Empaths: Stay Sane When The World is Nuts

Spiritual Techniques for Keeping the Crazy Away

Covid. War. Climate change. And then there’s your own personal problems. It’s enough to drive anyone bonkers. But if you’re an empath, you feel it all much too intensely. If, as a result of the pandemic, you have greatly reduced your participation in the world, your psychic centers could be out of balance. As a result you may be more open than usual. Now when you go out in the real world, you feel the intense stress everyone is exuding. On top of it all, the planets are coming together in a way that will increase your sensitivity. Not the best timing! Jupiter and Neptune are heading for a conjunction in the highly sensitive sign of Pisces. The good news: your intuition is going to grow. But your empathic connection will too. How do you deal? How can empaths stay sane in a world gone nuts?

(What’s an empath? I define it in this post, The Empathic Tarot Reader: Transforming Pain Into Healing.)

Learn more about the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction at my upcoming talk for the Greater Seattle Tarot Meetup.

1. Ground and Center

The best practice for empaths to stay sane keeps you from getting caught up in the turmoil. The practice of grounding and centering is taught first when learning any spiritual tradition. Grounding means energetically connecting to the earth for stability. A grounding exercise anchors you so you don’t drift away. This practice helps you feel strong and rooted. Other people’s energy, ideas, manipulations, or well-meant but irrelevant suggestions wash over you without swaying you to their point of view. From a place of groundedness, you can easily discern what it right for you vs. what is a bad fit.

Centering generally indicates turning your awareness within. Whereas in grounding you connect with the earth, in centering you connect with yourself. Centering practices can vary, but most will connect you to a place of balance within yourself. Some are more grounding, whereas some help you connect outward in a healthy manner. In this case, you would establish a point within yourself through which you can connect to others via compassion, or link directly to Spirit. The key is to first establish and build a core energy center within yourself (such as at the belly energy center or heart center), then let it expand outward.

My favorite grounding and centering meditations include the Reiki meditation jôshin kokyû hô, the Tree Meditation (this is the closest to how I practice it), and the ceremonial magic technique called the Qabalistic Cross (the first section of the ritual outlined here). The last is generally performed as the first step to any longer ritual. Grounding and centering techniques are typically easy to learn, don’t take long to perform, and can be beneficial to engage in once or twice a day. Once you can confidently ground and center, you can easily recall this energy as needed throughout the day.

2. Simple Energy Clearing

Once you have found your own firm energetic footing through grounding and centering, you can work to clear any invasive, stagnant, or othewise unneeded energy. There are an abundance of easy ways to do this. Empaths and highly sensitive people can keep the crazy at bay with these simple energy clearing techniques.

Burning Sage

One of the most popular is burning sage. You can waft the smoke over yourself to clear your energy, or direct it around a room to clear your space. Wave the smoke into corners as well as around openings in the room such as windows, doors, or fireplaces. If you’re doing the whole living quarters, start at the back and, going room by room, usher the negative energy out of the house at the front door. Besides sage, you can use sweetgrass, cedar, palo santo, or incense such as frankincense. If smoke bothers you, use salt water to spritz yourself or the room, or make a room spray out of distilled water and essential oils.

Cord Cutting

A very popular way to keep your own energy clear is cord cutting. In this practice, use your intuitive sense to feel your energy and determine where your aura is sticky, dense, drained, or uncomfortable. When you’ve found one of those out-of-balance places, consider what might have caused it. In the cord cutting philosophy, these spots are cords that connect us to others. Negative energy can flow down these cords, so it is useful to cut or detach them. Many people use visualizations to see the cord being cut with a knife or scissors. When I was doing this practice, I found that an abrupt separation of the cord caused it to immediately snap back and reattach. To overcome this, I imagined twisting the cord between my fingers until it unraveled and fell away limp. It didn’t reconnect then.

And More

One last technique I’d like to mention is egg cleansing. I don’t practice it myself, but my colleagues who do find it very useful. Here’s an egg cleansing practice as taught by Shaheen Miro.

These types of practices are designed to be easy to do. You don’t need much in the way of supplies. You can use your imagination or put to work stuff you have lying around the house. Techniques like this can be practiced as needed. Some people prefer to do them daily, some people only turn to these exercises when they need an extra boost. Plus, because these are folk practices, part of the tradition is to adapt it to your immeditate needs. Easy, quick, and no hard and fast rules? Sounds like a winner!

3. Energy Clearing Rituals

Whereas some people benefit most from grab-and-go practices, others find reward in a more disciplined approach. Introverts in particular and empaths more generally find it useful to create a safe space they can go to every day. Energy clearing rituals do just this. If you’re not seeing the results you want from the basic practices, it might be time to try a daily energy clearing ritual.

These rituals are designed to work on multiple levels. You can use them to clear and balance your own energy and that of the space you’re in. These rituals help increase both your energy and your connection to Spirit. You can also use them to heighten your ability to perceive energy. They create a safe, revitalizing space.

Ritual work, even the introductory method offered here, has a slightly steeper learning curve. But the practices themselves, once familiar, don’t take a long time to perform. However, you might find it beneficial to break the work down into sections and learn one part at a time until you are ready to put them all together. It takes a little more dedication, but perhaps you’ll find the reward proportional.

These basic energy clearing rituals are the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and the Sphere of Protection. I teach the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram on this blog. You can find the Sphere of Protection here or here.

These rituals work best when performed regularly. Once or twice a day is fine, but don’t do them more often than that. The benefit from this work is not only the immediate results from the practice itself, but also the ongoing commitment to spiritual growth.

5. It’s the Little Things that Matter

If all of that sounds overwhelming, simply try to connect every day. Here are some suggestions that can be done in just a few minutes a day. I list twelve of these short practices in my post, Big Things Come In Small Presence: Twelve Ways To Find Connection And Balance In A Minute A Day

6. Track Your Transits

And don’t forget that the premise of this post is that the movement of the planets through the heavens is reflected in your daily experiences. The more familiar you are with what the planets are doing, the more in tune you can become with their cycles. If you’d like to start paying attention to the stars, try stargazing, download an app, consult a planetary datebook, or check in regularly with a favorite astrologer.

Highly sensitive people tend to feel the movement of the planets more personally than the average person. If you stay in the know about the heavens, you’ll start to see that you’re not crazy, you’re just responding to the natural cycles of the universe. Want an easy place to start? Try tracking the moon following my guide, The Moon Through The Signs.

Other Ways Empaths Stay Sane

I’d love to hear from you! How do you as an empath stay sane? Do you have spiritual practices that help you? Please share in the comments!

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