What are tips for empaths to cope during holiday festivities?

Empaths have many challenges during the holiday time. Some of our family, friends and co-workers will make you feel positive and elevate your mood. Others will suck optimism and serenity right out of you. Vampires do more than drain your physical energy. The super-malignant ones can make you believe you’re an unworthy, unlovable wretch who doesn’t deserve better. The subtler species inflict damage by making smaller digs which can make you feel bad about yourself. But this is a perfect time to practice the grounding and centering techniques I discuss in The Empath’s Survival Guide. Be sure to meditate before the gathering, centering yourself, connecting to spirit, feeling your heart. Get strong. Also eat some protein to ground the body. At the gathering try not to sit next to the identified energy vampire. Physical closeness increases empathy. Set clear limits and boundaries with people, nicely cutting them off at the pass if they get critical or mean. Practice shielding. And if all else fails, you can always go to the bathroom to meditate or call a friend who can help you ground.

Happy festivities,
Judith

Judith Orloff, MD is a New York Times bestselling author with the upcoming book The Genius of Empathy: Practical Skills to Heal Yourself, Your Relationships and the World (Foreword by the Dalai Lama). She has also written The Empath’s Survival Guide and Thriving as an Empath, which offers daily self-care tools for sensitive people. She integrates the pearls of conventional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition, empathy, energy medicine, and spirituality. Dr. Orloff specializes in treating empaths and highly sensitive people in her private practice and online internationally. Her work has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, Oprah Magazine, the New York Times and USA Today. Dr. Orloff has spoken at Google-LA, TEDx U.S. and TEDx Asia. More information about Dr. Orloff’s Empathy Training Programs for businesses, The Empath Survival Guide Online Course and speaking schedule at www.drjudithorloff.com.

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