At 8 years old, my mother was depressed. I could hear her sobbing and crying from her bedroom upstairs for hours.

The last thing I wanted was my Mom to be sad, so I made a decision:

On a subtle, energetic level I decided that like a sponge or an energetic magnet, I would use my empathic abilities and take on her sadness so that she wouldn’t have to hold it.

It was my attempt to heal her…and many others throughout my life.

In my early thirties I started to understand just how much I would dissolve my boundaries and take on everyone else’s energy instead of feeling and focusing on my own energy and Truth.

This was particularly overwhelming when I was a trauma therapist. After a full day of seeing clients who were survivors of severe physical and sexual abuse, I remember walking home at night and suddenly feeling frightened in the City streets I had felt completely safe on for almost 10 years.

As a result, my time as a trauma talk therapist was one of the darkest periods of my life.

When I truly recognized that I was taking on other people’s energy, it was like I drew back the heavy red velvet curtains of a theater and saw the backstage version of me.

I realized that when I didn’t have to take on everyone else’s energy and heal them, I could actually work on healing myself.

I started to tune into what I was feeling and experiencing on the inside, instead of constantly reading others.

At first though, I was angry at myself for not focusing on my own energy. I was also completely frustrated because I didn’t know how to stop.

My Supervisors at the trauma clinic didn’t help ease all my self-judgement. Instead of aiding me in my energetic sensitivity, they grew increasingly concerned of how my client’s stories and symptoms were impacting me (called “vicarious trauma” in the field) and eventually decided to fire me because they didn’t know how else to help.

So it’s been a process I’ve had to figure out myself.

And in this process I’ve learned that when I feel things for others, I am not actually resolving their pain in any real or long-term way.

I am only trying to do the work for them, instead of focusing on myself to gain that much more self-awareness and self-mastery.

So little by little, I stopped taking on my clients’ energy. Then I stopped taking on my friends’ energy. For a whole year, I focused on my energetic attachment to my Mother. I’m still learning how to manage my energetic sensitivity with my life partner.

Today, I know how to use my empathy and energetic sensitivity to assist my clients. I connect to, and tune in with others to facilitate mental, spiritual and energetic clearing. Together we untangle unnecessary blocks and create new patterns of thought and behavior.

And it’s truly a beautiful thing to help others find the keys to Unlock Who They Really Are.