Lately, I’ve been meeting more and more empaths who, instead of enjoying their gift, suffer from its side effects. I am an empath and I know what it’s like when empathy gets out of control and people just start using you. That is why I began to look for protection tools that could protect me from absorbing other people’s negative emotions and feelings and take my empathy under control. In this article, I want to share with you some empath protection tools, which helped me in quite a few difficult moments in my life and which I still successfully use.
Who Is an Empath?
An empath is a person capable of feeling the emotions and feelings of others, having the ability to sincerely sympathize, empathize with someone else’s grief, sadness, joy, and happiness. Nothing mystical here. It’s all about neurophysiology, mirror neurons and more developed certain neural connections.
The gift of empathy has 15-20% of the population (these numbers were discovered by psychologist Elaine Aron in 1991), who have an excessive sensitivity to the experiences of other people and a deep understanding of their emotional state.
What Distinguishes Empaths From Other People?
Empaths react more pronounced than other people, due to the fact that the part of his (her) brain that is responsible for emotional reactions is more active. Here it is necessary to remember the mirror neurons – one of the most important scientific discoveries of the last 10 years! These neurons are involved in empathy, understanding other people’s actions, and learning new skills through imitation.
Empaths And Inauthentic People
The developed ability of empathy and the subtle reaction to their environment helps to easily recognize inauthentic people, but at the same time, carries a number of inconveniences.
Empaths need honest, deep and meaningful relationships with other people and they are very sensitive to fake emotions in their surroundings.
In addition, empaths are by nature very compliant and more conscious. It’s natural for them to feel everything and everyone, even if they don’t want to. The empath will always be there, will lend a shoulder if you want to cry. However, because of this, it sometimes causes lots of problems, because they usually do not know how to refuse help and people begin to take advantage of them.
If you’re an empath that is looking for ways to deal with empathy-induced inconveniences, here are some effective empath protection tools to help you take your gift under control and reduce the intensity of your empath experiences.
Empath Protection Tools
Tool 1: Listen To Yourself
Listen to your feelings, intuition and your heart. It is very easy to turn into a sponge that absorbs other people’s emotions and at the same time lose yourself. Learn to recognize when emotions overwhelm you. And also learn to notice when you need to set boundaries. Learn to notice when you need time to release yourself from the pressure that your environment is putting on you and when the emotional swamp is slowly sucking you in. Listen to yourself!
Tool 2: Energy Shield
This energy practice is aimed at building energy protection for the empath’s energy field.
Visualize the energy shield around your physical body. And then imagine a moving protective energy layer around you, with which you decide what to let into your space.
After creating the shield, imagine that there is Light in the center of your being. Focus on that inner Light. Be aware of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
First, perform this energy practice alone. After doing this, try practicing it when there are other people around. Try to switch your consciousness from the external environment back to yourself, to your inner Light and then back.
Tool 3: Energy Ball of Light
This is another energy practice that provides powerful protection for the empath’s energy field. This practice is one of my favorite empath protection tools.
The principle of this practice is quite simple. Before leaving the house, and before communicating with people, visualize an energy ball of Light around you. Imagine that the surface of this ball is covered with a mirror shell that reflects any negativity coming from your environment.
Tool 4: Quiet Time
During the day, take short breaks to get some fresh air, walk, stretch your muscles, or do yoga. These breaks will help you to reduce excessive stress when being around many people.
Tool 5: Daily Meditation
I would say, this is one of the most important empath protection tools. The thing is, it is especially important for empaths to stay grounded and focused. Therefore, if you want to resist emotional overload, make a habit to meditate at least 10-15 minutes a day. If you have never meditated before and you don’t know how to do it, read my article “Meditations For Beginners: Best Ways To Start Your Practice“.
Tool 6: Fumigate the Space Around You
The clearing of space with the help of the incense, sage or Palo Santo is one of the most powerful empath protection tools! Regular fumigation of the house and even the workplace helps to cleanse the space from negative energy and its impact on you. Before buying or using incense consider reading my article “Read This Before Buying Or Using Incense For Your Meditations” since incense has side effects you need to know about!
Tool 7: Set Boundaries
It is very difficult for an empath to refuse a request. However, it is very important to learn to say “no” if you feel you are being asked for too much. You don’t need to explain the reason why you can’t do something, just be polite and confident in your decision. In no case apologize for your refusal. Remember – only those who are guilty apologize! Guilt is the tool people use to manipulate empaths. So do not give people any reason to put pressure on you!
Developing healthy boundaries is a powerful defense mechanism. Once you learn this, your life will become much easier and you will stop losing your energy.
Tool 8: Stay Away From Toxic People
Toxic people can do you irreparable harm. You always feel if a person is toxic. However, you can not always immediately recognize the negative emotions and feelings that these people cause you. Often, listening to the complaints of such people, you even sympathize with them. Please, don’t! They do not need your sympathy at all. Once you recognize that a person is trying to take your energy, leave immediately!
Tool 9: Detox From TV, Internet, and mass media
You probably do not fully realize how much you get tired of the amount of information that falls on you every day. So try to periodically disconnect from the Internet, social networks, TV, newspapers. Thus, you will begin to give rest to your sensory systems.
Tool 10: Crystals
There are two main crystals I like to use as empath protection tools: rose quartz and black tourmaline.
Rose quartz is a crystal that carries the vibrations of unconditional love. Wear a small piece of rose quartz in your pocket as a reminder that you are unconditionally loved and that to love others you do not have to sacrifice yourself.
Black tourmaline is a protection crystal. Carry a piece of black tourmaline with you and you will always be protected from negative energy.
Tool 11: Salt Bath
Bath with sea salt, essential oils and herbs is a powerful cleansing ritual. Before taking a bath, set the intention that salt water cleanses you and all your bodies from negative energy. In my article, “This Is the Most Powerful Energy Cleansing Bath Ritual!” I described this procedure in more detail.
The Bottom Line
I hope that these simple yet effective empath protection tools will help those who are currently sensitive to the emotions of other people. Note that if you often find yourself in a situation where you are drained of negative and aggressive emotions, you need to look inside yourself – for some reason, you have a resonance, a magnet that attracts such people to you. Ask yourself if you’re hiding any negative feelings deep inside and blocking your negative emotions because you’re afraid of hurting others? You need to release and heal them and the provocations will disappear.