A short YouTube talk by Ashok Gupta aimed at empaths who absorb others' negative emotions. Gupta explains why empaths pick up others' feelings (early learned hypervigilance or personal suffering) and reframes empathic sensitivity as a gift. He offers an A-B-C strategy: A — Accept & Surrender (allow others their path without rescuing); B — Boundaries & Self-care (set limits, recharge alone, meditate, spend time in nature); C — Compassion (care without attachment to outcome). He closes by inviting viewers to a deeper Facebook Live and affirming empathic strengths.
Chapters
Are you somebody who easily gets drained by other people's negative energy? You know, the kind of person that just seems to suck the life force out of you and you can't help but take on their emotions. It's a bit like a guitar string. There are two guitar strings next to each other, and one, if it's plucked, vibrates at a certain frequency and we, as the empath next to it, we end up taking on that same negative vibrational frequency. And often empaths have learned to do this from their childhood. They may have gone through a challenging childhood where they had to be hypervigilant to make sure they could recognize the emotions of other people around them. Or instead, it could be that they went through certain suffering in their lives and therefore they can be acutely aware of the suffering of others. Now, for many people who are empaths, being an empath can be quite exhausting. Taking on the negative energy of other people. However, I want you to know that being an empath is an incredible powerful gift that you've been given. It's an intuitive ability to connect at a very deep level with people around you and it's something to be celebrated. And of course, yes, there can be some downsides, but there are ways of instead of being a disempowered empath, you can be an empowered empath. I'd like to share three ideas with you. It's as easy as A, B, C. So if you find you take on the emotions of others. A stands for accept and surrender. That means that instead of feeling pity for that person, or trying to rescue that person, or feeling bogged down by the terrible things that you think they're going through, instead it's realizing that each soul has to walk their journey, each soul has to walk their path to elevate themselves to the next step, change in their evolution. So so called bad things that are happening, we later realize in life were a gift. There was something we had to go through to become the person that we choose to be. So accept and surrender means to accept and surrender to the suffering that we may go through in our own lives, but also to accept and surrender what other people are going through. We can't judge their path or the experiences that they're going through. Let them experience it. B stands for boundaries and self care. So often as empaths, we take on other people's negative vibrations, negative energy, and it's important to have boundaries with people who seem to suck that life force out of us. And it also means that empaths do need quite a lot of me time alone, time to recharge, to re energize, and that's incredibly important. And being in nature, you know, greenery like this or at a beach or somewhere where you feel rejuvenated, that's an incredibly powerful place to be for you each day. And of course, regular meditation is that sanctuary for the soul that uplifts the spirit and re energizes you, connects you back to source, recharges your battery. So regular meditation every day is important for you. And C stands for compassion. Now, often empaths may inadvertently engage in pity in feeling sorry for that person or trying to rescue them from their pain. But when we try to rescue someone, we're attached to a certain result, and that can be disempowering. And also we give away our energy, give away our power, and we feel lost in that. And then we're attached to a certain outcome. I'm only allowed to be happy if I've fixed this issue for them and made them feel better. But that isn't compassion. That's attachment. Compassion is allowing yourself to feel that heartfelt care for that person. So you want to help in whatever way you can, but not being attached to any outcome. And that means being fully present, fully loving, being a space that you can hold for another person without your own energy being drained. And as an empath, that intuitive ability then comes forth, and you give the right advice at the right time, and it's a beautiful experience. So these abc can be a great way of offsetting some of the downside of being an empath. Now, if you want to go deeper, we'll be doing a Facebook Live. We'll be going deeper into this subject, and if it's already happened, you can view that whole video on our Facebook page. And all that's left for me to do is to say, being an empath is an incredible powerful gift to the people around you. Celebrate it, uplift it within you, and make sure you stay in your light.
