Empath? Sensitive? What is the difference?

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As almost all Tuesdays, one of the first things I do is I read my Rob Brezsny horoscope.

For more than 10 years it was always a perfect match to how I felt, what I felt I needed… and this consistency, during this pandemic, has been broken.

But today it might be just spot on… It says that ‘In the coming weeks, I’ll encounter people and animals and places and experiences that can bring me into more intimate contact with my soul‘

The question, the big question is this: how do you know that you are in touch with your soul? Will some heavenly music play? Will the soul actually talk English? Or how?

And therein lies the problem: the soul communicates through feelings. Not emotions, feelings…

And feelings is what this article is about…

I am thinking of writing a book… about feelings… NOT emotions, feelings… because that is sorely missing in the marketplace.

To write a book, you always have to think of a series… people like to read series…

Anyway, my idea is ‘An empath’s guide to feelings’ or ‘The Empath’s guide to be guided by your soul’

As is my habit, I’ll take the long and meandering path… If you wish I gave you the answer only, you are not a match to what I teach, so don’t even bother… No answer has ever caused growth, happiness, results… the path is ALWAYS meandering… and your answers have never given you anything, and they won’t…

Anyway here is us meandering towards happiness…

So I googled the title to see if it has been used, and found Dr. Judith Orloff’s bestseller: the empath’s survival guide… written to empaths and sensitives.

I muscletested, and she is a sensitive, not an empath.

So what is the difference between an empath and a sensitive?

I get a lot of people tell me they are empaths, and they are not.

So this is maybe important to know…

An empath can feel the feelings and the emotions, the attitude of a thing, a person, and they can direct their attention.

To the degree they can direct their attention to the degree they are removed from the pool of sensitives, who cannot direct their attention or feel a feeling.

Sensitives only feel emotions.

So what is the difference between an emotion and a feeling?

This is what I have been harping for the past few months, this is the main question in my Inner Authority course, and this is the essence of the Bach Energies and their purpose:

Feelings are wordless. The moment words come in, words that attempt to give meaning to the feelings, they become emotions.

Because the words and the emotions come up simultaneously, we miss the words about 70% of the time. The words come from the past… and cut off all experience of the feeling which is now replaced by something that also feels, but is not a feeling.

Feelings, even hunger, are a mode of communication, a guidance, information, indicating needs, or orient you, move you in certain direction, or inform you about your body and position.

There is a book written by a Hungarian engineer, 70% truth value book, a rarity, that goes into details about all kinds of feelings. You needed an engineer to write that book. I read it with fascination. I read it in both Hungarian and English… good translation, by the way.

Now, why would you want to be able to feel your feelings? Good question?

As you see, the system of feelings are there by design to guide you, to keep you safe and healthy and growing and fulfilling your many needs.

The mischief is that word-created emotions drown out the natural feelings, and we are guided by words… all coming from the past or from other people who probably don’t serve our best self-interest.

And a totally interesting thing happens: when I put a real feeling in the subject line, people don’t want to open my email or my article.

People, books, teachers talk about beliefs, and emotions, all word-based stuff… and know nothing about our design, our guidance system, that was created by millions of years of evolution.

They talk about happiness, but happiness is impossible in the presence of no inner guidance, in the presence of all those words, our from the past, or from others.

My least happy students and clients are the ones who have words from the past that can be considered worldview… because, don’t be mistaken, worldview is, as long as you have emotions, is all words.

When I look, everyone is trying to change what you say… and it’s not working. Affirmations, hypnosis, NLP, all and other word-based techniques to alter your emotions haven’t been working.

Huge million dollar a year companies: all work on your words…

It’s not working.

So what does work?

The job that needs to get done is to somehow learn to tell apart the feelings from the emotions.

In the Bach Energies technology you learn see that the bad feelings have nothing to do with reality… I transmit a Bach Energy, and you feel bad feelings…

If you do it enough, you eventually cut the automatic words… that eliminate the emotions… and you are left with the feeling that can guide you.

When you embark on this journey of reclaiming your feelings, you’ll hit quite a few rough spots. Unavoidable… unless you stop being on this path.

Here are a few examples shared by students:

‘Today, I’m the walking dead after being angry for the first half of the day. I played the Vine energy and the anger subsided a bit. However, I haven’t been willing to do much with myself today. I’ve listened to this lesson and I think I get it on an intellectual level, but it doesn’t count if I don’t put it into practice.

Perhaps there’s a contingency plan for when I am in such a mood. Although, I’m hoping that these Bach energies will help me work through these feelings for good.‘

There is reason to celebrate: this student had never realized that he has, underneath it all the Vine energy direct all his actions. The Vine says: my way or the highway… whether his way is good or bad.

And if your way has been not the best way, loosening that darn Vine is the best thing that can happen to you: you are suddenly available for something better. Yay.

Here is another example:

‘I was badly triggered by your article on Saturday and could not get over it until this morning. Realized that trigger was betrayal. Unfortunately I felt you betrayed me. I was really really angry. This morning I woke earlier that usual and was able to process it.

Saw how everyone / every class / new idea eventually ‘betrays’ me – parents, spouse, friends, staff, etc.’

She had to walk through hell barefoot, feeling the burning, the anger, rage even…

Finally she saw that she was triggered.

You’ll be surprised to hear that the energy triggered for her was also the Vine… my way or the highway.

What’s underneath it, the FEELING, is fear. (a day later she wrote to me saying: ‘I feel like the ocean has drained and I can go exploring. I can see things I never did before, or may have been only mildly aware of. I can see the ship wrecks, the coral reefs. I can go to them and look inside.‘ And this is how it works… once you drain the energy of a ‘flower’, of a Bach Energy, there is space, room, freedom to explore, to look and be amazed.)

Once the Bach Energies have done their jobs, you are left with feelings, a twinge here and a twinge there… and you can use it to guide you to pay attention, instead of flying into rage, or drama, or devastation, or whatever dramatic emotions you tend to fly into. You and me… everyone.

The goal is to leave you without the emotions, without the drama, without the toxic fruits of the mind.

And then and only then will the soul be able to guide you to become all you can become… really. Until then you’ll be guided by words… mostly delusional words… highfalutin mind candy.

Of course snowflakes, weaklings won’t stand a chance… Without going through hellish emotions you can’t clean your toxic mind… and you’ll remain the same. And it is tough.

There is no hurry. You can take your time. The effect is energetic, not intellectual. Knowing what’s going on does one thing and one thing only: it helps you to hang in there and not run away.

So it is worth knowing… and it is worth having someone to turn for verification, like the students above have done… Once the context is clearer, the resistance is lower.

What you feel is your resistance… Resistance is what keeps the emotion, and often the feeling seem interminable.

But once you know the context, the resistance lessens and the pain with it… Yay. I know because I wouldn’t be able to teach this unless I went through it myself. And in a much lesser way: I still do. And I could still suffer from it if I resisted. But I don’t… I just watch it with curiosity. No.Big.Deal.

Start feeling your feelingsUse the Bach Energies to remove the emotions, the words,and be left with the guiding feelings you need.

PS: Is it possible that the ‘enlightenment’ the gurus prattle about is a moment when they saw feelings and emotions separate and got that emotions are all hot air, all words, and no reality behind them?

I think so. That is why they report laughing.