Introduction

If you’ve ever been told you are too sensitive, you are probably an empath. If you cry during Hallmark movies or if crowded places make you feel anxious, you are probably an empath. If negativity overwhelms you or you can easily spot someone fibbing, you are probably an empath. Many people think empaths are weak (including most empaths themselves), but empaths are the strong ones. Empaths carry around everyone else’s feelings.

I’m an empath. If you feel it, I feel it. When I leave myself vulnerable, I feel what the world feels. When an empath is tired, sick, depressed, or grieving, the empath often unknowingly opens themselves to feeling every emotion. Those emotions stick to the soul. It’s icky. It’s scary. It’s dizzying. It causes panic and fear—exactly the kind of energy that negativity needs to flourish. Negative energy doesn’t want us to know that we have our own “weapon” called positivity and healing.

An empath feels everything deeply. A hard look can sometimes be as painful as a physical punch. Witnessing something embarrassing

or violent can raise strong emotions, even if the situation was seen on television or read about in a book. Empaths are often compassionate, understanding, and overly considerate people. But when they don’t understand their gift, an empath can grow bitter and resentful.

Feeling All the Feelings

Once upon a time, there was a girl with long blond hair and bluegreen eyes. You could look at her a certain way and she’d either swell with joy or crumble into sadness. She lived in a house filled with heavy emotions. The world around her was weighted and worn, and she carried it all as if it were her job to do so. She was both untaught and unable to take the time to feel her own feelings because she was so busy cleaning up the emotional messes others carelessly left behind. Before she could even find herself, she lost herself.

Growing up, everyone tried to change her by telling her to toughen up and to stop being so sensitive. She always felt different. She felt alone. She daydreamed of a place where she was accepted and understood. It wouldn’t be until several decades later that she realized she wasn’t flawed at all—she was an empath. There were techniques she could learn to not absorb so much while still staying true to who she was. She discovered that she wasn’t defective, she was gifted.

That girl was me, and if you are reading this, it’s likely you as well.

It was the summer before first grade when my mom and dad got into one of their fights. Well, Mom fought, while Dad offered his

best weapon: the silent treatment. It was a typical August in the Midwest, and my dad was watching his beloved Detroit Tigers play ball. Win or lose, Dad watched all the same, as if it were his job. He could tell you who played first base for the Tigers in 1976 in 2020, but he couldn’t tell you who my best friend was in 1976 in 1976. What caught my dad’s interest was what caught his interest, and he didn’t care for much outside of that. It was a frequent argument between my parents, and it is likely what caused that summer day’s argument too. My mom probably wanted to go somewhere and do something on one of the last good days before autumn, and my dad wanted to sit and watch the tube. And that’s what he did. He simply sat motionless and emotionless in his chair while my mom did what she did best: ranted and raved in between sobs.

“I’m just going to kill myself then,” she called out to him. “Then you’ll be sorry,” she added, as if this might change something in the current moment.

Instead of diffusing the heightened situation, my dad looked through my mom, continuing to watch the baseball game. With one more hardened glance at my dad, she looked at me.

“You either kill yourself with me, or you stay with that heartless man,” she said, her arms flailing as she offered her ultimatum.

I just stood there, frozen by her offered choices. When I didn’t say anything, she shook her head in disgust, running out of the door and slamming it behind her with a hardened exclamation mark that shook me.

“Please, Daddy,” I begged. “Please go after her.”

Just as my mom was invisible to my dad most of the time, so was I. He continued to sit, staring, not even acknowledging that I was talking to him. Even at that age, I was a natural mediator, and I did what I thought was best in that moment: I ran after my mom.

After what felt like miles (it was only a mile), I caught up to her. She was looking over a bridge at the jagged rocks and rushing river water underneath. I could physically feel her heart breaking, and I’m not even sure she knew why. I felt every bit of her various emotions in every part of my body. I wasn’t worried about me. She wasn’t really either, if I’m being transparent. I did, however, worry about her.

The energy of intensity shifted to one of peace and something told me nothing would happen to us. Thankfully, the angels and guides intercepted before anything tragic happened. My mom somehow tripped backward, away from the bridge rail. It was as if it jolted her aware, at least for that moment in time.

After that episode, my mom was admitted to a psychiatric ward, but nothing helped her live again. Not shock therapy, or medicine, or therapists. Not her husband or her kids. She survived until she was sixty-eight years old, but between her mental illness, autoimmune illnesses, blindness, and finally, her heart issues, she never truly lived. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to; she just wasn’t given an understanding or any tools to help her.

My mom’s story isn’t an uncommon one. Not only am I an empath, but my mother was too. The heavy emotional burdens she carried were treated as a scarlet letter, except instead of publicly wearing her mark on her sleeve, she wore it on her heart, like many empaths do. Being an empath can be humiliating and a burden, just like that scarlet letter. Being an empath was misunderstood then. It’s often misunderstood now.

My mom was thrown into a psychiatric hospital every time she had a meltdown, and that taught me to hide. It taught me that all negative feelings would be punished, so I tried to push my own feelings back into the emotional closet. The more I pushed, the more I felt. It was a constant tug-of-war, like putting on jeans that

are two sizes too small: they might fit over your tummy, but you won’t be able to zip them. It might feel practical to fit into what the world thinks you should do and feel, but at the end of the day, it creates more of an imbalance. It’s exhausting and uncomfortable.

For years I had others telling me to stop being so sensitive, including my own mother! That is like telling someone with blue eyes to stop having blue eyes, or telling someone who hates liver and onions to just like it, or telling someone who is depressed to stop being depressed. Being an empath is part of the emotional wiring of the soul and the spirit, and it takes conscious and continuous maintenance.

Think about roses. When a person wants roses in their garden, they carefully choose the type of rose and where to plant them. For the roses to blossom and be healthy, though, they have to be tended to. In return, the plant’s gift is years of roses. Planting roses is much more rewarding than waiting for someone else to gift you roses. Just as a rose can be picky, needing the right amount of sunlight and the right kind of dirt, an empath is complicated and needs to be tended to in order to bloom.

Sure, not everyone understands roses, and they might try and call you out for liking them. “Daisies are better than roses!” they might say, because daisies can grow in any kind of dirt, even in the middle of a street if they want to. And while daisies are pretty cool for what they offer, so are roses. There’s no competition.

But an empath who isn’t confident in who they are spends a massive amount of energy and time making everyone else happy. Others’ opinions dilute their own wishes or dreams. “Daisies are better than roses, so why even spend the time, energy, and love to make my roses beautiful?” the empath will lament. The roses that were so wanted will then begin to wither and die, aching all the

while to be loved and to provide their beautiful petals and sweet fragrance.

You, dear empath, are symbolically that rose, and just as any gardener will tell you, it’s imperative to tend to your garden to get the best blossoms. Your feelings matter. All feelings matter. My goal in authoring this book is to help you find the tools to be the beautiful rose you were born to be. And if you are a daisy or an iris, that isn’t weird or unusual; it’s cool to be different.