If so you might be an EMPATH.
An empath is a person with the ability to sense the mental or emotional state of another individual. An empath can psychically feel the emotions, feelings, energy and even thoughts of others.
A few common traits of an empath:
Highly intuitive
Emotionally sensitive (often labeled by others as “overly sensitive” or “too emotional”)
Can feel in their own bodies the emotions of others
Often absorb other people’s energy
Frequently feels overwhelmed in crowds
Typically have accurate initial gut feelings about people/situations
Need a lot of alone time
Have big hearts and can be taken advantage of
Because they can see and sense problems (and what needs to be done to resolve them) in other people’s lives they often feel responsible to fix them.
What’s all this got to do with food?
If you are an empath there is a good chance you are not using food to manage YOUR energy but to manage OTHER PEOPLE’s energy. It’s like you are psychic/energy sponge who absorbs other people’s energy throughout the day, whether it be the co-worker who is cranky, the happy giggly girl in line at Target, your good friend who is going through a break up, or the heated political debates on television.
When you unknowingly absorb these energies you can be left feeling anxious, drained, depressed, overwhelmed, and even confused by the end of what seemed to be a normal, productive ‘uneventful’ day. Such feelings can be a trigger to overeat. If you are familiar with emotional eating you KNOW that overeating is a good way to escape or calm such emotions.
So what’s an empath to do to stop from picking up and taking on everyone else’s emotions?
Start to notice energy. Notice how you feel in different situations, around various people. Connect to your body: does your body feel calm and relaxed around this person or uptight and anxious, do you have a knot in your stomach, are your shoulders scrunched, do you feel the need to be defensive, or do you feel calm and safe? Notice how you feel in a cluttered room vs. a bare room, how you feel listening to different music, how you feel when you wear certain colors, etc.
Protect your energy; before you leave the house in the morning imagine yourself being protected by a sparkly white or golden bubble and the only thing that can penetrate this bubble is love and healing energy, no negative energy can get through this beautiful circle of light.
If you’ve been around someone who’s uptight anxious or angry literally brush their energy off your body with your hand. Hold your hands about and inch away from your body and brush around your head, down your opposite arms, down your chest stomach and legs. Or even just shaking your hands down by your side with the intent of shaking off their energy can help.
If you are in a conversation with someone who is angry or anxious you can imagine you are behind a one way mirror and everything they say just bounces right back to them, or imagine you are wearing a suit of teflon and everything they say just slides right off.
Stretch your body (we hold emotions in our muscles… when you stretch it helps release stored emotions).
Spend time in nature.
Walk barefoot in the grass.
Take a bath in epsom salt.
Create a transition ritual for when come home from an event, or work, or school, etc. It can be something like deciding to change your shirt and while changing your shirt ask that any energies that you've absorbed that are not yours be released saying ”I now release any energies that I may have absorbed that are not mine. I send them to be transmuted to light and love and sent back to their rightful owner!”
Spend time near water.
Meditate.
I am seeing this more and more in my practice that energy sensitive people often struggle with food or some other addiction as a way to manage all the intense emotions of the world these days. If this article resonates with you it is important to understand that this is very real and that you begin to truly honor your intuition and energy sensitivities. Then set out to learn positive self nurturing rituals to protect and heal you own energy.
I will be offering Zoom groups to discuss emotional eating, eating as a reflection of self love and respect, and learning to notice and protect your energy. If you have any questions or comments do not hesitate to contact me!
