I discovered that being able to manage my energy is the key to coping with the effects of being an empath. 

The better you are at managing your energy, the better you will be at managing your empathy.

One of the effects of absorbing other people’s emotions and taking on the responsibility of of their problems is that we can become overwhelmed. We get full up with other people’s stuff. We feel it in our heads, as though we have no more room for thinking or decision-making. And we feel dragged down by it in our bodies, and energetically. It’s exhausting and leaves little room for anything else.

So while there are steps you can take to prevent yourself from absorbing other people’s emotions, focussing on your energy is, in my opinion, the key. 

There are a number of elements to managing my energy:

• Cleansing
• Grounding
• Centring
• Protecting
• Filling up

But there’s another one… Emptying

This is a relatively new part of the energy work I do, but I it’s similar to cleansing which I’ve always done. 

Regular cleansing and emptying of your energy or energetic space is essential to help you cope with being an empath. It also makes you stronger so you can do the other things that help you be less empathic. Eventually, you can stop taking on other people’s feelings, pain, and problems. Honestly! 

Cleansing Helps To Manage My Energy

You may have come across the idea of cleansing your energy and your space before. This could be tidying and decluttering, but also energetically clearing, for example using smudge, crystals, Reiki symbols, or sound. For your own energetic field you can use visualisation, crystals, reiki and other energy healing work.

I would suggest that while this works on its own, it will work even more if you start with Emptying Your Energy first. 

Emptying Is The Best Place To Start

We often hear it said that you can’t pour from an empty cup. And I do believe this to be true.  But we also need to empty and clean that cup from time to time. 

Imagine instead that you are a kitchen sink – humour me for a moment! 

Before we start to fill the sink up with clean fresh water, we need to do a consider a couple of things. Firstly, there’s a couple of other things to consider. What about the dishes and water that are already in the sink? It’s pretty full. And that water has been sitting there a while. And you know that someone will have just emptied a half finished coffee in there, rinsed the recycling in it, and maybe washed their hands under a running tap without emptying the sink first. So we need to:

• Empty it 
• Clean it 
• Put the plug in
• Then we can fill it up again
• Later we might even jazz it up with some bubbles!

How to Cleanse AND Empty Your Personal Energy At The Same Time

Have you ever exerted yourself so much physically that you have collapsed in a heap at the end of the activity feeling cleansed inside and out? 

That’s what I’m talking about. 

As empaths we take so much on from our surroundings, loved ones, our community, the world’s situation and more, that we have very little room for ourselves. We become like the kitchen sink that everyone is emptying their leftover crap into. It’s getting full and pretty grimy as time goes on. So we really need to get clear of other people’s stuff regularly. 

We need to get out of our head and stop thinking about it all. Stop going round and round in circles with our own thoughts. 

Thinking, stillness and monotony do not serve us in this respect. 

We need to change gear, get moving and focus on our physical and energetic bodies. 

Relaxation and meditation can help, but I would recommend you go with movement first as a means to really empty yourself. You can move on to meditation and relaxation later, especially as you start to fill up. However, if you are limited in what you can do physically then meditation is definitely the place to start. You can use visualisation to imagine everything draining away. You can also go inside, tap in to your intuitive side and ask ‘how can i best manage my energy’. 

Here are some ideas to get you started with emptying and cleansing: 

• Any exercise or activity that gets you sweating, out of breath and exhausted. This could be running, mountain climbing, swimming or even dynamic yoga.
• Walking out in nature for a really good length of time – this will be different for everyone and you’ll have to test it for yourself. Start walking through natural landscapes at a good pace and see how long it is before you start to feel a weight come away from your shoulders and that you’re not thinking about other people and their problems (and how you can help)
• Put music on and dance and sing along until you’re. This is great because you can’t really think if you’re singing!
• What I call a demon clean – you know when you scrub the house from top to bottom and you need a shower after because you feel yucky? 
• If things get really bad we often end up crying – this is an emptying and cleansing process itself – but let’s not use it unless we have to. 

These ideas really work on a physical and energetic level. And then anything you do afterwards will have a much greater effect as a result. 

This is the first stage. We’ll look at cleansing, grounding, centring and protecting another time.

You will need to tune in with yourself and really understand how it feels to be empty. This isn’t easy and takes practice. Keep working at it. This is a regular, lifetime practice, not a one-off. Regularly checking in with how my body and energy feels and taking action to manage my energy is the way I keep on top of managing my empathy.

In the meantime, if you’re struggling with feelings of empathic or emotional overwhelm, you can access my free download ‘The Empath’s Action Plan To Manage Overwhelm’ here.

What are your thoughts or questions? Let me know below