Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Living as an Empath in an Overwhelming World with Dr. Judith Orloff

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. And that way, my goal is to awaken your mind, body, and soul. It's time to become fluent in the language of love. This episode of The Language of Love, I'm joined by someone whose work has profoundly shaped the way we understand intuition, emotional energy, and what it means to be a sensitive or empathic human in a world that is often overwhelming.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Dr. Judith Orloff is a psychiatrist, bestselling author, and a pioneer in the field of intuitive and energy psychology. She brings together her medical training with her deep understanding of the emotional and energetic realms, offering us a framework that's going to help people protect their energy, trust their intuition, and live in alignment with their true nature. Her books, including The Empath Survival Guide, Thriving as an Empath, and now a new children's book, has become essential. for anyone who wants to understand how to stay centered, healthy, and connected without

Starting point is 00:01:28 absorbing the pain and intensity around them. I wanted to bring Judith on because so many of my peeps here struggle with emotional overwhelm, intuitive sensitivity, and the pressure to hold everything together while we're navigating relationship issues, grief, just stuff of daily life. And Judith has a unique ability to make these topics clear and grounded and actionable, especially if you're someone who tends to feel things deeply an empath and toward the end of this episode we're going to get judith to give us five daily practices every empath needs to stay grounded so stay tuned for that and so much more this episode of the language of love dr judith orloff thank you so much for joining us on the language of love i'm excited to be here and i know

Starting point is 00:02:17 we were talking a little bit before we started recording that I've been aware of your work for a really long time. I think we even kind of, I don't remember how we communicated, but I know we communicated through some means and connected. I think it was even maybe pre-pandemic. So it's been a few lifetimes since we first connected, but I'm so glad that I get a chance to sit down and have this conversation with you about something that is, I feel more important than ever, this idea of empaths, who they are, what they are, why it seems like so many more are coming through. We're going to talk about empath children. We're going to talk about your book that's sort of, to me, a mainstay, a classic, I guess we would call it, The Empath Survival Guide,

Starting point is 00:03:03 but also a new children's book you have out. So we're going to dive into all that, but let's just start at the beginning with what is an empath? And also, what is an empath versus a highly sensitive person? Well, an empath is somebody who is highly sensitive, but also tends to absorb the emotional energy of others into their own bodies. And so they can become very exhausted or overwhelmed and they have a tendency to overhelp and want to heal everybody. And so it's very important with the sensitivities to learn how to set boundaries and reel that in. So you're not just exhausted being an empath. And a highly sensitive person is somebody who's sensitive to light, smell, sound, crowds, scratchy labels, anything that doesn't feel good to the senses. And they are very

Starting point is 00:04:00 sensitive, very giving, very loving, but they don't have the emotional absorption of phenomena that happens okay that makes sense to me it's funny because my husband i tease him about this because he so doesn't you know my nickname for him is send your root chakra because he's so not in the metaphysical he's so just like in his root and grounded but he is definitely a highly sensitive person and i feel very intuitive and empathic yes but he does not take on anything and by his own self-description can be a little not empathetic at times not toward other people or you know he's always empathetic towards sort of someone who's suffering but he can be kind of intense sometimes so I was like okay he's not an empath but I don't know he's

Starting point is 00:04:49 definitely has those qualities of the itching he doesn't like music playing anything repetitive has to cut the tags off his sweater while I am definitely an empath and always have been but I think it's important to understand and you go into great detail I know in empath survival guide and in your other books too and there's all kinds of quizzes in there about like how do you know if you're an empath and we're going to get into how to protect yourself because I agree with you I think that a lot of what we're seeing in these inflammatory diseases and lupus and chronic fatigue and all of these things tend to go hand in hand with people who are empaths many of them not realizing it also addictions yes addiction yes so I definitely want to talk about the problems

Starting point is 00:05:37 and how to shield yourself but let's just get a little deeper so that for my peeps listening here you feel what other people are feeling when you're an empath you're sensitive you may be also a highly sensitive person or not. Right. But there are different kinds of empaths. Like in the beginning of that book, I remember you talked about there was the emotional empath and the physical empath. But then later in the book, you get even more into detail. Then you can be a plant empath. You can be a medium. And so can you just kind of give us an overview and maybe some characteristics that my people here listening might be able to recognize in themselves? Right. I just wanted to say I'm a psychiatrist in practice in Los Angeles. I'm also an empath. So I combine both of those abilities

Starting point is 00:06:24 together. Yeah. And I think a big travesty in medicine is they don't know how to diagnose empaths and they get misdiagnosed as generalized anxiety disorder, depression, or some autoimmune disease, which they might have. But the primary problem is to treat the overwhelm from being an empath. And people aren't even aware of it themselves that that's what's happening. We don't know. How would they know? They don't know how to self-diagnose this. But if you take the 20 question Q&A in front of the empath survival guide, there are 20 questions that are common to empaths. Are you overloaded by crowds, noise, and excessive talking? Do you like to take alone time? Do you prefer being with a few people rather than

Starting point is 00:07:06 big groups of people? Do you like walking in nature? So there are some very common questions that we empaths all can answer. And these are gifts of being an empath, the gifts of intuition, the gifts of caring, the fact that we care. And you could be an empath or a highly sensitive person and not be an empath and still care. But you might care not from your body or absorbing things or merging with people. You might care with your mind. And that's beautiful, too. Like you were describing your husband. He has cognitive empathy. Yes, he has cognitive empathy. Which is great. It's just each person is different. And I focus on empaths because it's been such a journey in my life coming to terms with being an empath. And number one, finally getting some support. You

Starting point is 00:07:57 know, after years of no support as a child, I had no idea what was going on. Both of my parents were doctors. I have 25 doctors in my family and they just told me to get a thicker skin and you overly sensitive and you don't fit in. And those are the messages I got. And they weren't being mean or disrespectful. They just wanted me to be strong in the world. And that's how they operated. So they were trying to train you the same way. Yeah, exactly. So there's no blame. An empath isn't better than a non empath. But we will dive into it because there are so many empaths and there are so many that don't know what to do with being overstimulated or how to embrace your gifts and learn specific strategies to guard your sensitivities in the world so you can operate

Starting point is 00:08:46 in the world. And it's a great feeling to be both sensitive and strong and know that you have the strength and you're not just affected by everything. So you have to go in the house and stay there permanently, which is what happens sometimes. Yeah, I think that's a lot of agoraphobia is related to that. People who won't leave the house or find being in crowds or just out in the world overwhelming. They're not even I mean, we'll get into kids in a minute, but I really dove deeply into this and discovered this with my eldest, who's now 27. But when he was in ninth grade, he became suicidal and he'd always been really difficult, like all over the place and just really hard we didn't even understand regulation back then or emotional regulation or nervous system

Starting point is 00:09:32 stuff or somatic stuff that wasn't on the playing fields back then but out of desperation because i had tried the medication which we got to talk about because lots of psychiatrists i know you're a psychiatrist who doesn't do this but the bulk of them will diagnose you with adhd depression anxiety oppositional defiant whatever that is and then try to medicate it away which also kind of dampens, I feel, your gifts. It's not necessarily a helpful intervention and it misses the diagnosis. But I went to a medium because nothing was working and he was suicidal. And I hadn't been to one since I was in college. You know, it's like a joke. But I went to this woman and this was the beginning of what became a spiritual awakening for me. And this was like I said,

Starting point is 00:10:18 this is probably 12, 13 years ago or reawakening, as I like to call it, because I was awake as a little girl. But this woman, Therese Raleigh, she said, oh, let me tune into him. He's like at school and I'm in her office. I'm like, OK, you know, I didn't even understand that you could remotely tune into someone. And she said, hey, he is clairsentient or an empath, you know, and I'm feeling what other people are feeling, which is clairsentience. But the problem is, and I know you speak a lot to this, is that he doesn't understand or recognize the difference between what he's feeling and what everyone around him is feeling so he then has to come up with all these thoughts to match to explain what he's feeling even though it's not even his feelings

Starting point is 00:11:01 so you have to be really careful about your energy when you walk into the room and i was like well i never you know even if i've had a bad day i'm not going in there pouting or i always put on a smile she's like no that's not what i'm talking about he feels what you're feeling even what you aren't showing and a light bulb went off because this neuropsychiatrist woman had said to me, I think he's got some sort of social processing issue because we were doing some testing and I smiled at him and I said, how am I feeling? And he said, sad. So I think he can't read social cues when in reality, it wasn't about him reading social cues. She was probably sad inside. And so he was saying, you're sad. So that started to change everything for him and for me and was so

Starting point is 00:11:49 astounding. And that's just one kind of empathy. But I feel like it's a really important piece of the puzzle, the way that the empath takes on. And then that's what causes the illnesses and the emotional issues. Right. Right. But there are different kinds of empaths, I think, for your listeners to be aware of what they are. And one is an emotional empath, somebody who perceives the world through their heart and their emotions and tends to absorb everything into their bodies emotionally. Then there's the physical empath, which is a bit more problematic than the emotional because you can actually sense and take on other people's physical traits. And that's so confusing as I had a mother who had a lot of somatic symptoms and she had a heart attack at a very

Starting point is 00:12:34 young age. And she wanted me to sit with her when she was in pain and hold her hand. And I didn't really want to, but I was the only child, you know, it was my mother. So I did it. And I incorporated all that anxiety into my own body. And it took years later work of clearing to realize I'm still carrying my mother's anxiety with me. And so I could do the work then, which is so important. And for everyone listening who might identify with being a physical empath, notice if your parents or your loved ones or your spouse has physical symptoms and you tend to either react with exhaustion because that's a primary symptom of being an empath, just total exhaustion or taking on the symptom itself. And it's real and it's an empathic syndrome really where you do

Starting point is 00:13:24 this, but it's, and it can be dangerous if it's a serious disease. Now I've had patients who she had a husband who had a heart attack and had cardiac disease and she started getting chest pain. So she finally realized it before it was too late, what was happening. And they dealt with it and he's better now. But for people who sleep together, they're overlapped while they sleep eight hours a night or however many hours. And so that's a lot of overlap for an empath. Yeah. So physical empath, there's plant empaths, where a lot of empaths love the green, natural, wild world. And they love to be around the forests and the plants. And they can even talk to their plants. If you have plants and you talk to them like I do. No, I'm always talking to

Starting point is 00:14:10 my plants and kissing them. So I'm that way with trees for sure. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And there's always that voice inside the empath, especially the beginning one that is awakening, that there's something wrong with you, that you're crazy for doing this. And I'm telling you, you're not. It's a beautiful thing to connect with nature like that. And the same goes for animals. There are animal empaths where certain empaths can connect with animals so deeply and can, you know, even communicate with them. And so that's real. And it's beautiful. And don't let anyone talk you out of it. Yeah, beautiful. And so for those of us who are empaths or even highly sensitive, but I'm even thinking about the physical empath that you were talking about. And I kind of feel

Starting point is 00:14:57 like and you tell me if I'm wrong, but I kind of feel like this happens with emotional empaths, too, that we may not literally take on the physical symptom of a partner or a person we're sitting next to, but we take on the emotional impact of their pain in a way that gets internalized. And I see so many people and I'm not meaning to say that anyone with a chronic inflammatory disease is an empath and that's your problem. But I really see a correlation there in so many of the people I meet and work with. And that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I meet someone with an immune disorder or chronic fatigue or lichen sclerosis or lupus. lupus. I don't mean to minimize that it's a real physical thing, but there is definitely and almost always, it seems to me, they are an unknown empath. And so, yes, you alluded to this,

Starting point is 00:15:51 even talking about your story with your mom, that you eventually learned how to discharge that. I know we're not going to describe it all in this podcast, but can you give an understanding of what that might look like as well, you know, to discharge it, to what stuff we've been carrying to release? Even I talk a lot about the sexual exchange, because obviously I talk about sex a lot and how we take on the energy and in the energy of the people we have sex with. So be really just from that standpoint, be really careful who you're letting into your body, right, or onto your body. But how do you not only shield? I want you to talk about that, but also for stuff you've already taken on that's in there. How do you counsel people to release that? Well, number one, you have

Starting point is 00:16:35 to identify if this phenomenon is happening in your body. And you need to backtrack with patients. I'll work with them to backtrack in terms of traumas that happened early on or physical illnesses that the parents had or mental illness, but whatever the stress was, or even narcissism that did you take on, like backtrack and let's have from the heart, look at what happened in your growing up and see if you took anything on that's related to your discomfort now. and see if as an empath, your big heart wanted to help this, but it wasn't yours to help. And so you didn't have much success in it because it's not yours to fix your parents or other people, but the empaths want to, they have an instinct. And what I'm asking my patients and empaths to do

Starting point is 00:17:21 is to check that instinct. And even though it's an instinct to be able to summon your personal power to say, no, that's not my job to fix my mother or to fix anybody else for that matter. And that when I notice I'm doing that, I can withdraw my energy back to myself. I can take a few steps back from somebody because if you're close to them and empaths don't realize this, because a lot of them are huggers and you don't want to do that if you're not wanting to pick up somebody's energy, because if you hug someone or have sex with someone, you're going to share energy. We have these energy fields around us, and we move with other people. We're part of the civilization of humans and non-humans, actually, and we do respond. And so it's important that you

Starting point is 00:18:12 become accountable for that phenomena and realize it. And where I see it a lot in my practice is someone has a terminal disease or is going through a difficult chronic disease, they want to create a very positive bubble around them. They don't want to have people who are criticizing them, telling them what to do, tweaking them in any way. You need to be fierce about that and have the circle or even one person around you be loving and only supportive. And so if you're going through an illness or if you have a loved one who is, it's wonderful to have an advocate to say, you know, this isn't not right now this person is healing they need to have all the positive around them they don't need to be challenged or criticized for their choices yeah and you talk a lot in the book

Starting point is 00:19:01 and i know i talk a lot about boundaries this is when boundaries become super important boundaries are sacred yeah boundaries it's not just putting up a wall people think that's a cold way of looking at it. A boundary is something that's very strong, but you make it with your heart and you make a heart centered boundary for people so that you're making it with love. You're simply saying a positive no with the shield. If you're visualizing a shield with the distance that you're putting between you and the other person, you're not doing it with anger. You're doing it as a practical measure to protect yourself. Yeah. And that's what it is. You don't have to do a number on yourself, but I wanted to answer your question too about my mother. How did I separate that? I cut the cord

Starting point is 00:19:50 with my mother's anxiety. I visualized a cord of light going between me and my mother. My mother's on the other side now, but this I did years ago. Thank God. I think when she was still alive. Yeah. But I put the cord between us and I thanked my mother for being my mother because I love her, but I needed to cut this cord with her because it wasn't healthy for me, the cord between her anxiety and me. And so I took the scissors in my mind, snipped it, walked back, turned around the other direction and walked away. And energetic cutting of the cord is very powerful and you don't want to do it unless you're ready because it really, really works. Yeah. I have heard that, that it can be tricky. And also, I like how you made it for something specific, right? You're not

Starting point is 00:20:39 cutting the cord between you and your mother. You're cutting the cord between you and your mother's anxiety. And what I have found is when I because I've done a lot of this cord cutting with my narcissistic father and even with my very depressed and codependent mother, neither of which are still here. And this happened posthumously after they left, after they weren't here anymore. You know, they had passed, but I think you can cut it anytime. But what was really cool about that for me is that I could see where it came from them and came into me. Like in one case, it was from their solar plexus to my heart. And another case, it was from their solar plexus to my throat. It was really cool because when you start, at least for me, I didn't have any

Starting point is 00:21:26 preconceived expectation of where this cord was connecting from them to me but it's been really interesting to see how they do and then when I think about it I'm like yeah that is that part of our relationship really did affect my sense of worth or my ability to speak my truth or whatever that was so it's pretty cool when you start exploring it it is you have more power than you think and you're not really taught this in school most therapists don't teach you it so you get it I mean, there are some out there who know about all this and you want to find somebody who understands the empath phenomenon. If you're an empath, otherwise you'll be fighting with them the whole time.

Starting point is 00:22:06 Yeah, that's not good. You need to have somebody who understands it and can honor that. And you take the 20 question self-assessment test, ask yourself, are you an empath? I know I frequently get asked, no, everybody thinks they're an empath. Now, are they really empaths? because there's so many people. And now it's a badge of honor. I'm an empath.

Starting point is 00:22:28 I know. And I wrote the Empath Survival Guide. It came out about, I think, five years ago, something like that. Nobody knew they were an empath. And I was going to take the word empath off the cover because I didn't think anyone would know what it was. But my publisher said, no, you leave it on. That was hard.

Starting point is 00:22:45 The cusp of this wave, just be patient. And so I did. And then people started coming out of the closet. I thought I was crazy, but I see I'm not. You know, that kind of phenomenon, which is so beautiful when it happens. Most of us have no idea how to move through loss. There's no roadmap to follow when you're trying to navigate grief. And I realized this when I lost my son three years ago.

Starting point is 00:23:12 As a therapist who understood grief, a whole new level of pain opened up to me when I lost my 16-year-old son. And since then, I have been building resources that have allowed me to navigate through loss, not only in a healthy way, but in a way that has transformed me for the better. We can move through the most terrible loss with grace. And that's why I have created the course, Good Grief, Healing from Loss with Love. You can find it on my website, drlauraberman.com, right there on the homepage, as well as free resources, letting you know how to support others who are going through loss.

Starting point is 00:23:55 None of us has to do this alone. I don't really think, I mean, maybe there are people out there who are not empaths who are claiming empath status, but I do think that there are many more empaths than we ever thought, like you were saying, who thought they were crazy or who just shut it down or even like me before my reawakening, and I know you've talked about this too, and we're going to talk about children in a minute. It was so scary. I had no context. No one in my family acknowledged what was happening. So I just shut it down. And I think a lot of people do that too. And then when they read your book or they hear this interview, they're like, oh yeah, I am that. You know, I've

Starting point is 00:24:37 always felt like those with the greatest intuitive gifts and empaths, part of what tends to come with that is some degree of intuitive gifts that may or may not be cultivated yet. And I want to ask you about this. It seems like there's this onslaught over the past five, let's say 10 years, but certainly past five years of kids coming through, right? First, there was the indigo children, then the crystal children, now the star children. There are all of these kids coming through who definitely are empaths. I mean, all three of my kids are definitely.

Starting point is 00:25:09 And so some of them are born that way. And then I also find, especially for the older empaths, it comes from trauma, like it seems secondary to me, like something where they had to learn to be so attuned and vigilant or that it kind of catalyzed something inside them where they became really attuned in the way an empath is. So I'm wondering if you can speak to that. Yeah, that's a good question. I think there are a number of etiologies of being an empath, and trauma can be one because it rips your defenses and leaves you vulnerable to things that you never felt before. And the same is true with the state of our world. We're creating so many adult new empaths because it's just so much stress all the time. And if people follow it closely, as many do, it strips your defenses of what you would ordinarily have at a different time.

Starting point is 00:26:01 But what I've seen and what I've experienced as a physician when I was going through OBGYN, I would, you know, in the delivery of babies, and I'd love to hear your input on this too, but some babies come out and their hands are like feeling the environment, like their hands are going like this. And to me, that's an empath. That's like somebody who feels energy as opposed to other babies that just shoot out and they look like corporate CEOs from the very start, you know, and they're out to conquer the world. Different vibe. Yeah. And many of my patients and people I've known over the years have accounted since the earliest times being an empath and what their memories were. And there's a lot of loneliness associated with it for children if they don't find a grandmother or a teacher or somebody to say, you're all right, and this is what's going on. I never had that. And it was so scary. And I will see fairies around and I would see these little lights and I could feel things. And everyone was like, that's just your imagination. And I wasn't allowed. It was like a hard and fast rule. I was not allowed to wake my parents up unless the world was coming to an end. So I would be so petrified in my room that I eventually just was like, OK, they say it's not real. None of it is real. Not it's not real. It's not real. It's not real. And I just like literally shut it down. And it's been really fun to open back up to the magic again over the past 10 to 15 years. But I had lots of years in there where it was shut down while I was parenting kids who were very intuitive and very attuned in the ways you're saying.

Starting point is 00:27:44 You talk a lot in your books about not only raising children as an empath and how important it is to give yourself grace and give yourself space and understand that your system can easily get overstimulated, period, right? And raising children is a state of overstimulation. It's a total state of overstimulation. And that's why I wanted to write The Highly Sensitive Rabbit Now. I've never written a children's book before. It's my first one.

Starting point is 00:28:13 yeah and the world is in just such a mess and it's such a terrible state that i realized fully realized it's the empathic children that are going to take over the world yes and so i wanted to give them tools now very simple tools like setting boundaries taking a breath taking alone time now what they can do to keep themselves strong as they inherit the earth yes they're going to come in they want to help the earth they love the earth they love why they're here yeah they love the plants so that's not anything to debate like these people are debating all that now you know it's like all in the mind but these children a new wave of children are coming forth that i want to give as many tools as possible so they can remember it when they grow up and they can say i could set

Starting point is 00:29:01 a boundary here and have parents that could support them too so that's key right like i want to talk about that because how do you know as a parent and this is for anyone i mean i didn't start to understand this until my youngest were in middle school and they were showing I mean Sammy my middle one who is the one who probably was the most sensitive and empathic was the one that died almost five years ago he actually I think you know the reason he was susceptible to that drug dealer that reached out to him on snapchat was because he was trying so hard to find some friends and because kids could not relate to him and he could not relate to kids. Adults understood him.

Starting point is 00:29:44 And he would even say to me, Mom, I know that when I grow up, I'm going to be fine. But it's just really hard right now, you know. So he was open to that dealer, not only because all kids are curious, but because he was trying to impress these other kids that were the only ones that would give him the time of day. And then, unfortunately, that dealer came over, delivered him something that was laced with fentanyl, and he died. All of them were sensitive and intuitive.

Starting point is 00:30:09 But he was my kid that you talk about as a baby. He would meet someone and just stare at them for maybe five minutes before deciding whether to smile or not. He would call me into his room and point across the room and say, man, dear, a silver man. You know, no one is there. He's seeing spirits, right? Like he would say when he was in third grade, oh, dad's feeling sad about something like he was so attuned.

Starting point is 00:30:34 And you alluded to this earlier when these kids and adults don't understand their gifts and they're being inundated with so much stimulation. He would say when he was little, I would take him to the circus. Oh, mommy, too noisy, too much noise, too much sound. Right. And so I would attend to it, but I didn't really understand what it was until much later. And then I would talk to him about it. But by then he was in middle school. It would have been so nice if we had started earlier. That's right. But I do think that a lot of these kids, you know, this is one of the reasons as parents and as teachers, we need to understand that.

Starting point is 00:31:09 I would talk to that. He was so bullied. All my kids were severely bullied. And the school was hopeless about helping it. One school social worker said to me, no, I don't even bother saying anything to the bullying kids because that will just make it worse. That was her answer. So we aren't set up for these sensitive souls. Maybe as more and more of them come in, we'll have to be.

Starting point is 00:31:28 But for parents listening, whatever age your kids are, I do think that these are all the ways I love to blame myself. So I know it's not all my fault, but I do think that if I had been able to give him more skills for managing this, maybe he wouldn't have ended up gone. I don't know. It's probably his sole plan and what we planned before we came here. But that thought does come. It is a cautionary tale to any parents listening.

Starting point is 00:31:55 So I'm wondering if you can speak to that, too. How do you know if your kid's an empath and what can you do? I know Get the Book, that's a highly sensitive rabbit that'll educate both of you. But also in practice, what can you do? In practice, you can honor your child's abilities and ask them to talk about them if they want to and say what's going on. And if they say, I'm feeling too much, I'm feeling overwhelmed, if they can't articulate it, but they're tantruming, to be able to take them to their quiet place where the colors

Starting point is 00:32:25 are nice and there's no sound inundating them they're not around people and that they could read their books or they could play with their animals and have that time to decompress because an empath who's going on sensory overload who doesn't have time to decompress is just heading for disaster because sensory overload is so painful and it really hurts to have so much it's just like you want to go like this when it happens if it goes too far that you don't want to let it go too far. So you want to help your kids decompress. You want to teach them it's okay to set boundaries. It's okay to say, no, I don't feel like doing that now. Or I want to be alone. Or I want to play with my imaginary friends, which is sometimes they say that. And don't get

Starting point is 00:33:10 worried. It's just part of being a creative child and an empath. And when the child feels understood and when the child knows that he or she can go to somebody and talk about it, or to have a like-minded friend maybe to help them find a or they could stay open to other empathic children at school and the way you find them is you just look for the one in the corner who's all by themselves that's where they go and if I go to a party and I'm not thrilled with parties I mean if I enjoy the people there I have a good time but a lot of times I don't feel that good in part so I look for the person in the corner who's standing there and I go and I talk to them So I know I'll have something in common with them. So it's just a tip and it really works.

Starting point is 00:33:56 Yeah. So look for the one in the corner. And if your child, you know, not to expect your empathic child or your empath child, we want all children to be empathic, but your empath child is not going to be the kid who's got 50 friends and is the center of attention. And that's not going to be their personality most likely, right? No. And you want that to be okay. Because I know one thing that I always did and what's on the cover of The Highly Sensitive Rabbit is the rabbit looking up at the moon. That was always my connector, the moon. I have very strong connection with looking at the moon. And so in the end of the book, I won't give away the whole story at all, but she learns that she can ask someone to sit with her and watch the moon with somebody else, or she can

Starting point is 00:34:44 watch the moon alone. She has that choice. It's not one or the other. And I think that could be liberating for kids. Yeah. And when they want to sit next to their companion tree or their favorite tree, like you were describing, just be happy about it. It's a wonderful thing to connect like that. There's nothing wrong with them. It disturbs certain parents because it's not in their framework of what a healthy child does, but it really is. And, you know, I want to alleviate the anxiety some parents might have if their children want to read poetry to a tree. They do that. This is beautiful. This is wonderful. It might not fit in your scheme of what you thought that child would be, but it's a beautiful thing. It's a different kind of child. Yeah. And I think a lot of these

Starting point is 00:35:30 kids get diagnosed, certainly when my kids were coming up. And I remember even feeling this way back then, especially as I started to become aware of this, all these kids getting diagnosed with sensory processing disorder those are empaths people they do not have a disorder they're just highly sensitive or empaths right most of them yes but to mark some progress the professionals did realize that finally and now it's called sensory processing trait okay so it's not called disorder anymore no and are they still trying to medicate it away or are they working with kids? Depends on the practitioner. Yeah. You know, I think empaths should have training. I give trainings for empaths and healthcare professionals on becoming an empathic

Starting point is 00:36:18 healer. And if we get training, like with any other aspect of our practices, it helps a lot. It really does. But if you find somebody who does know how to deal with it, then go and learn from them and it will help you with your patients. Something new. Yeah. I was listening to your book again. I mean, I read it many years ago, but I know you use it in your practice, but I see things, feel things. It's just woven into the work that I do. And I think for anyone in the helping and healing professions, if you can cultivate that inside yourself and or become aware of how to recognize it in a patient or in a client, I think that's so crucial. I agree wholeheartedly and to look for it. Train your mind to look for it. When you meet somebody, ask yourself, are some of their issues related to being an empath? If you have any doubts, just really this 20 question self-assessment test is so simple. It's not rocket science. It can really help you to determine if this is part of the clinical picture.

Starting point is 00:37:19 Yeah. And for me, the big turning point for me as a parent and that conversation with that medium. And then when I went home and had this conversation with my ninth grader and I said to him, this is what this woman said. And he who didn't believe in any of this stuff, you know, he was a scientist and whatever. And he was like, I don't know why I'm saying this, but I think what you're saying is true. And then I just acted very blase because if I seemed invested in anything when they were teenagers, they would run the other direction. But then like a week later, he mentioned to me, yeah, I was at school and I was in a good mood. And then all of a sudden I felt really angry and depressed and I didn't know why. And I looked up and a girl was at the locker next to me and I realized, oh, she's angry and depressed.

Starting point is 00:38:03 And then that's what kind of started the shift. And it really was the beginning of what my awakening was. But I'm saying all this to say that as a parent, and I am writing a book about it, not just about parenting, but it was really about relationships in general called Quantum Love, that when we can be really clear about the energetic states our body is holding, not just our thoughts, but moving our bodies into a state of peace or joy or love or playfulness, however we want to impact the person around us, however we want them to show up. So as all of my kids were often anxious, I learned starting then to like, OK, this one who can't go to sleep and takes an hour and a half, even though we've shut down screens and everything else, I'm spending an hour and a half in his room reading and talking and trying to gently come out of bed so that he'll stay asleep. and then he wakes up and we have to start over, as soon as I would move my body and learn to move my body into a state of peace and sleepiness and love, he would just pass out. And I was amazed. And then that's what opened the door. So it was like, it really woke me up to the impact we can have on our children, especially on empaths, but on everyone around us. And you made this point

Starting point is 00:39:25 before, which I want to reiterate, is this is not just for empath children. All children are empathic. And so we're just focusing on particular traits of empath children. But your beautiful empathic children have to learn how to set boundaries and everything we're talking about. So I'd like you just to be clear, we're including all children. Yeah, absolutely. And your partners and your friends and everyone else you can impact. Let's talk about weight, because you spend some time talking about addictions in general, including addiction to food, overeating, binging or binging and purging or other substances that often empaths unconsciously are turning to in order to avoid, you know, as a buffer. Right. So I'm wondering if you can speak to that a little

Starting point is 00:40:15 bit. Yeah. So sometimes empaths get so overwhelmed by the world that they cope by ingesting substances, alcohol, drugs, or shopping, eating, sex, just to be able to numb the intensity of everything coming at them. And part of recovery is learning to be a recovering empath and learning how to stay sober and eat in a healthy way and all the addictions, learning how to correct them and being an empath by taking care of your empathic needs, because most of these people haven't learned to take care of their empathic needs beforehand. And this is I'm not sure you know my history, but I've been in a 12 step program for many, many years myself, because that was part of my story is coming back to myself in a clean and sober way. I have like 38 years in the

Starting point is 00:41:08 program. Amazing. And you're right. You can get sober. You can stop using. You can do the 12 steps And if you are an empath, it's going to be really that much harder to not turn back to those old coping mechanisms until we talked about some of them here. And I know you talk about a lot more strategies, ways to shield yourself, but also ways to just care and feed and protect yourself from overwhelm and taking on too much and releasing it. very important as a daily practice to wake up in the morning. And if your mind's going a million miles a minute to just say, take a breath, this is a coping skill, take a breath, recenter, refocus on what you have to be grateful for this morning, to take that crazy monkey mind and transform it to what you said, the peaceful being. And children, I want to emphasize that they model after their parents and that strong dynamic. So if you're centered in your heart

Starting point is 00:42:11 and you're not always off center or just too overwhelmed, they'll do that too. They'll learn to come to a place. If they see mommy going and meditating for five minutes, they'll say, oh, my mother always meditated. You'll hear them 20 years later and they'll have talking to their friends. My mother always meditated. And it was such a good example for me. Yeah. Even though they rolled their eyes and refused to do it. Even if they'll roll their eyes and if they're teenagers, they might reject it or be oppositional, but it doesn't matter. Do it anyways. Yeah. And so let's talk about, I thought it was really fascinating what you teach about that single empath. Obviously you have to be really careful when you're dating. We talked

Starting point is 00:42:52 about the sexual things, but I remember, I think it was in your book. I read that you were sharing that single empaths may unconsciously push away love and or be attracted to us certainly was one of those for much of my life attracted to toxic narcissistic difficult addicted whatever it was partners right that's very true i mean for so many years i didn't have a partner i've had a partner for this we're going on our 13th year which is a miracle for me because i would always want so much alone time that it wasn't really practical to have a partner because I would look at them as imposing on my writing time or imposing on my alone time or imposing. And because I wasn't able to be able to speak my needs, I was a late bloomer with that and speaking my needs to a partner that

Starting point is 00:43:43 you love and being with somebody who will try to understand your needs. That's key. If you're dating somebody and i have this in the book in the empath survival guide if you're dating someone test them out say to them i'm really sensitive and i love it and see how they respond if they say oh gosh that must be awful that red flag you know or if you set a boundary and they resist it resent it or ignore it that's a big red flag that's a good red flag and with narcissists if you're love-bombed and if you're so in love you can't believe it and this is your soulmate and into that way a form of loving which is faux empathy always be suspicious of the seductiveness yeah it may be they're not a narcissist but the way to find out early on is provoke a conflict

Starting point is 00:44:32 small conflict provoke a conflict and see how they respond if they get defensive and they say oh you care about your friends more than me you don't want to cancel your friends no anyone who's trying to isolate you yeah they do love i was a big sucker for love bombing for a long time a lot of people are i mean it's very seductive who doesn't like to be love bombed right but you have to careful yeah especially if you just met them and they're like saying and they're love bombing you that's too much but it's the same as alcohol or drugs or anything that puts you into an ecstatic state in the beginning at least the love bombing is an addiction too and it's most people don't love bomb who aren't narcissists. Yeah. So be aware of that. For sure. So what would you say

Starting point is 00:45:20 five, if you can, I'm sure you can think of these five daily practices that every empath needs to stay grounded. Number one, be sure to have some alone time so you can decompress. Number two, learn to set boundaries and say a positive no. I'm not comfortable with going out with five people. So I think I'm going to stay home tonight. You know, we can get together another time, whatever your boundary is, to be able to get in the habit of setting boundaries. And if you feel guilty about setting boundaries, or if you feel like you're going to lose all your friends and you're never going to have any community if you set boundaries, you need

Starting point is 00:45:58 to work with that because the good friends are going to be able to hear this. And there's lots of fears around setting boundaries. I understand that. I totally get that. but it's something you need to work on and be accountable. And so you can have a circle, even a small circle, it's fine, of people who can hear that and say, I hear you. I'm disappointed. I'm not going to see you tonight. But you have to tolerate disappointing other people. And that's very hard for us. It is hard. You don't want to disappoint anybody. But in reality, at times you

Starting point is 00:46:32 will. But you could make it a positive disappointment, you know, and say, I love you, but I just can't do it. I'm so sorry. I just say my body just is saying no, even though my heart and mind want to say yes. Right. And it's nothing to do with you. And so it's hard on the other end when the other person is setting the boundary and you're feeling it, you know, put yourself in their shoes because it's kind of, oh, you know, it's whatever reaction you're going to have with it. But to get used to the whole boundary setting technique. So boundaries, boundaries and learning how to take a breath in times of overload. I want you to tune into your body every day. Find out, how's my energy level? Am I feeling anxious in the morning? Am I feeling good in

Starting point is 00:47:15 the morning? And to just keep an eye on how you feel throughout the day. And if you notice something spikes your anxiety, take some time to breathe and breathe yourself back down to your center. And you can go to the bathroom if you're, let's say, at work and there's no other place to go. Or if you're driving along from place to place, you can pull the car over and just use your environment to practically bring down your anxiety. But you need to work on it right away so it doesn't gather momentum. And putting your hand over your heart like this is very soothing. It's about opening up the heart chakra. And that's the center of the healing energy. And it feels like warm honey. Once you get in the habit of opening up by putting your

Starting point is 00:48:00 hand on your heart by focusing something beautiful. It could be a sunset. It could be a rainbow, whatever memory you have. That's just so beautiful to you. And so loving you put your hand on your heart and let that memory come through your arms and your hand to your heart. So you can give yourself that in the midst of stress. Beautiful. Okay. Okay. That was number three. Number four. What else? Earthing is important. You know, I'm a big believer in going barefoot if temperature allows, on the ground, putting your feet, taking your socks off, taking your shoes off, and just putting those beautiful feet, which are just such a wonderful part of the human body, grounding, and feel what it's like to walk on the ground. And I think what you'll feel,

Starting point is 00:48:45 a lot of people do, is they feel like almost a pulling down, like a solidifying of the stance of your feet, rather than you floating outside your energy field somehow. If you don't want to do that that's not going to be healthy for an empath and a lot of empaths that's where they know we want to leave our body so that's when we leave that's the yeah that's the primary thing so with the grounding and earthing you want to connect to the earth to help not leave to help be in the walls of this body and temporarily during this lifetime but learn how to be in the body very important for empaths so you don't want to float away all the time as a way of disconnecting yeah that's not really that healthy and then shielding which is always very useful where you

Starting point is 00:49:29 picture a shield let's say you're somewhere you don't like the vibe there you don't know why you don't have to analyze it just you not liking it is enough you can put a shield visualize a white shield white light shield all around your body maybe four inches from the body and surround your whole body, take a breath and then walk through the crowd, whatever it is. Shield it. Yeah. Shield it. Let the shield do its thing. You don't have to do anything once the shield is up. You have to trust that. And you could try in smaller incidents first so you can get some practice. And I know some therapists who use this with really difficult patients, you know, where they shield themselves in the session to protect themselves. And I think it's appropriate in

Starting point is 00:50:15 certain cases yeah that makes sense i mean i do that every day i'll imagine for me it's like a violet and probably because purple's my favorite but it's like a violet filter and i say only the highest frequency of love can come in and only that which i want to release can go out and i just fill it with light and then i go on with my day trusting that it's very good it helps very good and just a cautionary note for people listening because i know empaths do this all the time they go to the grocery store and they start tuning into everyone in the store and you don't want to do that it's not helpful it's none of your business it's not good boundaries and so you can practice reeling it in so you don't find out about this person's sorrow over there and

Starting point is 00:51:03 the right and it's like looking under their skirt yeah what do you do because it happens to me i'm not trying but like you know i have my strategy for dealing with it but i'm curious what you would say i'll be like sitting next to someone i mean if it's one of my dear friends i'll be like hey we joke i gotta download because you know it's such a cheesy thing to say so many people say that but i do and i'll sometimes like hear something or see something about someone who's essentially a stranger. Now, I won't say something. I mean, I never see, thankfully, some tragedy is going to befall them. I wouldn't necessarily tell them if I did. But what I will sometimes say is like, hey, are you open? I just kind of got a message about you. Are you open to hearing it?

Starting point is 00:51:49 And usually they say yes. And I'll be like, well, I just heard tell her to call her brother. I don't know why, but I'll offer that to you or whatever. Or is it better not to say anything? I'm just curious about your take on that i usually don't say anything i mind my own business i set my intention i'm not that good at that skill yeah it's good to mind there's so many people that come to me wanting to download me you could imagine and if i said yes to everyone i'd be wrecked yeah no it's not something i'm interested in with friends i'm interested in that if it's short i just can't i don't leave open-ended spaces for people it's just they'll go on and on and i can't take it. It's just going to suck me dry. Part of my boundary setting with friends and

Starting point is 00:52:33 other people is setting a time limit. Five minutes, I'm going to be with you 100%. But I don't like getting exhausted. And if I tune in strangers and I pick up what's going on with them, it's just going to take a little bit from me. And I don't want to give them that. When I go to the market, I'm like a bullet. My intention is so strong. I just want to get my food and get out of there so i don't pay attention to other people occasionally i'll run into a friend there who i'll talk to but i'm like going to the vegetable section picking out my tomato thing going there and going there and then going out but some people like i have one of my closest friends tina if she's listening she'll know i'm talking about her she's severely empath like she's an

Starting point is 00:53:22 empath. She's an intuitive. And she seems to really get energy. Like it's hard to go anywhere with her because she will get everybody's life story and give them her input and what she's intuiting and like whoever it is, I'm ready to leave. And I'm like, OK, I'm leaving. Sometimes I have to leave well before it's time to leave because I know she's going to talk to everybody on the way out the door. And for her, for some reason, it gives her more energy. For me, I'm kind of like you where it saps my energy so i think maybe being attuned to that right is important all right i also have a friend like that who loves loves connecting to people we go on a walk he's talking to students yeah yeah yeah it's the charming quality of his that i've talked to him

Starting point is 00:54:07 about and he says well just walk on then yeah that's what i do and then i feel like a total bitch but whatever no see this is part of the agreement yeah where this is not working for me for you to talk to all these people because I get overloaded by that. Oh no, she doesn't think I'm a bitch. I just feel like the people she's talking to think I'm a bitch. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Starting point is 00:54:30 But you aren't. I'm not. I'm just an empath. That should be a t-shirt. I'm not a bitch. I'm just an empath. Right. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Starting point is 00:54:39 I'll put all the books in the show notes. Where can people find you if they want to learn more beyond your books to hear you speak or to go to your events or retreats or whatever you can go to my website which is drjudithorloff.com o-r-l-o-f-f dot com and the highly sensitive rabbit is there the empath survival guide is there and lots of blogs on empaths and information that you could educate yourself about empaths beautiful thank you so much for the work you do in the world and for joining us thank you for having me on

Starting point is 00:55:17 I went to the doctor Said I'm crazy for your love Wrote me a prescription But there's no cure for a crime

Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Living as an Empath in an Overwhelming World with Dr. Judith Orloff

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