Surviving the Holidays as an Empath Part 2

Welcome back!

Last week we talked all about the more practical ways to set boundaries for the holidays.  Today we are going to talk all about energetics and the more woo-woo side of managing your energy through the holidays.

When I first started experiencing my energetic gifts of intuition and mediumship, I was a mess. I didn’t know where I ended and other people began

The following are the real techniques I used to clean up my act and set good boundaries.

First, meditation and mindfulness.  Now, I know that no one wants to hear that they should meditate.  In the beginning, anytime someone suggested this to me I immediately went to “SCREW YOU! YOU TRY SITTING WITH ALL OF THIS STUFF! MEDITATION IS THE WORST!” I would roll my eyes so hard I was afraid I would dislocate my eyeballs when someone suggested this. But then I tried it.

I learned something interesting.  The reason that meditation felt so unbearable is because I was sitting around holding everyone’s energy and everyone’s emotional baggage. When I sat down and got quiet i would feel spirit stuff, and friend’s grief, and my boyfriend’s tough day, and my own feelings but everything was all mixed up in this giant energetic ball that I wanted to shove down and ignore.

When I pushed through the initial discomfort, I gained so much clarity. With guidance from spirit, I was able to start sorting through and releasing the things that weren’t mine. This process made it so clear to me what MY OWN ENERGY felt like.  

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS AS AN EMPATH.

I start with this because it is the absolute most important thing you can do for yourself.  It is the tool that all other tools come from. I use this sorting meditation all the time. I have a free download of it when you “opt in” to my email list (you should get a pop up on this page to join so check your pop-up blocker).

I highly recommend starting there but if you’re certain that meditation is not for you, or maybe just not right now, I do have a few other options.

Another great option is to try a grounding exercise.

My favorite is a white light and grounding exercise.  It is a simple visualization exercise that only takes a minute or two. You can do it in the middle of a party or sneak away for a second and clear out anything that doesn’t work for you.  It’s inspired by something I learned in “medium school” and I use it in a lot of my workshops and in between clients. I also use it after any family events or holidays parties.

Start by just closing your eyes.  Imagine white light coming in through the crown of your head. You can imagine it’s God, universal energy, angels, whatever speaks to you. This light comes through the crown of your head, fills your whole head and begins to move down through the neck and through the rest of your body.  As it moves through it gathers anything that is not yours. Any energy you’ve picked up from other people, any stress or anxiety that isn’t yours and it presses it all the way down your body, through your feet and then passes safely through the ground. It moves all the way to the center of the earth where it is turned into more beautiful white light and that goes out into the universe.  

Then I imagine roots growing down from my feet into the ground.  The roots spread, growing wider and more intricate and growing deeper. Through those roots you pull energy, nutrients and even knowledge from your ancestors back up into your body.  Draw up so much that that energy comes all the way back to the crown of the head. These roots give your energy, structure and establish your connection to yourself and the earth.

Sometimes during this quick visualization you might feel some tingling in the body or hot and cold sensations, or swirling.  Don’t panic. That’s just the energy moving around your body and bringing you back to balance.

All in all this short visualization only takes about a minute.  The more you practice it, the faster you will get. They best part about it is that you can do it anywhere.

Just this quick exercise of coming back to yourself after being exposed to so much energy will help you start to identify what is yours and what isn’t.

Finally, mantra can be a great way to ground yourself and begin to bring awareness to your own energy.

This was one of my most frequent tools when I was going through my spiritual awakening. Particularly when I felt a spirit trying to get my attention and give me a message; I got very anxious so I started repeating this mantra over and over to myself.

Sky above. Earth below. Me right here.  God above, below, around, within, keep me safe and calm.

Every time it brought me back to my body and it stopped any panic that I felt coming up.  It also brought awareness to my physical body.  

Obviously you don’t need to use the same mantra, you can make your own and I encourage you to do so.  Mantra is a great way to bring focus to your mind when it’s spinning out. It interrupts the stories we tell ourselves and brings us back to reality.

Every technique I suggested above is something I use personally in my own life and something that has helped me to bring awareness to my own energy field and reinforce boundaries.  I truly hope these techniques help you as you approach the holiday parties both personal and professional.

My hope is that these techniques enable to to not just survive, but THRIVE this holiday season!

I would love to hear about your experience with using these in the comments or you can email me and tell me all about it.

I also wanted to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has been giving feedback on how these techniques have helped and to everyone who signed up or gifted the New Years Reiki/Reading Combos to a friend.  I’m so excited to work with all of you.


In addition, If you are looking to do something fun this weekend, I will be at Aim High Studio (3015 W Germantown Pike, Norristown, PA 19403) in Collegeville, PA Saturday morning (11/30) giving readings, selling little energy-clearing bundles and gift certificates for small business Saturday.   I would love to see you there.

Surviving the Holidays as an Empath Part 1

Do you struggle with emotional and energetic boundaries around friends and family? 

I have been DOING SOME WORK on this in 2019. It’s been a critical part of my intuitive journey to set good boundaries to protect my energy and that starts with some practical everyday things that we all can do.

Today I offer some advice on surviving the holidays as an Empath.  No, not just surviving, THRIVING!!  

Last week we discussed what makes you an empath so if you missed that blog, you can catch up here

Now that you know that you struggle with taking on other people’s energy, what do you do about it?

The holidays bring the added challenge of inundating us with a lot of events, a lot of people, and a lot of dysfunctional family patterns.  The challenge is being present while not burning yourself out.

So let’s talk about some strategies.

I like to start with my favorite strategy which is saying “no” to things or events that you just know are going to be too much.  Now, I know that this can be a particularly big challenge but maybe you could just challenge yourself to say “no” to one thing. Just to try it.  Test how it feels. You might feel some guilt but notice what is right behind that. If you are in a relationship, you can also make your partner the one that responds to events if you struggle with it.

There is also the time-limiting strategy.  If saying no is impossible or produces too much guilt, you can also set a time-boundary.  This is a great approach when you are just starting out. If you reflect on the past few years you might start to notice a pattern of when you start to feel overwhelmed. Maybe it’s after two hours, maybe longer.  Either way, if you can make the plan that you will arrive a little later than usual and leave a little earlier, you might find that you have much less anxiety going into the event.

Another great tactic is to prepare yourself ahead of time by scheduling breaks.  This can be as simple as giving yourself an hour to step away from everything and read your book.  It could be five minutes where you step into the other room and do some deep breathing. You could also choose to schedule a massage or energy work the day after you have a party.

You can also schedule some recovery time.  After any major events, you can schedule a day where you or you and your family are at home for the day.  You might be thinking, no i don’t have time I’m too busy. But this is where we come back to that saying “no” to things.  It will be okay if you don’t do every single holiday event. You will survive and so will your loved ones. Give yourself permission to schedule these breaks.  They will benefit all of you.

Finally we come to the reward/incentive strategy.  I fully admit this is a form of self-bribery and I approve of it 100%.  It acts as a reward and a light at the end of the tunnel. Schedule a massage, or a yoga workshop, or energy work before the season even starts.

The reason why I love this approach so much is threefold.  First, you have to calendar it so it’s already built into your schedule and if you want to cancel you will be met with the same resistance that you get when saying no to anything else so you’re more likely to keep the appointment. 

Finally, It can also help clear anything out of your system that you picked up in your time.  Massage can release tension from the muscles and promote relaxation. Energy work, like Reiki or acupuncture, can help you release any energy you picked up from friends or family during your interactions.  It can help to balance your own system and establish your own energetic boundaries.

To plan ahead for this, I have opened up my New Year Release and Initiation Reiki and Tarot combo.  I’m so excited to be doing this work as a combination. 

I always channel my offerings so that they are directed by spirit. As soon as I settled into meditation to plan my new year tarot offering, I kept hearing the message that I needed to include Reiki with this offering. The purpose of this is to help clear about any heaviness from 2019 and to provide direction for 2020.  The Reiki helps to move out any energy that is stagnant or out of balance. It allows the client to release anything stagnant that they are holding onto from the past year and bring in new creative, inspiring energy.  

This offering consists of both Reiki energy work, past life release, and a year ahead tarot spread.  This spread is very complex (20 cards!!) and it will give insights into the next year as well as the energy you will be working with throughout the new decade.  

These sessions span approximately two hours and it is the ultimate in self-care.  It’s so easy to get sucked into the holidays and the hype of the new year without ever making time for you. 

I totally get it.  Before you know it, it will be the end of January and you haven’t even thought about what you want from the year.  The benefit of this type of reading is that it will help you play to your strengths and give you momentum going into the new year (and decade).

I’m so incredibly excited as always to work with all of you.  Bookings are open now but spots are very limited. I’m only offering these sessions a couple times a week and I know that people have limited time over the holidays.  So if this offering speaks to you, please sign up early to save a spot. They will only be available through the end of January.

Link to schedule is below:


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How to tell if you are an Empath, Intuitive or both?

I wanted to take some time to talk about being intuitive versus being an empath. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about it between workshops and my “Ask me October” Series (which you can see over on my instagram page – link is at the bottom of my site or here).  It was something I struggled to understand in the beginning because everything was so overwhelming and mixed up for me.

An empath is someone who absorbs or picks up energy from other people.  They are aware of others feelings and can start to feel their emotions right along with them.  There is a difference between being empathic and being an empath. Empathic people offer condolences or grieve with their friends.  They offer help and support.

Empaths absorb the grief and feel it deeply as if it were their own. They live the same experience without having the same connection to the event or circumstance.

How do you know you’re an empath?

Do you find yourself crying right along with a friend who is upset or getting off a phone call with a distraught friend and feeling like you can’t shake the grief even though?

Do you notice sudden strong feelings come over you when you are out in a crowd?

Are you the person your friend turn to whenever they need advice or need to vent?

Do strangers start talking to you about deeply personal things after just meeting you?

Do you regularly find yourself crying with sappy commercials?

Do you pick up physical pain from someone you love when you are around them (like they have a headache and when you leave them you have a headache)?

Do you get overwhelmed easily in your intimate relationships?

You don’t understand how someone could not put other people before themselves?

Are you easily able to tell if someone isn’t being honest?

You have a strong desire to help everyone that you see is in pain?

If you answered yes to a few of those you are probably and empath.

So how does that differ from being intuitive?

Intuitive people are connected to a different energy.  They will get direct information or have a sense of knowing about a situation.  Without explanation or even needing to be around someone they will just know things about them. They can often hear, see, or sense energy or have a connection to a higher sense of just knowing.

Maybe you notice things about someone that they haven’t told you?  

Have you found yourself knowing what someone does for a living without them ever telling you?

Do you get a feeling about what will happen if you take one way home from work vs another?

Do you ever see a little movie daydream play out in your head and then later see those exact events play out in real life?

Maybe you meet a friend’s significant other and immediately know what issues will come up in their relationship without knowing anything about them?

To me it feels a little bit like tapping into stuff that is in the back of my mind. I’m not always aware that I know it until I check in and look for it. Kind of like having access to a catalog of information.

It is possible to be both intuitive and an empath.

So how does that work?

When I sit down to do a reading with someone and I open up to their energy I might start feeling some of the stuff that they have been feeling.  I usually put a little bit of a boundary up there. Then I tune into the energy around them, which is a different frequency than their emotions. This is where I get most of the information about what is going on with them. I will start to hear short messages or sometimes even full sentences of what would help them. 

Over the next couple weeks we will be talking about navigating the holidays as an empath.  We will discuss how to put up boundaries and how to manage your own energy through the hectic holiday season.

Hopefully just reading this lets you know that you are not alone.

Tune in Mondays through the end of the year for a new blog post every week, with helpful tips and tricks for all my woo-woo friends.