6 Crucial Truths that will Help You to Love Being an Empath

Are you sensitive to noise and light? 

Were you—or are you now—bullied or called “crybaby,” “wuss,” or “wimp”? Are you constantly saving animals, insects, and people? Are you inconsolable when you watch something sad or violent? Are you totally overwhelmed by the insane state of the world at the moment? 

If so, it’s likely you are more than just highly sensitive; you’re likely an Empath.

An Empath is a person who experiences others’ feelings as their own. This is different from just caring about another person; an Empath actually feels others’ sadness, pain, worry, or even physical ailments in their own bodies. More often than not, the Empath doesn’t know why they feel as they do; they just know it doesn’t feel good. 

In day to day life, this means that an Empath (you) may suddenly get a headache or stomach ache when around a certain person, which goes away as soon as that person leaves. Or you might become very shaky or feel extremely emotional or angry for seemingly no reason, but you’re actually reacting to the overload of other’s emotions you’ve picked up throughout the day. 

Because you don’t know that you’re soaking in all this like giant feeling-sponges, you likely have no idea what’s really bothering you and can’t articulate it effectively to others (or even yourself). You may find yourself feeling completely overwhelmed and think that something must be really wrong with you because none of your friends or family seem to feel so deeply. 

It’s exhausting. It’s isolating. And for many Empaths, it can be such a burden that it develops into anxiety disorders, stomach issues, and depression. 

I hate seeing any Empath feeling isolated and in despair, so let me give you a pep talk right now! Here are 6 things you need to hear right now that will (hopefully) help you feel accepted, loved, and supported: 

1. You’re not weird.

The best data I can find indicates that about 3% of the population is a true Empath. That means that growing up, if you were in a class of 30 kids, you might have been the only Empath. So, yeah—you likely felt like the odd kid out. You may have even been made to feel like the weirdo as you might have been the target of bullies (or, if you were like me, stepped in to help another kid who was being bullied, thus becoming the target of the bully).

That feeling of isolation stays with you into adulthood as you go into the work world and find yourself in conversations with people who tell off-color jokes, laugh at someone else’s pain, and stab each other in the back for commissions or raises (all things reprehensible to your very soul). Again, if you are in a workforce of 200 people, there might only be 6 of you that are Empaths.

It’s so isolating and depressing to feel like so many in the world are totally fine with hurting other living beings, as long as they get what they want. Even in the work I am in now (where you would think there are higher-frequency, kinder people), I have been horrified to learn how heartless and self-serving some “gurus” can be. 

Needless to say, you do feel weird—like you don’t belong anywhere. 

Here’s the thing: You’re not weird, you’re unique. Empaths are just an extreme minority of the overall population, so you may feel like you are completely alone and such an alien, but you are not. There are many of us out there; you just have to seek your tribe. You aren’t alone (and I am glad you are here!).

2. You’re not crazy either. 

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I must be the crazy one”? 

I certainly have. Feeling so much more than others can make you feel that you are irrational or not quite right. In fact, if you’ve ever sought help from a therapist or counselor, you might have even been diagnosed with a mental illness that you don’t have. Unfortunately, the medical establishment can take the characteristics of being an Empath—such as feeling overwhelmed by the pain of others, feeling debilitating sadness after a trauma, etc—as a disease and might even try to medicate you. (It happened to me. Thankfully, I knew that there was nothing mentally wrong with me and walked out of the office. More on that in another article.)

However, feeling other’s pain is not a mental illness*. It is not something to be medicated. It is the core of who you are, and once you understand that, you can learn to live with it, honor it, and even use it in your life for good. 

3.  People don’t feel things as deeply as you, so they may not understand.

I can remember sitting in the movie “Braveheart” with my family. I was 21 years old and unaware I was an Empath, but I did know that I could not take the torture being given to this poor man. Feeling physically sick, I left the theater. When my family emerged at the end of the movie, they could not understand what was so upsetting or why I had to leave.

And so it will be in your life; it doesn’t matter if it’s a TV show, movie, YouTube clip, or even book, you’ll empathize so strongly with anyone in pain (human or animal), that you’ll be unable to watch what others can. You may feel very alone or misunderstood because of this, but know that it’s okay to say that you can’t or don’t want to watch things that are upsetting to you. It doesn’t matter that they don’t understand; it’s not your job to convince them of the reality of how you feel.

4. It’s not wrong to want to help anything or anyone that is in pain.

When I was a child, I would pick up worms from sidewalks and place them back in the grass (I still do this). I would steal the magnifying glasses from people trying to burn ants. I would stand up for kids that were being picked on; I couldn’t stand seeing anyone or anything that was in pain. 

I felt like a total alien, because I could not understand how others could be so mean and uncaring. 

You’re not an alien; you just feel the suffering of others as your own pain, and you need to make it stop. That’s a really good thing, but it can be very exhausting, too. 

5. People may make fun of you or bully you because you are sensitive. 

People make fun of things they don’t understand. That’s just a fact. However, know this: Feeling deeply does not make you weak; it makes you strong because you are willing to feel the pain and do something about it. In fact, you are likely to be the kid that stands up for other kids who are being bullied, which often turns the bully on you. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you or that you are unlovable. You are lovable and perfectly okay as you are.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you are an empathetic badass and a hero. You are willing to both feel the pain and actually DO something to help - and that’s pretty freaking awesome.

6. It’s okay to set healthy boundaries and stand up for yourself. 

You do not have to take other people bullying you. You also do not have to save everyone all the time. It’s okay for you to say “no” when you are tired or just can’t do any more, despite the fact that those that only want to take your energy might beat on you to keep paying attention to them. You cannot carry everything all the time, and you shouldn’t. It’s okay that you need time to be alone; this allows you to recharge your batteries. 

Honor the truth of your soul and spirit. When you are overwhelmed, know that you need a break and walk away. You can come back refreshed and ready to do more.

It can be seriously rough being an empath in this world; if you’d like to join a community of others like you and get the support, tools, resources, and coaching you need to be able to go from being overwhelmed to being truly empowered, sign up to find out when my Empath Institute is re-opening! 

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7 Life Experiences You Will Definitely Have if You are an Empath

Being an empath means that you will often feel quite different from everyone you know. The good news is that there are more empaths than you might think, AND that we all have a lot in common — including these 7 life experiences:

1.  You’ll be overwhelmed by large crowds and not know why.

As an empath, you feel everything going on around you, whether you are aware of it or not. Because of that, being in large crowds, whether it is for a party, a concert, a shopping trip, or any other place that lots of people convene, can be absolutely overwhelming for you.
 
In such a situation, you may start to feel anxious and even want to flee. You’ll likely think (or be told) that something is deeply wrong with you.

There’s nothing wrong with you; you are just too open to everyone’s competing emotions and energy and are getting totally overwhelmed.

Which brings me to my next empath experience…

2. You’ll sometimes feel like you feel the pain of the whole world and want to completely shut down.

I used to come home at the end of the week, climb in bed fully dressed in a suit and heels, and pull the covers over my head. I literally could not take one more bit of stimulation and needed total quiet. I would describe it to my husband as if all my nerves were on the outside of my body and felt like they were guitar strings that could not take one more person plucking them.

If you’ve ever felt like that, you are definitely an empath. Science is finally catching up with what those of us that have been empaths for a long time know: Our nervous system is literally wired differently than non-empaths. Because of this, we walk around sensing the subtle changes in environmental pressure, emotions, sounds, temperature, and everything else that most people are blissfully aware of.
 
Needless to say, this is pretty damn overwhelming. I liken it to being shut in a room with 400 speakers pointed at you, with 400 different kinds of music and talk radio on full volume blaring at you. ANYone, empath or no, would be overwhelmed and frizzed out after a short time of that.
 
As an empath, this is literally what is happening to you as you walk around all day, especially if you don’t have tools to shut it off. So, it’s pretty reasonable if you sometimes feel like I did, and need to hide under the covers for a while to recover.

Of course, this can also lead to the next empath experience….

3. You will feel out of control of your emotional state sometimes. 

Because you pick up on others’ emotional states whether or not they say anything about how they are feeling and whether or not there are any visual cues to tell you what’s up, there will be times when you will enter a space feeling totally happy and good, and suddenly feel extremely anxious and sad.

This emotional swing can seem like you might be bipolar*, but, if you are an empath, it’s just a moment-by-moment reality of being too open to everyone else’s energy.

4. You’ll be told that you are “too sensitive.”

Or a crybaby. Or a wimp. Or a tree hugger. Or a hippie. Or a “softie.” Or a doormat. Or weak.

In our culture, strength and dominance are often glorified, and emotional vulnerability, kindness, and compassion are often seen as a sign of weakness. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that you are still standing even with all the emotions you feel every day is a freaking testament to your strength. It’s easy to go through life with even the saddest or most traumatic things barely making a dent to your emotional state. But, when you are carrying the trauma, difficulty, worry, stress, and sadness of everyone you meet and the whole world every day, and you are still expected to function as a normal human being - and you DO manage to function as a normal human being, that deserves a freaking badge of honor.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You are an empathic badass, and that is real strength.

5. You’ll be bullied.

It’s an unfortunate reality that the more sensitive kids are the ones who are bullied. Or, as was the case for me, the empath kid will stand up for another child who is being bullied and then become the target.

This can carry forward into adulthood, where an empath adult finds themselves targeted by a bullying boss, friend, or even partner.

People shrug off bullying as a “rite of passage” for children, but that ignores the incredible long-term impact on the victim. In fact, bullying has been identified as one of the ACE predictors for issues such as alcoholism, depression, and certainly low self-esteem. In my practice I see how these emotional wounds are carried and cause pain and disease as well as negative life patterns, such as not believing in oneself enough to choose positive experiences.

If you are an empath and were bullied, please understand that it wasn’t you. You were the target of kids that didn’t feel good about themselves and took it out on you for a sense of power and control. If you are struggling with the long-term impacts of this, please either reach out to me or a qualified therapist for help.

If you are currently being bullied - or if you have an empath child who is bullied - please consider signing up for the Empath Institute. I have a ton of tools in there to help stop the bullying as well as to recover from being bullied and reclaim your sense of self and power.

6. You’ll attract a narcissist, or be raised by one.

Empaths are like moths to a flame for people on the narcissistic spectrum. I cannot tell you how many I have personally encountered, and every day in my practice I work with empaths who either found themselves in a relationship with one, were raised by one, or both.

Narcissists have a huge vat of internal pain and lack of sense of self that needs to be filled by someone offering them love and support. Unfortunately, because of their own levels of self-hatred, they actually hate the person who loves them. They may act like they are better than others, but internally they have little self esteem, so the thinking goes “If this person actually loves and cares for me and I am such an awful person, then they must not be worth much.” At the same time, because they don’t really feel lovable, they are terrified of losing the empath who does love them, so they use all manner of intimidation, manipulation, love bombing, and whatever else they’ve got in their bag os tricks to keep the empath under their spell.

It’s disordered thinking that traps empaths in co-dependent and often abusive relationships. Because we MUST take away others’ pain in order to stop feeling their pain, we end up putting aside all our worries and personal needs to help that person. The problem is that you can never help a narcissist. You cannot help someone who doesn’t truly believe that something is wrong with him or her. There is no amount of logic or care or love or goodness that you can possibly offer that will help a narcissist to wake up and see how wonderful you are.

If you are in a relationship with a narcissist now, please seek help to get out (or just get out). At the end of this article, I will list a bunch of resources I love that can be a huge help to you.

If you were raised by a narcissist or have gotten away from one, please take time to heal yourself. Please understand that you were not a weak person for getting in to this relationship; you are just a caring person who tries to take away others’ pain. That makes you very attractive to a narcissist, who is hurting inside.

7. You’ll have a major difficulty saying “no.”

Empaths come into the world with a whole bunch of tools, such as the ability to heal other people, the ability to feel other’s pain and suffering, the desire to help the world, the desire to do good, and more.

What we do not come into the world equipped with is healthy boundaries. Because of that, saying “no” is almost impossible until we learn how to create a hold those boundaries, and that takes some work.

There are easy ways to start setting energetic boundaries in a way that allows you do so without feeling completely freaked out or weak. One thing I recommend is to start a “shielding practice” which allows you to start setting your boundaries from your core. It’s amazing how helpful this practice can be! There are many ways to Shield, I but I like to imagine that there is a bright, powerful ball of light that is in my solar plexus/core/stomach. Imagine that this ball of light is whatever color you would associate with safety or empowerment. Then, on each inhale, imagine that it gets bigger and brighter, starting to move out and around your body in steps (for instance, on the first inhale, have it surround just your core. On the next inhale, have it go all the way to your knees and all the way up to your shoulders, etc). Finish by having the light go all the way over your head at least a foot, and all the way under your feet at least a foot.

I have the entire Shield practice as well as a downloadable guided Shield meditation - and lots more tools and practices that can help you with all of this - in my Empath Institute, so consider getting on the list to join when it reopens, and you’ll have access to all of it!

What other life experiences have you had that seem to be common to empaths? I’d love to hear about it.

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6 Critical Questions to Ask Before You Screw Up Your Life (or Feel Like You Have)

You know that old adage, “Hindsight is 20/20”? 

If you’ve ever made a decision which you later regretted, you’ll deeply understand what this means (and may have heard it from more than a few well-meaning people). Faced with the result of a bad choice, you likely grumbled, “If I’d only known then what I know now, I’d never have done it!”

It’s an awful feeling to find yourself living the consequences of bad decisions. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could avoid making decisions you later regret? Or have 20/20 vision now to make decisions that improve your life, instead of screw it up and wear you out? 

As we head into this, let me just say: I don’t feel like (generally) you can totally screw up your life (but you can certainly feel like you have). Experiences happen for a reason, and often we learn lessons that are necessary for a better life from even the worst experiences. However, using these questions to evaluate any decision you are pondering might give you a level of awareness that allows you to learn the lesson without having to actually go through the bad experience, and that’s enlightenment I can really get behind.

If you stop and evaluate any decision you face with these six powerful questions, you can start making decisions that you’ll love: 

1. Would I be doing this out of obligation or guilt? 

If you were raised by parents that used guilt to get you to bend to their wills (or if you went to a religious school or attended a conservative church), it’s likely you’re susceptible to agreeing to things you would not otherwise agree to due to the overwhelmingly awful feeling of guilt or obligation. 

Take a moment to think about how many times you’ve done something out of guilt or obligation. Did you enjoy the experience? Or did you regret your decision and beat yourself up for your lack of willpower, all while suffering through until it was over?

Agreeing to any experience due to a sense of obligation or guilt takes valuable time and energy from experiences that are good for you and rarely ends well. Whether it’s as minor as deciding whether you have dinner with an old friend who wears you out or as major as mulling over whether you should end an unhappy engagement, recognize guilt and obligation for what it is, disengage from it, and listen to your gut instinct on what is best for you. 

2. Do I enjoy being with this person (or people)? 

There is almost nothing worse than hanging out with someone whose company you don’t enjoy or whose values are dramatically different from yours. It’s even worse if the person is highly critical of you, either overtly or passive-aggressively. It’s worse yet if the person undermines you and your goals.

The exhaustion you feel after dealing with such a person takes away vitality from you and depletes your ability to put time and effort into good things in your life. After all, when you’ve been with someone who wears you out, are you feeling energized to keep on with your goals? Or do you just want to take a nap? 

I think you know which it is. 

Make a list of people in your life. Notice how you feel after being with each person. Are you energized, happy, and feel valued? Or do you feel drained, worn out, and ignored? 

If it’s the latter, dial back (or eliminate) time spent with that person. Life is too short to be with people that wear you down.

3. Am I just forcing this being the right thing, even though it feels wrong? 

A friend of mine really, really wanted to be married. Every relationship was heading to that goal, whether or not the guy would make her happy in the long run. She finally got her wish and married a guy that was clearly not a good person and didn’t love her like he should. Fast forward five years: She ended up in an ugly divorce which left her financially and emotionally depleted.

My husband was offered a promotion at work which would require a move to a place where we had both said we would never, ever want to live. Somehow we talked ourselves into that move—after all, it was the next logical step in my husband’s career and it was a nice pay increase—and it was the most miserable year of our lives.

Sometimes the desire to attain a goal over-rides our intuition that the current experience isn’t the right one. It’s easy to do, especially if you are really trying to grow your business, take that next step in your career, or meet a big life goal. When an opportunity presents itself, it’s tempting to talk yourself into it, even if your gut is telling you that something is not right. 

If you have that situation presenting itself to you, it’s a good idea to write out what you are feeling about the opportunity and why you think you need to move forward. List what you truly want in the situation, then look to see if this opportunity matches with those desires. If the lists do not sync up, then you know that this is not a step forward you want to take. 

Look for the right thing—the one that truly matches your highest goals and desires on all levels—not the thing that only checks off the box on your goal list. 

4. Am I afraid of looking stupid if I don’t go forward? 

We’ve all done it; we announce to the world some grand plans to start a business, lose weight, write a book, or have a kid, and then realize that it might not be what we really want. For most of us, the fear of losing face with all those people is so overwhelming that we stick with the plan for way longer than we should. We end up miserable, worn out, and sometimes even broke. 

So what if your dad will knowingly tell you “I told you so!” when you announce that you’re not marrying that guy he always hated? Who cares if your friends will laugh at you when you say you’re walking away from a business that’s draining you on every level? Your happiness and health are more important than other’s opinions, and, at the end of the day, staying connected to something that’s not truly right for you keeps you from being able to take advantage of the right thing when it shows up.

If your motivation for staying the course is worry over other’s judgement of you, that’s a big red flag that it’s time to throw caution to the wind and decide a different path.

And the next time you have a big dream or goal, only share it with people who will support and love you whether or not you accomplish said goal. Anything else is self-abuse.

5. Am I afraid of looking stupid if I DO go forward? 

Contemplating quitting your day job and taking an internship in your dream field? Thinking about adopting a baby as a single parent? Mulling over going fully mobile and traveling the world?

There is no human who has ever existed that made a great step forward for mankind (or just themselves) that wasn’t criticized, laughed at, or targeted. What if Einstein had given up because one of his teachers said he’d never get anywhere? What if Gandhi hadn’t begun a peaceful movement 

Do yourself a favor: If you want to go forward on an unconventional plan that’s calling to you from deep in your soul, go for it. The more people who make fun of you or tell you that you’re crazy, the more likely it is that you’re on a path to something really awesome. 

6. Is it just that I hate quitting? 

Many of us have been taught that “quitters never win,” which causes a great amount of incentive for people to stay in situations way longer than they ever should. This is never more apparent than when you’ve realized that a prior decision was a bad decision, but now you fear letting go because you “shouldn’t quit.”

Don’t do it. I know you might have put a ridiculous amount of hours into a new business or spent endless hours writing that novel you know you have in you, but if there is a point when you are no longer passionate about going forward or it’s taking a serious toll on you or your life, it’s time to walk away. 

I can tell you of at least 3 different times in my life when I KNEW that I should walk away from a project, but kept trying to make lemons out of some seriously sour lemonade. In one case, I had put two years of my life and passion into a start-up that I truly believed could make a huge difference in the world, but knew that the president of the company was a hot mess and could not be trusted. But, I believed so strongly in our mission that I doubled-down and worked even harder, thinking that I could somehow bypass her and pull this off. I also didn’t want to let down my co-workers, who also had put a lot of passion and time into this. I really thought a handful of us could somehow pull this off. I just did NOT want to quit on something this important. Needless to say, one of my greatest regrets is not walking away earlier. 

If you feel like you HAVE to stay with a certain project because you don’t want to let others down, or that you’ve put a crazy amount of time/love/creativity in and are having a hard time letting go, just ask yourself: “How is staying with this project depleting me? How is staying with this causing me stress? If I was able to let go, what might improve in my life? Why do I think I cannot quit?”

I also love a practice from a favorite author and inspiration of mine, Tim Ferris. He suggests that, when looking at a situation like this, to do a “fear-setting exercise.” To do this, imagine quitting the experience/job/relationship/whatever, and go to the absolute worst case scenario. So, for ending a bad engagement, it might be, “I’ll end this relationship and all our friends will hate me. I’ll lose the money I have put down on the wedding venue, because it’s too close to the marriage. Everyone will think badly of me because I did this. I will be alone for the rest of my life and die alone.” That’s certainly pretty grim. Then, on a scale of 1 - 10, rate how likely that scenario is. In this case, it might be a 3 or 4, at best. Next, think through the best-case scenario. “I will finally be free of a miserable relationship and will stop feeling stressed all the time. I will be able to do fun things I like to do just for me, and I will learn to love alone time. When I am ready, I will find a wonderful person who will be my soulmate, and we will love and support each other for the rest of our lives.” Rate how likely that scenario might be; in this case, it’s probably a strong 8 - 9. Then, rate how much better you would feel overall if you did this. If the worst case scenario is a lot less likely than the best case scenario and you’d feel lots better moving toward the better scenario, then it’s a great indication that you should make that move. 

If you realize that you are freaking miserable staying with the current experience, opportunity, or person, then let it go. You aren’t quitting; you are making a decision to let something go that isn’t for your best, and that’s very different energy. 

I can tell you from experience that when you are able to do this, you’ll be amazed at how much stress and worry releases from you. You’ll feel alive and unburdened, and that’s pretty great. 

Best of all, when you use these 6 critical questions to help you make good decisions about your life and your time, you’ll avoid experiences you’ll later regret and have more energy for you and for all the positive experiences in your life.

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Why It's Critical to Grieve When You’ve Lost Something You Love: 5 Important Steps to Letting Go to Stay Healthy and Whole

I knew it was coming. We needed it to happen. And yet, when it did, I felt overwhelmed with unexpected sadness, sobbing like a kid who just dropped her ice cream cone on the ground. 

What was the heartbreak?

We sold our beloved home of 10 years. (Hang with me here; I know that this is not the worst loss in the world, but it impacted me deeply.)

We moved over a year ago, both for a job relocation for my husband and because we desired a larger city and better opportunities for our little girl. It was a rational decision. It was the right decision. However, it meant leaving a home that held 10 years’ worth of laughter, tears, parties, holidays, and everything in-between. It was where we had years of happy times with our sweet Cairn terrier, and where we had to make the difficult decision to let him go when we ran out of options to heal him. It was where we dealt with the pain of four failed adoptions, and where got the call that we were matched with our day-old daughter. It was where we brought her home to the excitement of our neighbors and friends.

More than that, the home seemed almost destined to be ours; in fact, it seemed predestined to be ours. When I was a mere 5 years old, we were relocating from Cincinnati to Columbus, Ohio, and my parents were about to head out shopping for our new home. My mom stopped at the door and asked me, “Is there anything you’d like to have in our next home?” to which I responded, “I want a purple home!” 

Fast forward 30 years, and we bought this lavender home. 

It was, in many ways, my dream home. Architecturally, it looked like the homes I loved from family vacations in Charleston, South Carolina. We painted the fireplace a deep shade of raspberry and the bedroom an incredible, relaxing shade of celery green. It had high ceilings and custom drapes. I hand-painted the side porch to look like gorgeous Portuguese tiles. 

I loved this home. 

Moreover, due to my husband’s work, we’ve moved 16 times in 18 years of marriage, so this house, one we owned for 10 years, was the place that truly felt like home. We even rented it out for a year and a half for one of our relocations and happily came back to it as soon as we could. 

It was that place in the world that I felt safe and grounded, no matter what was going on in our lives. I was the place that, when I opened the door, I felt embraced. 

And now we’ve sold it to someone else, and I’m heartsick. 

In between wiping tears from my face, I realized that I needed to look at this as an opportunity for personal growth and awareness.

In fact, I realized that the experience itself was challenging me to do what I have told so many clients to do—to take the time to grieve, because when grief is stuck inside your body and unexpressed, it does pretty bad things on every level. 

And let me add here that you can also be grieving aspects of yourself that have been lost. Recently, so many women and men who are assault survivors have had long-boxed-up memories retriggered, and the anger and sadness of what happened and what they lost in the experience is resurfacing and overwhelming. If you’ve dealt with a trauma of any kind, you may feel like you lost part of yourself in the bargain—or, more to the point—that part of yourself was taken from you. This deserves and needs honoring and release as much as any other kind of loss.*

So, here goes; this is the exact plan of action I took to release the grief and look forward to connecting with even better in my life:

Step 1: Acknowledge the grief.

My first response to feeling so sad over this was, “You’re being ridiculous. You’ve sold a house. For a profit. Do you know how lucky you are? You don’t live in a war zone. You have a place to live. You have food. I mean, geez. How dumb. You are so freaking lucky—no, privileged—compared to so many. Just stop it already.” 

Just to be clear, this is a word-for-word transcript of me beating myself up. I tell you this to show that even those of us that work ALL THE TIME to have empowering self-talk occasionally give in to negative and berating thoughts. It’s human nature. However, it’s important to recognize this when it happens and stop it in its tracks, because if we don’t, we end up shoving our grief deep inside. At that point, it becomes a “ghost in the machine,” gunking up our emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical selves in a negative way. 

I stopped all that and took the time to say aloud, “I’m sad about this. It’s okay that I am sad about it. I loved this home, and I am sad about letting it go.” 

That alone allowed me to feel better, but I had more to do. 

Step 2: Grieve the loss. 

Once I said that aloud, the floodgates opened and I allowed myself to cry until I felt like I was done. 

That last part is important, because I see clients all the time who did not allow themselves to grieve (or had too much to do in the moment to be able to grieve), and I see the damage it does to every part of their lives. One woman couldn’t grieve when her husband died because his family decided to accuse her of murder (seriously), because he’d never told them he had cancer. Shortly after his death, she developed a condition where she didn’t have enough oxygen in her blood and her chest felt tight all the time. Another man lost his job, but didn’t think it was “manly” to grieve about it, resulting in chest pains with no medical cause. 

On and on it goes, from cardiovascular issues to respiratory issues to breast issues to depression, I’ve seen the ways that unexpressed grief shows up in the body; I knew I had to express it to clear it from my system. 

If you’ve got something you are grieving but haven’t expressed it, please take the time to do so. 

If it’s hard for you to do, one great way is to watch a sad movie and dedicate that time to allowing yourself to cry about your loss. This is especially helpful if you’ve locked that sadness down for a long time. By putting it outside of yourself in the form of film characters going through something sad, you can access that place inside yourself that needs a release. It’s a way of bypassing the conscious mind (which may want to keep the grief locked down) and tapping into the subconscious, where all those memories and sadness is held. 

Step 3: Take time to reflect on the situation and open to awareness

After crying, I gathered myself up and headed off to the local botanical gardens. For me, there is almost no place that is more therapeutic than somewhere out in nature, with lovely flowers popping out of the ground. It instantly centers me and reminds me of the cycle of life and of potential blossoming out of the unseen. 

As I wandered the gardens, breathing in the scent of spring flowers and the last of the citrus blossoms, a thought came to me, “Let it go. It’s okay. Let it go.” 

I realized that, with such tremendous change in the last couple of years, I had been holding on to that home as a safety blanket. My fear was that, if I let it go, I’d never have anything like that again. And, while we have a lovely home we are renting here, it doesn’t feel like home—it’s beige and gray and brown, and I am a bright colors kind of girl. 

But, when we grip on to anything out of fear, we can’t allow anything new (and maybe even better) to flow into our lives. In order to open to the possibility of better, we must let go and trust. 

In saying that, I realize how incredibly difficult that can be, especially if you’ve been through a great deal of loss or difficulty; needless to say, the desire to hold on to something that makes you feel steady is incredibly strong at those moments. Acknowledge that, too. It’s completely okay to feel the need to hold on; the key is to be aware and work on letting go and trusting. 

One thing that can help is to create a vision board of things you'd like to connect to in the coming months or years. It's easy to do; just go grab a bunch of magazines that speak to you and then look through them, cutting out images and words that feel inspirational or match things you'd like to have in your life. Arrange those images on a poster board or in a scrapbook in a way that feels creative and good to you. Then, look at those images each day, saying aloud: "I release anything I don't need in my life anymore to connect with these things that I desire. I am open to abundance/happiness/joy/whatever coming to me now." 

Make sure to connect with a happy memory before you do this; you want to connect the feeling of happiness with your vision board to help infuse your future vision with energy and faith that it can come in to being.

Step 4: Perform a ritual to honor your loss. 

When someone dies, we hold a memorial service or funeral as a way of honoring the life of the person as well as honoring the loss of those left behind. 

However, we don’t think to do this for other kinds of losses, although it can be just as healing and necessary. 

I recently worked with a woman who had never truly grieved the loss of her mother, mostly because she was so exhausted being her mom’s sole caretaker in her final years that she was worn out by it all. She also carried a deep sense of guilt, that somehow she had not done enough for her mother, or that somehow there was one more thing she could have tried that would have saved her mom’s life. She had carried this deep burden for so long that she was seriously depressed, extremely anxious, and couldn’t speak about anything she was feeling without falling to sobs, hardly getting words out. Worse, she was about to interview for a terrific job right across the street from the facility where her mom had died, and she was so overwhelmed by emotion at being back at that space that she worried that she would be unable to do the interview without sobbing incoherently. 

It was clear to me that there were a lot of unresolved feelings around her mom’s death, and she had been clinging to those feelings and experiences so deeply that she was unable to move forward. I suggested that she drive to the parking lot of the facility where her mom passed away and to sit in her car and allow herself to grieve fully. Then, I suggested that she find a way to honor her mom’s life and to place that either in the facility itself, or just outside. 

She decided that, because her mom loved Christmas, she’d buy a Christmas ornament and place it in one of the trees outside the facility. Once she did this, she was able to feel that she had honored her mom and was able to let go of that old moment in time, freeing her to move forward with memories of her mom that were empowering and good. She finally felt that it was okay for her to let go of the pain and move forward with her own life. Even better, she was able to interview for the job in a centered, powerful way. 

Do you still have deep feelings of loss over something or someone? Are you dealing with a loss now? If so, my advice to you is the same: Find a way to honor that thing or person in a funeral-like ritual. I’ve had clients who have buried pictures of things, animals, or people they loved, wrote down all their feelings in a letter which they burned, and even finally found the courage to spread a loved one’s ashes in a desired location. I recently told a Jewish client of mine to make sure that she used a Jewish funeral/memorial ritual to release her mom in a positive way. 

The ritual itself doesn’t matter; it just needs to be significant to you and it needs to feel like you are honoring the loss in a powerful way. It's a good idea to think about your spiritual beliefs or practices and try to incorporate something that honors the loss in alignment with those beliefs. When you do that, you will feel a deep sense of peace and release. 

For me, I’ve decided to write a letter to our old house, thanking it for being such a wonderful place for us to call home for 10 years. I’m going to fold that letter up and tuck it in a folder with pictures of happy times there, like a little time capsule of gratitude. I have a real sense of peace and happiness now that I've made this decision. You'll know that you've found the right way to honor the loss when you feel that way, too.

Step 5: Realize that the physical loss is a very real thing. 

I’ve been at funerals where someone, trying to offer comfort to a mourning loved one, says, “You know, you never really lose the ones you love.”

I get it. On a spiritual level, our loved ones are still connected to us. On an energetic level, all their particles are going out to be recycled into things in life, from other people to stars to whatever we can imagine. 

You can know that intellectually. You can believe all of that deeply. You can even have signs that your loved one is still connected to you. And you can still feel knee-bending loss at the physical person (or thing) no longer being within reach.

When it’s a person you’ve lost, you miss his or her hugs, the sound of his or her voice, the smell of perfume or cologne. You miss the way you felt when you were with them. 

For years after she died, I picked up the phone to call my grandma. After our dog died, I missed stroking his fur and feeling him tug excitedly at the end of his leash. 

Even for inanimate objects, our need to feel and sense them can be very real. In fact, over the time we’ve had the physical object in question, it’s created neural pathways in our brain that have mapped certain feelings and emotions to be associated with that place or interaction with that object. In the case of a house, you have a certain feeling associated with walking in to your bedroom or kitchen, and losing that physical connection (and the corresponding emotional response) can cause a deep sense of loss. 

Because of this, any physical loss is a real, tangible, and painful thing. It’s more than okay to acknowledge your grief at losing this; it’s absolutely necessary for your health. 

So, the next time someone tells you to just “get over” your loss of someone or something in your life, or ridicules you for the depth of sadness you feel at losing a familiar person, animal, or physical location, let it roll right off your shoulders. Let yourself grieve as you need to, and in so doing, honor your very human need to acknowledge the passing of one thing to the next in your life. Trust me, you'll be better for it in every way, and most especially, in your health and wellbeing.

*If you are feeling overwhelmed by any kind of loss, please consider setting up a coaching session with me. I can help. I will understand. I will honor your loss. I will help you heal.

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