Empathy
One of the abilities which you may discover as your own strengths develop is empathy. Empathy is very different from sympathy as sympathising with somebody only entails imagining or remembering the emotions and feelings behind their experiences. When you empathise with somebody, you feel their feelings, you experience their experiences as they do emotionally and, sometimes physically.
Being an empath can be a joyous gift. To be able to share in the happiness of others, to feel their calm, to experience their exhileration. This is the wonder of being an empath.
Sounds good doesn't it?
Unfortunately an empath cannot decide which emotions and feelings they experience. They are at the mercy of those around them. Anger, hatred, despair, anguish and pain are all also available at no extra cost. Sometimes an empath can walk into a room and be confronted by all of these in an almost unbearable rush. Of course, there are ways to protect yourself from these onslaughts with chakra control which will also help to heighten empathic ability when required. I will be mentioning this in the chakra section later.
However, despite the 'negative' emotions, I would not choose to give up my empathic abilities for anything in the world. Emapthy is a gift and a highly useful tool in whatever feild your other abilities lie. As a healer empathy allows me to connect with those in need and to more easily detect the true source of the problem. In everyday life you can use your empathic abilities to avoid otherwise unpleasent situations, to discern the moods of those around you, to know how to approach them. Is this the right time to ask for a favour? Is this your opportunity to repay one? This ability can also make it easier to spot truths and lies.
Empathy is not restricted to feeling the emotions of people either. Places have definite 'feelings' to them too. Walls do have ears, and they react to wht they hear. An empath can feel the spirit within a place, experience some of it's past and learn from it. Sometimes this can be difficult. I visited a castle not long ago and went down into the dungeons. By the time I left I was in floods of tears. I did not experience the emotions of specific people from the castle's past, more a combination of all the experiences and emotions that had been felt there. Although this was distressing, it enabled me to better understand circumstances which I would never otherwise have known in this lifetime.
Some places feel beautiful. full of calmness and serenity. It is to such places that I go to meditate and to escape from the complxities of life. If you are an empath, you will find those places in time. You will feel drawn to them. Just allow yourself to accept the gift of the experience.
There is not much choice about whether or not you become an empath. The ability comes naturally to some and not at all to others, no matter how hard they try to develop it. If you do have the ability it is possible to curb it's development by ignoring signals and messages, but you will always 'feel' more than those around you. If you are following a path that is right for you though, none of your abilities will fully bloom until you are truly ready to experience them. Again I urge you to meditate and take things as slowly as you need to.
