What No One Tells You About Being An Empath
If you've been reading along you know that at the beginning of 2018 I decided to change everything about what I was experiencing.
I was tired.
I was burnt out.
I was hurting.
I had been told many times throughout my life that the change I believed in for the world was idealistic, and that my heart was naive, because “good people don’t succeed” and those with dreams were unrealistic.
And when I was forced to walk away from this website last November because my dreams weren’t working and I had bills to pay, I let those ‘truths’ get to me.
(Related: Let’s Talk (being an empath in) Business, a free workshop sharing my story of starting my blog and becoming an entrepreneur and the mistakes I made so you don’t have to make them too.)
I started to believe in what other people were saying.
I felt silly for having big dreams.
I felt embarrassed that I had believed my life could mean something.
I let myself fall victim to the idea that the world I believe in was nothing more than wishful thinking.
But my spirit is resilient, and it wasn’t going to just let me walk away. It wasn’t going to let me give into what I didn’t believe. Because I believe this world is good and I believe in a future better than anything we've yet imagined.
Most importantly though, I believe we can all live the lives of our wildest dreams.
But I’m not naive to what it takes to make these wild dreams reality, because having dreams and acting on our dreams are two completely different things. And up until this point, we (as a world, but especially as empaths) haven’t been honest about what living out our dreams for a happier and healthier, more loving and peaceful planet actually takes.
My decision to walk away from my site at the end of 2017 was my spirit saying: sit down and listen, you have some lessons to learn if you’re genuine about making this world a better place.
I was actually given a choice.
The choice to stay or the choice to go, and I chose to stay in my body and do what it took to finish what it was I came for. And that choice lead me to realizing how wrong I had been about so many things, especially as it relates to being a change-maker and changing things.
I realized I had let my ‘good person’ identity take hold of my true identity and limit me... that there was nothing kind, beautiful or classy about being self-sacrificing... and that giving and giving and giving without being able to receive (the things I was wanting) was annihilating me and the goodness I could be...
So I got intentional about doing things differently.
I started focusing on money, saying ‘I love you, but I can’t do that for you’ to people and their needs, and removing any trace of victim mentality by realizing I’m the only one who can make my life what I want it to be and that no amount of complaining would change things.
I started to do the inner work to love the Masculine part of me, The part of me that wants a life filled with beautiful things. The part of me who wants to go to bed each night feeling stable and at peace. The part of me that accomplishes goals and sets a strong example of what it means to REACH.
And things got better.
I started making good money.
The things on my vision board manifested quicker and quicker into my physical reality.
I finally know what it means to TRULY be in my own energy.
I finally know peace.
And from this change I’ve started to speak.
I’ve started stepping more fully into the controversial parts of my spirit that makes me ME; the parts of me that aren’t afraid of their value and aren’t afraid to speak honestly because controversy and the challenging of norms and ideas that are limiting are what this world needs.
Because I've learned I incarnated to make people THINK.
And I can’t make people think if I don’t first feel strong and stable and safe in being un-liked and having others disagree.
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My willingness to lean into Masculine things (the money, the boundaries, the no longer being a victim to reality) is what made me finally feel safe being me because it gave me the strength and the space to believe in me. To know that I could be honest and not worry if it would affect my employment because I could manifest money easily. To know that I could share my opinion on a controversial topic and it wouldn’t matter if others agreed because another’s opinion didn’t affect me.
To finally feel sooo good in my body because my two halves are no longer fighting.
THE MASCULINE ENERGY
If you are new to the masculine/feminine conversation, the masculine energy governs our lower chakras; the Root, Sacral and Solar Plexus, three chakras that work with the Throat chakra to create the backbone we require to live most authentically.
(If you straighten your spine, you can physically feel what I’m saying; with a straight spine, your heart opens naturally.)
It’s a critical part of who we are as change-makers because it’s the foundation that allows us to channel source energy and be steady and strong enough to act on what it is we believe.
The 'me first' energy of the lower chakras is a big part of being heart-centered, but its traits don’t always feel ‘heart-led’ when we start to embody them because we've been conditioned to believe that being self-centered is a bad thing.
a healthy Root Chakra means you honour what you need to feel safe and secure, and this includes money and other tangible things tied into our capitalist society.
a healthy Sacral Chakra means you learn to tap into your personal power; the part of you that knows you are in relationship to other but doesn’t care what other people think and/or expect of you.
a healthy Solar Plexus Chakra means you learn to be deeply self-centered because it’s only from a self-centered space that you can hear your intuition and follow the path you incarnated to.
When we learn to nurture our lower chakras we start to change and we become less of the ‘kind’ person we’ve been taught to be because we learn to be self-centered; a way of being required to show up for others in a way that’s impactful, not draining — and this feels uncomfortable when we are used to putting all of our worth and identity into being everything to everybody at the extent of our own needs.
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When I returned to the diary in early 2018 I thought about deleting my old blog posts because I couldn’t recognize the person who wrote them. The integration spirit put me through after leaving my website n late 2017 increased my vibration to a point where who I was when I wrote them is no longer who I am.
But that doesn’t mean who I was when I wrote those posts wasn’t me.
It was my truth at the time of writing them; a truth I had to grow through to write this post to you.
Authenticity is a moment-to-moment thing.
We are meant to change.
We are meant to grow.
We are meant to challenge our beliefs and assumptions until there is nothing left to outgrow. And one of the reasons I share my wounding so openly is because we are far too quiet about growth and what it means.
Which keeps us from growing the way we are meant to.
Which is not only a disservice to our spirits but also to this world we are trying to change!
Because nothing changes if we stay the same.
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If you took my Life Purpose Workshop, you know that our desires are our spirit’s call and what we want for our lives is the path we must follow to align with our highest potential.
And right now my spirit has my sights on big things.
Things that involve me getting myself into a space where I can make societal shifts, rather than be so present for others in a 1-to-1 way.
And this has meant big changes!
Changes that feel cold. Changes that are self-serving — and though these changes are necessary to follow my path and align with my highest truth they haven’t been easy.
I have felt immense guilt for my life getting better and better. I have had to realize I can’t fix everyone and do the painful work of letting go of some of the most amazing people who aren’t willing to do the inner work to rise alongside me. I have hit my knees more than I ever have before, asking again and again, ‘Are you sure this is the direction I am meant to go?’
Because it feels wrong to succeed.
It feels like I’m letting down so many people because I am no longer willing to sit in my oppression because I KNOW I have work to do and that work requires I be an empowered being capable of showing up the way my spirit is asking me to.
I wish I had the strength to carry the world.
To share my heart’s resilience and the knowledge I don’t know why I have with everyone who comes across my work for a price point that works for them and keeps barriers low, but I did that and I failed and now my Masculine is showing up to say ‘no more.’
To say, grow and empower them to meet you.
To no longer enable those who come across my work to stay where they are but to remind them of the strength they too have to remember THEIR power, THEIR potential, THEIR ability to grow, also.
I need to show up and hold you accountable to where you’re at and what it is going to take to get you where you’re wanting to go.
Anything less is harmful to you.
To me.
To this world.
But not everyone is ready for that kind of energy, because not everyone is ready for self-honesty, and that's okay. And if you read back on my work for the first year of the diary, I wasn’t ready either.
We are all on our own journeys.
We are all working through our lessons at our own pace.
And the most responsible thing I can do is to keep honouring mine to pave the way.
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Being an empath has nothing to do with being good, or kind, or caring.
Not as we've defined it anyway - and I’m no longer going to commend you for your big heart.
Because your big heart is killing you.
(Literally. There were 3 suicides in the diary’s community last summer.)
Because you’ve been taught that your big heart IS you.
But that’s not true.
Your Heart Chakra is only part of you.
And if you want to use it to do what it is you can do, you need to start to realize that it’s the chakras that come before it that need to become important to you.
You need to learn to trust money. (Root Chakra)
Learn to not care what other people think. (Sacral Chakra)
Have the courage to face the insecurities that keep you from setting boundaries so you can command your energy and what it is you're experiencing. (Solar Plexus Chakra)
Only then can you show up how you’re meant to.
Only then can you take action on the change your heart incarnated to see through.
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When I became a social worker the people in my world put me on a pedestal.
You’re so kind.
You have the biggest heart.
You're classy.
You're graceful.
I could never do the work you do!
But 63% of new grad social workers burnout in their first year and there is nothing classy or graceful or kind about laying on the bathroom floor because you have nothing left in you.
This idea of 'kindness at the cost of ourselves' is false programming we need to work through if we are going to show up the way we are meant to.
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Us empaths carry the feminine imprint and in our attempt to rise as feminine beings we've forgotten what's good about the masculine part of us too — but 2018 is the year of integration; the year where we start thinking less about which is better and more about how they can best work together.
Because the masculine has some very important lessons to teach those of us dominated by our feminine energy and it’s only when we learn their lessons that we will have the strength to show up and speak up and share with them what it is they are in need of learning.
That's what will bridge things.
That's what will make this world beautiful.
x
Robin
If this post inspired you I invite you to check out my journaling course. I walk you through the step-by-step of igniting your lower chakras to activate your truth and step confidently into your calling. It's the same process I walked myself through. Or if you’re an empath who is called to business, I also have a course specific to the art of grounding your skills and abilities into a profitable offering and selling it authentically - and I created it for the healers and creatives like me because we don’t have to be held back anymore. Here’s that link.
But if the courses aren’t for you, start small. Find good people doing big things and challenge the idea that to be kind means to keep yourself suffering. Growth takes humbling. It also takes a strong third eye to see past illusions and false programming.
Here's to new, more empowered beginnings!
x
Robin
If you’re new to my work:
I'm Robin —
The diarist behind the Diary of an Empath and creator of the Empowered Empath, a six week course for learning to manage your energy, build self-trust and boundaries, and move through the wounds that hold you back from feeling confident in living your calling. I’d love to get to know more about you, so if you’re on Instagram, come say hello!