Empathy — the trait of feeling what others are feeling — is something most of us possess to one degree or another. And often we aren’t even aware of when it’s happening. We may wonder why we’re feeling so blue after an outing to the grocery store, when we started out the day feeling on top of the world. Could be because we picked up some moody emotions from a few folks in the super market.
Most animal communicators possess a high degree of empathic awareness, which can be very helpful in understanding what is going on with the various animals they talk to. But a skilled communicator has learned to discern when the emotions she is feeling are hers and when they are the animal’s, AND how to clear the ones that don’t belong to her once a communication session is over. Using one’s empathic awareness this way takes a lot of understanding and skill and doesn’t come overnight. And if it is not harnessed and properly understood, it can wreak havoc in one’s life. What follows is a very sad example of how it literally ruined one person’s life.
Several years ago there was a lovely woman in one of my beginner-level animal communication classes who was quite clear that she wanted to learn the skill in order to practice it professionally. I will call her “Grace” because she was a lovely, mature woman who obviously had great compassion and wisdom.
But as the day wore on and we got into practice sessions with animals, I noticed an odd thing. No matter what animal Grace connected with her feedback was filled with grief, and she would be in tears while conveying the sad impressions or messages she had received from the animal. These dismal emotions were the only ones she was able to pick up from the animals, regardless of their situation. I didn’t want to single her out by identifying what I thought was going on for her, so instead I took this opportunity to familiarize the class with what I call the Velcro Effect — explaining how similar vibrations in two different individuals magnetize each other. Grace clearly had a lot of grief and sadness in her psyche, so those were the emotions she tended to identify with in others, including the animals.
Needless to say, by the end of the class poor Grace was emotionally devastated and totally drained. She did seem to understand the lesson about how empathy can be like Velcro, and how that had affected her practice sessions with the animals, but I was worried about whether she would be able to internalize this and use it to protect herself from taking on so much heaviness from the world around her.
I never saw or talked to Grace again, and not long after the class I received a call from one of the students to let me know that Grace had committed suicide. I was speechless and shocked, and very, very sad, but on some level I was not surprised. I had clearly seen that Grace was a “psychic sponge” who absorbed much of the negativity and sadness she came in contact with. She was probably severely depressed, and not just due to her own personal issues. If she did not understand this, and was not able to get the right kind of help for it, it is no wonder that her life became unbearable to the point of wanting to end it.
I prayed for Grace’s soul and that she might find peace. And I also felt a lot of pain in wondering if I could have done more to help Grace learn to manage her empathic gift so it would not have been her undoing. I wish I had reached out to her more actively after our class was over.
***************************************************************
TO READ A LITTLE MORE ABOUT EMPATHY AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION:
Recent Comments