A client told me about how sensitive she was to the energies of others and how the energy lingered afterwards. She wanted advice.

The following is what I replied:

One of the things I find most helpful in releasing the energy of others is to see that it's just information and that I am not responsible either for what they feel or for doing something about the information I get. If there is something we need to do about any information we get, we will be strongly urged to move in a direction that will help heal, but not always the direction we 'think' we might need to go.

For example, I may perceive a child feeling lost and hurt because of an insensitive parent, but it is not my job to intervene unless I am strongly given the means and opportunity to do so. Events will conspire to have this intervention, not my deep compassion for the child and helplessness in the face of suffering and desire to wade in and 'help'. I can let Spirit decide what is next for all of us.

As for feeling responsible, its something we are wired to feel as female mammals. It's our biological function. But after menopause it does ease and we start to feel ourselves again.

Maybe what you can do is notice the energy drain when it happens and stop long enough to see who is doing the draining and what they want from you.

When I feel that drain it is often a tightening (the Tibetans call it 'shenpa') in the body - gut, shoulders, jaw - wherever we tend to tighten. That's my signal to see what's really going on. Often I may be responding to someone's anger and the 'shenpa' can be a desire that they take a pill or not take their feelings out on me or not try to convince me that it's my fault or responsibility to make them happy. Once I see what the real energy dynamic is, I can sometimes get enough distance to clearly decide how I'll handle my shenpa and then their behaviour.

She also asked, "I feel like whatever it is they were feeling and going through, I ended kinda going through the same thing...Is this part of being sensitive to energy?"

Yes, it can be. It can be your way of perceiving the information. Or it can be that you have something very similar in your own life and their problems are resonating with yours (they have the same frequency as yours so they play off each other). The trick is to figure out which. In the end it can be a bit of both. But if something like that comes out of the blue, right out of no-where, it is likely someone else's stuff and not yours.

Another client said, "I'm an Empath and struggling with a lot of different energies around me lately that I am inadvertently absorbing. plus experiencing some jealous animosity type energy from a couple people having conflicts with - am trying to send love back to them rather than anger but a lot going on around me I can't seem to manage well."

The following is what I said to her:

The #1 thing to learn about being an empath is that energy only sticks to you if you feel some responsibility for it — like feeling love/fondness for the person (or some aspect of them - ‘she has nice hair’) without feeling in any way that you have to fix their stuff, step in, or do anything more than you are at the moment. Then the energy becomes more neutral and doesn’t stick. When Spirit wants you to take action there will be nothing you can do to prevent yourself from doing so. Your goodness is never in question.

Be sure as well that you have good boundaries. Love may cross all boundaries but if someone says something inappropriate to you, you are entitled to move into a room where you are not being picked on. You do not have to stand there and take it and you can’t fix it because you can’t control what others think and feel.

Feel anger, because it’s honest, but wish them peace from your heart.
    “May you be safe,
    may you be well
    may you be at peace
    may you be happy.” *
Then move on before your mind gets caught up in it all again.

It’ll take practice. You may have to repeat over and over. But it gets better.

    * (See also the Metta Meditation)