How to deal with empathy?

Cleansing techniques:

http://www.nztravel.co.nz/hosts/Wingmak … nique.html

Pranic breathing:
http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/psycho … niques.asp
The method of yogic breathing that enables the practitioner of pranic healing (or any person) to draw in tremendous amount of prana or life energy from the surroundings, and facilitates the projection of prana, is called 'pranic breathing'.
METHOD-1
Deep Breathing with Empty retention (kumbhaka)

1. Connect your tongue to your palate.
2. Do abdominal breathing.
3. Inhale slowly and retain for one count.
4. Exhale slowly. Retain your breath for one count before inhaling. This is called empty retention.

METHOD-2

1. Connect your tongue to your palate.
2. Do abdominal breathing.
3. Inhale for seven counts and retain for one count.
4. Exhale for seven counts and retain for one count.

METHOD-3

1. Connect your tongue to your palate.
2. Do abdominal breathing.
3. Inhale for six counts and retain for three counts.
4. Exhale for six counts and retain for three counts.

The critical factor involved in pranic breathing is 'rhythm'.

Abdominal Breathing: Expand your abdomen slightly when inhaling, and contract your abdomen slightly when exhaling. Do not over-expand nor over-contract your abdomen. This would make breathing difficult.

Empty Retention: Holding your breath after exhalation is called empty retention; and holding your breath after inhalation is called full retention. (Through clairvoyant observation, it is noted that there is a tremendous amount of prana rushing into all parts of the body when inhalation is done after empty retention)

Interesting meditative techniques:
http://www.geocities.com/firegrove/bos/meditation.html
Energy Ball Meditation
Great for sudden situations. Can be done anywhere at anytime. If you have ever worked with your own energy then you know what an energy ball is. If not I will explain. You know that you have energy and that everything around you has energy. The key for this meditation is to know how to create a ball of your own energy. It isn't difficult at all. Sit or stand in a comfortable position. Hold your hands together like you are holding a small ball or as a friend told me, "a small furry animal". Concentrate on putting energy there. Some people feel it as warmth or heat, others as movement or pressure. It depends on the person. You should be able to feel the ball grow. Put all of the negative into that space. If you need to compact it, then visualize yourself compacting the ball. Continue to fill the space with words, conversations, hurts, regrets, etc... then, release it! Be careful not to release it onto another person unless you have put positive energy into it. I usually release it into the open air outside, or into the ground.

Shielding techniques:
http://www.thedance.com/wicca101/enbasics.htm#shielding
Most people can feel the innermost layer of the aura. The more sensitive you are, the more layers you can feel. Try this....

Rub your hands together until they are warm and tingly. Then put them out facing one another, a little wider than shoulder width apart. Bring them together slowly, and at some point you will feel a resistance, a springiness . Bring them closer together and see if you encounter this feeling again. This is what it will feel like when you encounter a layer of someone's aura. So try it on yourself. Rub your hands together again to wake up the palm chakras, and then start at arm's reach and move your hand inward, facing flat toward your body, until you detect that same feeling of resistance. You you'll probably feel the layer 1-3 inches out, and may feel layers about 8-12 inches out, or even 2-3 feet out.

Ideally you want to function with your aura about two-three feet in all directions around you. If you are meditating in a safe space, you might want to expand it to fit the room. If you are in a place crowded with strangers, you might want to pull it in close, especially if there are intense emotions around. Once you are aware of where its boundaries are, practice pulling it in and letting it out. See what is comfortable. You also want to try to keep it an even distance around you. Many people are pulled in in back and expanded in front. Play with it, now that you can.

So, there are many ways to reinforce the outside of your aura to protect yourself. Many people like to put a silver coat on the outside to reflect whatever comes their way like a mirror. The other most popular shielding is to wrap the aura with white light; the advantage of this is that it will let in anything that is of a similar or higher vibration to the quality of light used, but reflect the rest.

Some people like to use light of different colours, often blue or violet; blue emanates a quality of confidence and peace that repels negative energy, and violet is the highest spiritual vibration, with the capacity to transform lower vibrations to higher ones. When there is a lot of negative energy around me, I will use three layers, white, blue, and violet. The advantage I see to this is that rather than reflecting negative energies to others who might be less able to deal with them, it transforms them.

One technique many people use is to visualise a rose out in front of them to absorb any negative energies. Many people have symbols that are sacred to them which they draw around themselves, or draw and expand so that they can step into them. Some Reiki practitioners work with the Reiki symbols this way.

Another technique many people use is to visualise a ring of fire around them. This could be the regular red-orange fire, a white-hot fire, or a violet flame.

Thanks for all the methods Seem really interesting, I'll try them out. I have a black tormaline but I didn't know it could be used for that, I'll take it more often with me. As for pranic breathing, someone cautioned me about it, saying it could be "dangerous" if not done properly. Do you know if this is true?

BlackBox -- I was far from the confident and happy person you describe because of all these negative emotions I was feeling from others. The predators didn't have to attack me because I was already bleeding a lot of my energy just witnessing what was going on. Anyway your advices should be useful once I handle better these emotions. I was wondering though, isn't sending sneaky comments to these predators like entering their game? (playing at who is the smartest, etc). On that situation I just avoided them completely but, yeah, perhaps not the way to go... Argh.

ermolai,

I only learned about the label "pranic" recently from listening on this board. I unknowingly have been doing it and similar techniques for a year now. Except we called it achieving "alpha state".

As simple as:

1.) Inhale for 4 seconds.
2.) Hold for 4 seconds.
3.) Exhale for 4 seconds.

Now, depending on how deep you want to induce yourself into alpha state (7-14 brain hertz/second), you can adjust the intervals by lengthening to 6-8 seconds.

By doing this, you will feel warm rushes throughout your body. This is because your very cells are dilating. Also, the natural warmth is increasing blood-flow, metabolism, etc...I could go on and on with all the positive things that occur by consciously regulating your breathing.

Also, make sure to take all these people's advice on breathing through the abdomen. Breathing through the chest creates functional stress that western-culture has gotten far too used to. I don't care if it makes you look fat, breath through the tummy or you'll be a dummy! I'm so cute...

Anyway. As some Austrian or German weight-lifter would say: "Just do it!" The technique I gave above is used commonly and has NOOOOOO side effects other than positive ones.

Don't you dare bleed your energies any longer. Take a stand and protect your essence. I've read over and over again from different sources on how light-workers are only present in the millions...surrounded by billions of vampires. That's a little harsh, but it's true to me in any case whether they are consciously or subconsciously aware. Some can be changed, some don't wish to, but the POINT is YOU are one of those few millions, and that makes you precious. Your vibrations, your thoughts, your actions are important to sustain with abundant levels of energy. You equal 10,000 bad guys in vitality in my opinion. You have the ability to CREATE.

I might sound a little too motivational today, but I'm having a good-day and I wont respond neutrally or negatively. All you have to do is give yourself way more credit. Not ego-food, but actual strength for your importance in purpose.

You smile, smirk, and grin at the face of vampires. You look them in the eye, exhale, and go strut your way past them over to the water-fountain. You can even pull some disco moves when you pass around the corner, knowing they DO NOT effect you BECAUSE you DO NOT ALLOW them to. It's all about confidence.

Regulate your humour. Regulate your positive thoughts and actions. Regulate your breathing. Regulate and you are the one controlling your destiny and none-other.

(again, for those that are puking from my sappy-pep-talk here, I seriously do apologize )

Hey I didn't get to finish reading all the responses, but I wanted to share something given to me last week.

A friend of mine was trying to bring to my attention my judgmentalness (which drains me, pulls me into the drama).  She gave me a suggestion to practice NEUTRALITY for a week.

Well, so far it has been really helpful.  I am more able to detach.  Still got caught up in a drama yesterday and could feel the other person's judgment and anger and hostility because I refused to capitulate to their demands which were based on trying to control me for no reason other than to feel some kind of illusory security.  It was all about my mom being angry at me for being literally five minutes late to brunch.....

Yeah, I got angry at this.

But otherwise this neutrality stance has been helpful.  I no longer feel so responsible to fix everything.....(usually I am constantly picking up other people's emotions and confusions and the healer in me wants to fix it all; with neutrality I can recognize that this particular moment is just a step in their path, and I feel less need to tidy it up and "finish" it).

So this Neutrality exercise helps me to rise above the drama and be more detached and objective and less caught in the net.

I don't know if it might work for others.    I would be interested to know what people think.

Also, my friend asked me to examine when I am RESISTANT to being neutral.

I have discovered that I feel the urge to be judgmental when I am in situations where I feel overwhelmed, where I don't know how to handle the situation.

It's easier to judge some "less enlightened" being than to slow down and try to figure out a more creative, more effective way of communicating with that being.  The jugment makes me feel back in control.....and also, of course, I get to be the "good" one : )

Thanks for the link Lipstick Mystic. The two recommended books sound great; I'll be buying at least one of them. It is easy to forget that the draining dynamic is a 24/7 thing, and more so for empaths. We tend to remember the vampire dynamic better when the draining is aggressive.

Love,

Vuyiswa