by Josh Schultz
Why do empaths seem to attract narcissists? Narcissists depend on external validation. Empaths are tremendous healers, givers, and validators.
On the surface, this may seem like a convenient story. But the underlying dynamics of each couple’s situation can be vastly different.
Every relationship is a continually shifting landscape of male and female energies, flowing with giving and taking, in each action, word, and caress.
We like to think that living from the heart, being totally in a space of love and affinity can only be good; that it can never be wrong or bad. But one must also truthfully ask themselves: is it balanced? Is it healthy?
The common undercurrent with many empaths is that they often heal others to their own detriment, which is very unhealthy.
Here is a funny question: when your healing energy goes to everyone else, and it becomes a demand, is it really a healing space any longer?
Some of the best healers I have met know how to laugh at other people’s problems, and they know how to not heal everyone.
They know how to be senior in their own inner space and understand that healing other people, i.e., changing the energy affecting them, is not always appropriate.
One of the best things that empaths can do is to stop trying to heal everyone around them in a completely out of control fashion.
The “out-of-control empath’s” essential problem is that they are giving away all their healing energy, to others to the point where they have none left for themselves; this does not effectively help people.
Someone has to teach empaths to say no. Someone has to show empaths where they are refusing to take responsibility for owning their power. Someone has to show empaths the pictures, and habits, they are stuck in that do not allow them to claim their own authority.
Ideally, it is a learning experience, and the empath can change all those behaviors, beliefs, and patterns, but without tools that can be very difficult.
We create through the pictures in our minds. So, if we don’t destroy the pictures limiting us – actually sit down in meditation and visualize those images exploding or decide to change our inner beliefs – then we will simply create the same situations over again, because the sub-conscious mind does not know any different.
Of course, it is hard to really believe that unless you have the right tools and can consistently use them to change situations.
Most people do not want to hear that their relationship space is a spiritual development space, or growth space, and that they may have to learn from different partners before they can be with their ideal mate.
We like to believe that loving another means accepting them completely, even with all their faults; that we should love people for who they are, not for who we want them to be.
But what happens when there is a large gap between who that person really can be, i.e., what they are deeply capable of, and who they are in present time?
With narcissists, the gap is really large…
The out-of-control empath unconsciously says, “heal them.” But maybe it is better to teach that person. But do we know when it is appropriate to help someone change, or to heal them, or teach them?
Can you see when validating where someone is capable, rather than who they are now, is healthy, rather than a form of control?
And can you see that if someone doesn’t want to change, then saying no, and moving on, maybe the only healthy thing you can do?
I have seen most relationships being created purely from a space of unconsciousness. It is the level most people are creating their relationships at on the planet.
Empaths without tools are almost always stuck in healing agreements and healing games.
The great thing about understanding the energetic intricacies of different situations, and having the tools to deal with them, is that in order to change your life you only need to do more meditation and energy work. You learn to create from the effortless space of the higher chakras.
And then, generally, the formula for life becomes 90% meditation, 10% action. I would tenuously suggest that if you are taking more than 10% action and not seeing the results you want then your inner space needs more work. But when you create from the sixth and seventh chakras you need to take very little, and, many times, no external action.
The journey of people who identify as empaths, in today’s world, is to move from the second chakra, a space of sensuality, feeling, and body emotion, into the heart, and then into the sixth chakra – a clairvoyant space.
In cases where we are having emotional trouble, or feeling stuck, it is often because there is a sub-conscious picture that we have fallen into and failed to see clearly.
The ability to destroy a mental picture is the most fundamental way of changing your entire life.
I have seen a lot of highly sensitive people, empaths, – and people who live from their hearts – who have difficulty with destroying. One woman I read even recoiled at the suggestion that she destroy a simple flower.
What inevitably happens with people who have no permission to get rid of these mental pictures is that they become completely programmed by other people’s control energies (because they have no self-permission to extinguish those energies). This can easily turn into a recipe which can ruin a person’s entire life.
So, it makes sense to look at who you are, who you want to become, how you want to change, and what you want to experience through a relationship.
Empaths, especially, need to define what they want to receive out of a relationship. Unfortunately, empaths can easily fall into the pit of losing their own sense of self when they are around a significant other.
An empath needs a level of energetic separation from others that most people do not really understand.
Most of our cultural fantasies about love boil down to losing oneself inside another, i.e., losing one’s space and seniority, doing anything for love, etc., rather than gaining more clarity and awareness over oneself.
Love requires more than just affinity to be successful; it requires incredibly clear communication, clear vision, and a myriad of inner tools and practical transformative, spiritual information that can guide a couple along in their journey together – without which one is left with drama and games.
As an empath, one must also be able to define, and stand by, the things that make one powerful in one’s own space. What does that even mean? It means saying no to doing things you don’t actually want to do, i.e., being above guilt and cultural, or parental, programming that tells you what you are “supposed to do.”
It means cutting out people from your life who are a net negative influence so that they do not return.
It means being responsible for running your own energy through your space and kicking everyone else out, even if it makes them mad that you are no longer healing them. It means saying no to the energy, people, and situations that do not validate you and saying yes to what does validate you.
Freedom requires eliminating that toxicity from your life. You are compassionate, generous, and loving. You deserve to share these gifts with people who actually deserve them!
If you’re ready to go deeper and change your life right now, I offer a wide range of effective resources and techniques to protect against toxic people – in my bestselling program, The Break Free Bootcamp.
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