know right now moving forward. And first off, More than anything, there's this idea of projection that I've become to realize in my own life. And first off, what is an empath? An empath is somebody that can feel other people's energies, somebody that is also considered an HSP, which means highly sensitive person. But in general, empaths are people that can feel other people's energy. And the benefit of this is that many times Healers, people that are in some type of industry of like helping other people are what empaths normally gravitate towards. And there's many positive things that can come from being an empath, but some of the negative things that come is losing sense of self. It is feeling very challenging to set boundaries. And that's why in this video I'm making it because these are the 5 things you must know about that. Now, first off, projection. Now, this is something I realized yesterday because I used to be, I mean, I am empathic, I guess you could say, but I used to more so be on the shadow side of this where a lot of times people pleasers and nice guys or people that are just like overly nice, this sometimes stems from being an empath. Maybe growing up you had a lot of like crazy childhood dynamics going on and you decided I'm gonna be the peacemaker. I'm gonna be the bridge between my friends and my family, or my family getting along, or whatever it is. What ends up happening is then there's this exchange that goes on where it's like empaths don't feel safe unless everyone else is feeling good, which then means that it's hard to feel good because you have to literally do a whole bunch of things and make everyone else happy. And a lot of times that people-pleasing mentality is actually a form of manipulation because "If I can make you happy or please you, then I'll feel safe, good, and complete." But then it becomes like an outside thing that the focus is. And I'm gonna share something in this video right now that will completely transform the way you look at this whole dynamic when it comes to empaths. But first, I wanna explain this with projection. Now, what I mean by this projection is what we do when we're in relationship with each other is based on our individual shadows, our individual desires, our individual expectations. We project those onto other people. I've had it happen before. I'll explain this little example. For example, this is like a small little example of it, but nonetheless it gets the point across. When I was, I had an ex-girlfriend back in like 2015 or something like that. And with her, I remember there was this thing where when we were together, I was also very empathic and still am to this day, but I've known how to I moderate it more now, but she had this thing where she did not like if, she had this thing where her ex-boyfriends, I guess, would pay for dinner, but then have her tip. And she didn't like that. Now I've never been, like, that's never really been the way that I am, but with her, for some reason, we were at dinner one time and I was like, well, you know, I'll just continue to pay. And then you could just tip. And the response from that was so much kind of not like trauma necessarily, but it was like this big trigger for her because then she told me later, like, that's what my ex-boyfriend did. And it's like, if you're gonna pay for dinner, then pay for it. Don't have me pay tip. It was like she didn't feel valuable or like valued or something. But the weird thing is, and not that I'm blaming it on her, but it's, I've never had that desire to do that before, but maybe because being an empath, I fell within the frame, within the expectation of somebody else. There's another aspect of my life that I won't go too deep into this, but there's someone in my life that has had trauma, somebody that I work with that's had trauma around having a boss or somebody that is a certain way, is like narcissistic. And sometimes what happens is this person can feel or get scared that that's gonna happen again, which of course I'm far from that. However, she may notice something like, ooh, this part of the, this little thing over here, this part of the business over here reminds me of this. And then there's like this energy that comes over it. And what I've had to learn to do is how to be in my own frame and remember who I am in a way where I'm like, no, that's not me. And that's kind of what I had to do is I had a conversation about this. I don't wanna go too much into detail 'cause it's kind of personal. But in general, there's times where your projection, people's expectation of you, you may fall within that because you're so empathic that you just kind of wanna make everyone else happy. So you fall within the frame of the way they expect you to be. So this is something you wanna become aware of because unless you're in your own frame, What'll happen is you may conform to their beliefs. You may conform to their expectation and then feel like you overcorrect and lose your sense of self. I had that happen where when someone expressed to me something, I like was like so empathic and I was like, oh, okay, okay, okay, I totally understand, I'll fix it. And then I woke up to it like the next day and was like, I overextended. I like, I didn't hold my ground enough. I lost too much of my sense of self. So the reason I share this is you can become aware of the second thing right here, which will explain a lot of it. Let me write this down so I don't forget too. But this, this right here is, that's your shit, not mine. Now this isn't like, you're not just always giving away responsibility and always being like, that's your stuff, that's your stuff, that's your stuff. But the problem with most empaths is they have trouble setting boundaries because the boundaries don't exist. Literally with an empath, your happiness is my happiness. What you feel is what I feel. And that's the challenge because then empaths have trouble setting boundaries. But this one statement here has completely transformed my own life. And that's remembering that if you say no to going to, let's say, a friend's birthday, you know, I have friends that want me to go to a friend's birthday next week, I'm literally moving next week. And if I'm gonna move next week, I may not have time to go. But if back in the day, I would not have been able to say no. I would've done something as crazy as like not move or like if I felt guilty about going to a friend's birthday party because I would lose my sense of self. But now I know if I say no and someone's butthurt about it, that's their stuff. I can't abandon myself. So setting boundaries is really when you say no to something, you're saying yes to yourself. And for this, when you think of that of like narcissists versus empaths, which are kind of opposites but also very similar in a weird way. Narcissists manipulate other people to get their needs met. Empaths sometimes manipulate other people to get their needs met. It's just they do it in very different ways. The narcissists are normally aggressive and demanding. The empaths are a little bit more passive about it. They say, well, I'm gonna give you this and then you'll gimme validation, approval, and support. However, the thing to remember with this is what the narcissist needs to learn is how to be more empathic, how to think of others. What the empath needs to learn is what can be learned from the narcissist, which is how to set boundaries, how to be in your own frame. These are both in a way somewhat unhealthy expressions sometimes. There can be a healthy, there is such a thing by the way as well as healthy narcissism. My shadow work coach talks to me about this all the time. Healthy narcissism is called confidence. It's not a bad thing. We all have narcissistic tendencies too. But when we point the finger, empaths are also in a way covert narcissists because the way they get their needs met is by being people pleasers, giving validate, or, you know, wanting the validation and the support. It's just they have very different ways of going about obtaining it. And the reason I say this too is a lot of times the picture, I'm trying to break you outta the belief system that the narcissist is the villain and you're the good guy or the good person or the people pleaser. Both these qualities exist within us. And the reason I'm sharing this is so that we can actually start doing something with it. So first off, that's your shit, not mine. It's important to remember that. The next time somebody feels mad or frustrated that you're not doing something they wanna do, it's okay, that's their stuff. Let them be. If they have a problem with it, That's something they can deal with. It's not yours. It's not your responsibility. I see my girlfriend sometimes deal with this because she's super empathic. And sometimes she literally takes on other people's, like she wants everyone to be happy, everyone to feel nurtured, everyone to feel good. And sometimes what she does is she takes on their stuff, even like her family or her friends and stuff like that. And then she has to like remind herself, she's like, wait, I'm not responsible for this. "It's not my job to do this." You can still be compassionate, but it doesn't mean it's your job to like make everything else feel good so that you can feel safe. Now the frame, the third part of this is frame, and that's understanding self versus other. Now this is the one thing I wanna share with you. Now empaths, this is the way my shadow work coach explained this. It's completely transformed my life to understand this. That's why I wanna share it with you. Let's imagine zero, is other, okay? 1 is self. In our reality, there's a split of these two things. 1, which is self, other, 0, which is other. Think of it like in The Matrix, there's these zeros and ones everywhere. Now what happens is if you do something, which I'll call, which is, I'll explain to you in a minute, which also is a game changer. What you do is you start to become aware of it, it starts to become present inside of your body. Because what happens with empaths is they're not necessarily completely in their body. They are feeling the environment of everything to get survival and safety. So what ends up happening is they have so much, they see only zeros. Narcissists see only self. Everything is me, everything is me, everything, it's all about me. I need to get my needs met. It's all about me, me, me, me, me. And then the empath's all about other. Now they both wanna get their needs met. It's just that they only see, one only sees zeros, one only sees ones. Now the balance of this is number 4, which I'm gonna explain to you. But the thing to realize here is that out of childhood survival, normally what happens is there's a pattern that's created where it says, in order for me to feel safe, I have to focus on other, because if I can get other people to feel happy, other people to feel good, then I can feel safe. Whereas narcissists say, I only see ones, and I have to manipulate my environment and be very demanding in order for me to feel safe. So think of it like this. When you go to the TFT, this trumps everything else you're gonna learn, by the way. And you could say Biden, say Biden to everyone else's shit, okay? That's what you want to do here, okay? Now with this, it's the frame technique. Now if you stare at a candle flame, let's change it, it's so simple. And sometimes people overlook it, but all you do is you stare at a candle flame and on the in-breath, you feel the connection to self. You feel the one, you feel you and the separation between you and the candle, you and the walls, you and your seat, wherever you are, you and your clothes. You feel present inside of your body. And on the zero, you breathe out and you just release and you feel connected to everything. That's the zero. Now empaths always feel the zero. They feel connected to everything. Oh, it's all, we're all one consciousness, but they lack the sense of self and they abandon their self in the process. Doing the shift, the frame technique will completely transform your life because what it allows you to do is to feel safe in your own frame, to feel safe inside your own body and begin to more so individuate from your environment. It's not a bad thing. It's what empaths need to hear. And moving into 2000, you know, the years beyond what'll happen is unless we become aware of this energy, we will continue to morph into other people's expectations. We'll continue to take on other people's shit and think it's ours. We'll continue to adhere to other people's frames because here's the thing, the reason you may be attracting a narcissist is because there's actually something to learn from them. Not to be unhealthy and not to be like demanding narcissist that's like manipulating environment, but my dad was super empathic. Attracted my ex-stepmom who's a narcissist. My ex-stepmom, she is, it does have the ability to manipulate other people in an unhealthy, toxic way. However, my dad has had to learn how to stand up to her. He's had to get out of his comfort zone and actually be assertive. It's something he can learn. With my ex-stepmom, she can learn maybe this life, maybe in the next life, who knows? She can, sometimes there's a big stubbornness here on both sides, but she can learn how to be more empathic. Guarantee you, when she has a life review, she will feel that energy. So the reason I share this is because there's actually something to learn. The narcissist isn't just completely a villain. We all have our own narcissistic qualities within us. It's about in a healthy manner, becoming aware of it and being honest with ourselves. Now with this, and with this thing that trumps everything else, you can say, buy into that of the, it's your shit, not mine. Do that frame technique and you will notice people respond to you differently because you start to feel safe in your own body. It changes absolutely everything. And the other thing that will change absolutely everything is when you begin to actually listen to your own inner child and give them the unmet needs that you didn't feel that you received when you were a kid. We all have an inner child inside of us that either wants significance, validation, approval, connection, nurturing. And because that need isn't met, we then use being an empath, being narcissist or whatever to get our needs met. When you heal your inner child, everything in your life begins to change. And one of the most powerful meditations I have ever made is an inner child meditation for healing. You go to Kauai, Hawaii, you energetically connect to your inner child and it will completely transform your life. I've had thousands of people do this meditation. They all say it. It's very powerful. So if you wanna check it out, all you gotta do is go to aarondoughty.com/child or click the link below. The other thing that you could do is I have a video that's very popular on YouTube. It's on empaths. We go deeper on all of this. If you wanna learn more about how to turn your empath ability into your own superpower and go deep on all of these concepts, watch this video right here. It's one of the most powerful ones for empaths. Today's episode's gonna be one that was inspired by a live that I did yesterday. I have something that's called the 21-Day Raise Your Vibration Challenge, and I did a live in it,