Sense of Soul - Empaths and Highly Sensitive People

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast we have with us, Signe Myers Hovem, who joined us from Norway. She is a Spiritual Counselor, an ITA Energy Practitioner, an Empath and the author of The Space in Between: An Empath's Field Guide, which captures the essence of what it means to live as an empath and demonstrates how an ordinary person can open up to living an extraordinary life. Signe is an ordained Spiritual Counselor through the AIWP (Association for the Integration of the Whole Person), having completed a three-year training program from Inward Resource Center of AIWP, in Houston, Texas. During the years 2003–2009, she founded and operated Sacred Solutions, a Houston-based spiritual counseling service located at The Spectrum Center, Houston, Texas. Her private and group practice united her two passions of writing and the healing art of self-awareness.  While living in Perth, Australia (2015–2018), she continued her studies in consciousness and energetic therapies at the Melaney Ryan Institute of Applied Consciousness (MRIAC). These studies advanced her understanding of the human energy systems related to integrating non-duality consciousness. She is qualified in ITA Energy Medicine Tiers 1 and 2 and hold full practicing membership with ITAEMA Association. Visit her website and take the Empath quiz, www.smhovem.com and also find her book "The Space in Between: An Empath's Field Guide.” Visit our website www.mysenseofsoul.com Join our Sense of Soul Patreon!! Our community of seekers and lightworkers who get exclusive discounts, live events like SOS Sacred Circles, ad free episodes and more. You can also listen to Shanna’s new mini series, about the Goddess Sophia! Sign up today and help support our podcast. As a member of any level you get 50% off Shanna’s Soul Immersion Healing Experience! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us Signe Myers-Hovem. She is a spiritual counselor and IAT energy practitioner. She is an empath and the author of The Space in Between, an empath's field guide. This is an important topic for us to share, and we can't wait to hear more about Signe, who joins us today from Norway. Well, first of all, do you love the Vikings? I love that show. Yeah, I have to say, I've seen some of it. I've seen the new series, the Vikings of Ahala. Oh, have you? Is it good? Yeah, it is. I haven't watched all of the other ones. But yeah,

it was interesting. My partner is Norwegian. I mean, not from Norway. But like when I was watching the Vikings, I was like, Oh, yeah, this is your people. And you're from Colorado. Is that right? Yeah, I'm originally from Evergreen. So I'm excited to have you on because I feel like this is a topic that means a lot to me and I, but yet we don't actually talk about it all that much. We've only had on Dr. Michael R. Smith a few times to the empath connection. We love him so much. He blurbed my book. It's so beautiful. Thank you. He said an exceptionally lucid, reflective, and yet practical read

packed with a treasure trove of exercises and tools. The space in between will help you navigate the empath experience so that you become a master of your own personal sovereignty and extraordinary book. Oh, awesome. Yeah. So I took your quiz, you know, people love quizzes. My quiz is a bit long, so I wasn't, you know, I'm, I'm still trying to understand the quiz form. I'll be honest with you. At first, my ego told me, oh, these are really long because most quizzes are shorter. But then once I saw like the juice of the questions, I felt like it was important for them to be long. If you want to actually get a answer that is close to being correct and they were unique and different. And I had to think about them.

I felt like it was more of a valid quiz versus just like a cheesy quiz that you could tell they only were putting out to like, get people to click on their website. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I really appreciate you sharing that with me, because that was totally my intention because I wanted these to be emotive questions meaning you had to feel your answer and you can't get that with these very short one word you know multiple choice I knew there were times that people could probably pick two of the five choices but again it's to get them to kind of narrow it down to what is more aligned to a consistency about their reactions or responses. Definitely had me like taking my mind and placing myself in the situation versus just like these quick answers that you normally come

up with on a quiz. It felt like a more personal experience versus just like a back of the magazine quiz to find out what lip gloss would look best on you. Yeah. I appreciate you saying all of this because it really was important for me that the people taking the quiz realize this is about them understanding themselves and their sensitivities than just getting a label. Yeah, I enjoyed it. So what were you, Mandy? Hold on really fast. Go ahead and share yours, Shannon. I'm going to pull mine up. I'm a high functioning empath with HSP traits. And did you find that what was described fit you? You know, it's so funny

is I was going to say that earlier. I took this so long ago that when I should have taken it more recent right before we were on, but I believe so. I didn't think in any way, you know, when I read it and was doing it, that it didn't fit with me. Yeah. I thought it was pretty right on. I liked your quiz a lot. I thought, like you said, it was really prompting me to feel and think, you know, through each question. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. Could you kind of just go over what a high functioning empath with how many is there by the way there was there was 11 oh wow there is permutations because depending on how you answered you could get highly sensitive trait thrown in with the empathic and then there's just the you know if you were just empathic or semi-empathic or unaware

so and then there was the none of the above. In the information that they received, I gave ways to looking at if you wanted to develop more sensory awareness, and a list of how to do that. I have a chapter in the book called an honest assessment, I felt there are so many quizzes out there for empaths, highly sensitive people as well. And it hands over this label without really giving a person an understanding of what it means. So, you know, I would have to say one of my motivations in writing this book was, okay, if you're going to call yourself an empath, do you know what that that is bring self-awareness to this and I also have to say I've seen enough messages on forums of really people who are cursing this you know

saying that they're empathic and that they're an empath and yet the environment is overwhelming to them which you know it indicates to me that they haven't tuned in and understood why these senses are there in the first place. And for myself, these senses are there as guidance to stay in the book. If you identify as an empath, you're on a spiritual path because these senses are going to make you turn inward, know where your triggers are. and so that you can understand what originates from you and what is originating outside of you. You know, I would say that 90% of our listeners are empaths. Empaths was one of our, you know, top episodes that we ever did.

Still is, you know, one of the top and we're in like 230 or something right now. And I'd say that everyone that I've ever met, you know, through our podcast and who I've worked with are all searching for this, like answers for protection or what am I experiencing? You know, I'm so sensitive to sounds or to energy and all the, all of these things and putting it together. I used to think that my youngest was an empath and, and I still, she may be, but she is extremely highly sensitive. So I was super excited to get your book and to, to learn more about this because to help her, you know? Yeah. Yeah. This is a very interesting time in the world right now where, you know, there are these labels or names and, you know, there's also a lot of emphasis on understanding trauma and childhood

trauma, and how childhood trauma can create in its own way of sensitivity. And so you have a lot of people like for myself, I was ready to take the empaths out of the highly sensitive umbrella. I thought it was time that we kind of understood that the highly sensitive label doesn't address the non-ordinary sensations that empathic people pick up. And it was time to give them, you know, a little bit more understanding about themselves. And, you know, even looking at the dictionary, where the dictionary will say an empath is origin is in science fiction and fantasy. And when you have a resource, an authoritative resource, like the dictionary limiting how you can even identify yourself, you know, so the, I take up a lot of issues in my book

that surround the context and the culture of allowing sensitivities to be present without being spooky or, you know, paranormal. So I'm really hoping to demystify this in a way that that there are people who sense things extrasensory and, and therefore their responses or reactions in environments will be different. Thank you. Gosh, I have to be honest with you. Like right now, first of all, I'm a little mind blown. Second of all, I'm so excited that you're on, like you're, you're saying things that I have never put together in my mind. Like this is taking understanding of an HSP and an empath to a whole nother level. And you're breaking it down very beautifully. So thank you.

Thank you. It took me 10 years to write this book because I was very focused on the language and how to make it accessible. Yeah. So I grew into this book because I had to find the language for myself. Okay. So my result was combination of semi-aware, empathetic person and a functional empath. Okay. That's interesting. I didn't know that you would put the two together. That's kind of almost an error because it will, first of all, instead of empathetic, it's empathic. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. This is the whole language thing. And so empathic is the empathy as empathic is the empath. And I think this is why people misuse the word empathic when they really mean empathetic, meaning they have a lot. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. It says that I'm transitioning from having semi

awareness. Yes. Oh, I do know. This is why there was 11. So I'm transitioning into being a functional empath, which I have to be honest, made me really happy because I've been really fricking working on it. I've been really working for the last year and a half on boundaries and protection and the difference between a white picket fence as my boundary versus a stone wall, like a castle. I mean, I have worked very hard on this because I realized I was putting up barriers and not being true to my compassion. And I was kind of being a bitch, to be honest.

And now I've stepped into more of that heart space that we were talking about. Yeah. And I think that's, that's an awesome, I forgot I did this combo because it is a spectrum, you know, and, and, and you can be multiple things. And some days, you know, based on what's going on in your life, you know, you're completely tuned out on the energetic realm because life is, you know, real and you have to deal with something right in front of you. But I think, you know, yourself, you've just described it really when you get to being a functional empath, you have the awareness of that.

And I'll just describe it this way our senses receive passively like we smell we see it all comes to us and then we create perception we don't go looking for things it comes to us passively our empathic senses are also passive we receive information and we can acknowledge oh my mood shift or oh that's a strange thought I know I didn't think it or a body ache so we've received the information and we've you know we've acknowledged it and that's the most you need to do with it you can completely be empathic and passive your entire life it's up to you what you want to do with it. But if you go into that active role of, I've got a funny feeling in my body and it's not mine. I wonder what that is. And if you go over that threshold to investigate it,

that is the realm of the empath. An empath needs to be able to know that if they're going to engage the energy they've just picked up, that they have integrity, they have boundaries, they are not on a savior mission, they don't need to be needed, they don't, you know, they're not doing it out of their ego. And knowing that it's enough just to witness something and or name something that you feel because, you know, as I said before, it's the unprocessed emotions that are getting out, which means they haven't had time or the courage to name it themselves. So when we intercept it, it's a feeling that we then have to kind of name, like, what am I feeling?

Sadness, sorrow, you know, a gamut of emotions. But by naming it, we give it form to then work with it. And, you know, this is the same as if you were doing energy work on a person and you intuit, you pick up a feeling, it's still the person needs to feel it. It's not like you're going to like process it for them. And I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions is that if you feel it, it's yours, or if you feel it and you know, it's not yours, then you need to deal with it. But it's impossible to process somebody else's emotions for them or their thoughts, but you can name it. And you can hold it back up to them. Or you can say, Oh, I, you know, I can say a prayer for you, I understand

with compassion, you're in a difficult point. And that's enough to change the environment. So the fact that you're coming into being a functional empath, shows me that you have this awareness that you check in, is this mine? Is this my meaning, I need to do something and go more into an active role? Or is it simply enough to say, Oh, my mood changed, I picked something up from the environment, and just passively say clear your own energy field. You know, so that's the freedom and the liberty, the liberation you get when you finally get to the functional empath stage, you are authentically interacting with your higher nervous system and sensory perception. Yay me, because I will tell you, I have felt a shift in my body. I have felt my nervous system calming.

I have felt more patient and I have been bringing awareness to trying to just be more observant, to just observe instead of always having to talk and always having to like have thoughts about it. Like right now, my chalkboard in my kitchen says, listen to learn not to respond. I myself have found that over the years where I used to be this like emailer who would like leave a huge explanation, or I wanted to like talk talk about some other angle, and it would be very lengthy. And now I find that I don't, not the patience, but I have not the need to put so much into language that I can just simply address what the question is. I don't have to have a long narrative on it. And I'm really honoring that when you know what you want to say, you can be efficient and say it and you don't have to go into the drama of a long narrative.

Yeah. Cause you have to be picky about where you put your energy because it's such a big deal. Like when I discovered that I was an empath and I really started to understand my own energy, I was very protective about where I wanted to put it. It was like my baby and I'm going to choose where I decide to put my energy. And just that choice was freedom where before everything was pulling me in every direction and all it did was make me out of control. I mean, I definitely lived most of my life in unhealthy empath. I would say, you know, that looked like codependency, me wanting to fix someone's problem because I had a problem with them, you know, and it's just impossible. And then realizing that all of my energy was all outside of me. And I think you have to make sure you're filled up first.

It's so important to find that empaths are, you know, often find themselves in like codependent relationships because they're, you know, failing everybody's stuff. And that, you know, I would like to say too, you know, there is often a discussion about how narcissists and empaths kind of attract each other but I also think that you know if you were an empathic person and didn't understand your own sensitivities or what true boundaries were I mean that's a master class and having a narcissist come into your life as a teacher, there's a reason what

gets magnetized into your field. Anything can be a teacher. I do hope that people who are struggling in relationships, that they start to, you know, and also a relationship with the environment, you know, there are some people that feel that they can't go out in the world, because they're just so sensitive. And I would like to say to them, you're, you're being distracted by that perception, because we're in a time now in humanity that sensitive people are that can be heart centered and grounded and honor themselves is what's needed. And to help reduce the toxicity in the ethers is everyone kind of coming back to themselves. And when you're so distracted by your sensitivities and unable to go out into the world,

that's not healthy. And it's also taking away, I say this is not a gift or a curse, but it's ability to give you self-awareness. And that is where the real gift is. And the reason why I say this, and I get a lot of people saying, no, no, it's a gift from God, and it's a curse, and it's horrible. But the reason why I consider it neither a gift or a curse is because this is our physiology that we have kind of basically been on autopilot and not taking the time to really get to know ourselves to take it off of autopilot and say oh my goodness my senses can pick up so much more. And in picking up so much more, it is guidance, it's telling me what's not right for me, or where should I go, just like you said, you're very intentional with

your energy. And you're probably relying on intuition to tell you where that energy should go. And so it's not that I'm not compassionate for people who are struggling with their sensitivities, but I do really feel that it's a distraction. You know, the ego is playing with it and giving you a victim narrative. And so, you know, I would just really like to invite people to work with their nervous system, to work with regulating how they perceive the world. And I also am inviting people to really look at their thoughts and their mind, the mind is incredibly powerful. And I'm going to bring this up just because I think it's worth sharing. You know,

I have a Facebook page, you know, my author page, and somebody had commented about how it was a curse. And, you know, how they suffered every time they imagine these animals dying. And, you know, they couldn't, you know, possibly live in the world because of this suffering. And if I had a chance to talk to this person, I would first point out that they use the word imagining. When you have to imagine suffering, that is your mind creating scenarios. That is not you feeling pain. And so there's a lot of people who are stuck in their mind and creating scenarios or imagination. And it's just like a fodder for the ego and the mind to kind of keep you trapped and small. And so there is a bit of a reckoning when you're on a spiritual

path. And this is why I said, if you identify as an empath, you're on a spiritual path, because you need to reckon with your mind, Where does it keep you small and limited? And where can you like bring it into more reasonable, you know, accepting that imagination is a great more clairsentient than like, when I look at the definitions of like, maybe, you know, what you described as an empath, I feel like maybe I'm more that because I, I, it's a physical thing for me. I'm a physical empath as well. It's a very important for me to know what my issues in my body are. So if I pick up something, I know it's not mine, you know, but I've also lived my life. I've had hamstring injury from squash. I've had this accident. So, but they're also my barometer. So because I have a little

bit of a weakness there, they're one of the first things I'll kind of tug at me, let me know that I've picked something up. You know what I found was interesting as well as how you spoke about how with a highly sensitive person, allergens were, well, I mean, obviously I don't know why I never thought about this, but like last night, my daughter had another, she's had these full body reactions and she has, since she was born, she's so highly sensitive otherwise too. And her skin is so overly sensitive. So I didn't realize that they went together. Yeah.

You know, because if you think about a highly sensitive person, they're on high alert. Somebody I heard it described as a car with an extrasensory alarm that wind could set it off. So, and then, you know, all of this fight or flight, the information kicks in, you know, so they're just tax headaches can be common too, because they're pulling up the moat shutting down on themselves while, you know, they're still wanting to kind of be connected because they are angelic in their own way. And so the crown chakra is getting this, what am I doing? Am I shutting down or am I opening up? There's a lot to a highly sensitive person. They're very, very complex. I have a child with autism too, and his sensitivities

are on a whole nother level than hers. He's actually hypotonic. So he doesn't feel something. I have one who's opposite. I'm very sensitive to touch. And that seems to be a genetic thing in my house. So I do understand that it's genetics. Do you find that there's empaths maybe within that genetic connection as well? I look at it as a spiritual kind of blueprint come in with our soul and what, you know, we're going to be kind of geared towards. There's a great pathologist researcher in New York, and his name is Dr. Neil Feiss. He did a talk about complex chaos theory and how things kind of create from the

bottom up. And he used the example of ants, particularly ants have a kind of self-organizing system within their nest. And each one kind of knows what they're going to do based on their, whatever their makeup is. There's a randomness to it. And he was talking about how self-organizing systems kind of need a randomness to actually allow it to evolve.

And he gave the example that, you know, there's these food line ants that they go on a line and they, you know, take the food back. But if somebody were to stop in the middle of that line, it would completely freak out the line ants. They wouldn't know what to do. They would not, they would just be kind of disoriented and not able to fulfill their job. But there is a small percentage, a randomness of ants, that their whole job is to find the way to reconnect the line. And they would figure out, you need to go around the shoe and you go that way. And I've often thought, you know, when I heard that story, I said, this is what empaths are. This is we are the randomness in the system that is helping people

come back to their hearts, coming out of their mind, you know, we need our mind, we need our body, we need our heart, we need all three in equal measures. So it doesn't help when an empath who is unaware and is so freaked out about their sensitivities, they're not helping connect the line in a way. So that's why I'm saying, you know, it's a beautiful thing to know yourself. And this is what we can offer by being true to ourselves, being in our hearts, knowing who we are, being authentic and being open hearted. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. That was so beautiful. Can we talk for a moment about what life looked like for you? What did you say the words you just used when I felt like I wasn't of

this world or what did you say? Well, when I had issues like a feeling connection to being human. Yeah. I think that I'm hearing that a lot. A lot of these teens that have taken their own lives, it's because they, they feel that disconnect. They feel like they are not from here. I loved how you brought up like our minds and our thoughts and bringing attention to, is it true? Are we telling ourselves a story? Because I think a lot of times, especially when I was that age, I too would think, oh, I can't handle the world's pain and what's coming if it got any worse than it is now. And it was the story I was creating when it hadn't even happened yet. So yeah, what did life look like for you?

Life for me, I was very closed down. You know, I had a kind of a dysfunctional childhood, I moved out of the house when I was 16. So I worked a lot on not feeling. And, you know, I share in the book how one of the symptoms of being an unaware empath person is creating barriers. And one way you can do that is just by having stuff around you. I was a very chaotic person, my space looked very chaotic. And, you know, I had roommates that were just like, you know, what is it with you and all your piles and things? It wasn't that I was a hoarder, but I just didn't have an awareness of where I began and where I stopped. And so, you know, you'll find people who are unaware, empathic people and struggling,

they are desensitizing themselves by using food or alcohol or stuff to insulate themselves. And so when I finally started to get a grip, and understand that there was more to me, and I had a lot of mystical experiences that kind of were like, undeniable. So it was like, I didn't need to go to somebody else and read a book. In fact, my guidance was, you know, to stop reading books, quit displacing your authority in what somebody else said. This is your life. You have everything you need. Are you paying attention? And so when I would have these mystical experiences,

it gave me confidence and trust that I wasn't alone. And then as I learned about the empathic sponge that's outside of our energy, because, you know, just like, you know, our other senses of smell, sight and stuff, we see things passively, but we we also absorb and this is why we're called sponges our energy fields expand and it holds an impression there until we address it and sometimes we if we are unaware you never address it and you just assume it shores and you then try to take it on board like oh this must be mine to process and then it bogs you down. And an unaware empathic person, their sponge mechanism actually atrophies. And it's like a sponge that's been oversaturated,

stops functioning as a sponge. You can't even wipe something up when it's so drained or so wet. So, you know, when you start to understand that, you know, your lifestyle and your self-care actually impacts your energy system. So, you know, even just going out in nature, going and exercising, going somewhere where you're inspired, getting body work, all of these things would attend to your sponge without

your awareness, but you have to be invested in your life. And a lot of people who are unaware and kind of scared, they put themselves outside the equation of their own life. And that's why I'm always like, you've got to put yourself back in the equation. And so when I started to do my own inner work and go in and look at my issues and look at behavior. An amazing thing happened is that I my environment cleaned up. I am a minimalist almost, I am known to having like really clean sanctuary like homes, it is because I know where my boundaries are. I know where the edge of myself is. I can interact with a room. And I want to be in the presence of beauty. And I want to feel balanced.

Because I feel very visceral to what balance is. And I talked about how there's such a thing called a spirit level. And that's those levels that you can use to determine if something's uh hung right like a picture and in the old days they used to call them spirit levels and that's basically what an empath person is is we sense balance we can sense when a room is out of balance we can sense when somebody's not saying everything and it's ultimately what an empath is and this is the service i was pointing to in my earlier talk about the ants, is this idea of honoring balance. And you do clearings.

Are you usually working with empaths that need it? No, I think, you know, I usually get asked when there's something, it's usually a new house for somebody and they want to clear, you know, the last owner's energy out of there or if there's plumbing or electrical issues, you know, so, because the earth has its own energy too and we're, you know, we're interacting it with the house. The idea of having harmony is a harmony is also with the land so right and that's what I was thinking because I feel like because I am such an empath I'm very connected with my energy and

understand it more and so are my kids my two girls anyways that we tend to see a lot or sense, see, you know, on the other side. So it's like that empathy doesn't just stop with physical, like not whatsoever. And so my house is pretty active. But then I think about it, like every house has always been Everett, you know, and when I had my kid, I have four children, or they're all grown from 32 to 23 they were kids and they had their stuff and their rooms were messy but you know for them their things were like I would sense toxic noxious energy off of their video games and so they were the kids who had to deal with their mother clearing energetically and they're like oh you know you know, rolling their eyes. I'm like, Oh my God, my mom. So they grew up with me doing kind of that sort of stuff. You know, after my near

death experience in 2013, and you hear this a lot, we've had a lot of people on our senses are on overload. Number one, through my own journey, I realized that's because there's that trauma that affects my nervous system. Number two, I don't know if I was in a realm where the energetically was higher and I just came back different, but my senses were so heightened afterwards that I had pain like all over my body, so much pain. I was just absorbing it. Um, I, the drop of a pen, I've said this before in a restaurant would make me jump out of my chair. The one I still struggle with is I go to a nice dinner and I'm sitting there and I can hear every single person's conversations, even if they're all the way across the room. And what's really odd about that is I kind of have crappy hearing, but when I'm in those situations, it's like this crazy sense of, I'm, it literally blows my mind.

I'll be like, my husband will be like, how do you know what they're talking about? They're talking about, they're talking about, and they're talking about, and it gets to the point where I'm like, oh my God, I got to get out of here. Yeah. Have you tried like asking why, like, do you do automatic journaling or any of that to say is this something that you need to just kind of master or is it something that you can actually tune down okay that's a great idea I like that you brought up that I can ask or have boundaries around it right yeah some sort of protection yeah well they also feel too that if you're having

a lot of emotional like if you're picking up something very emotional and it's overwhelming you you know you can ask that your emotional body move out farther from you so it's not like right on top of you you know our subtle bodies are like if we were an octopus these are our tentacles this is what we're picking up with and this is how you can determine what is more or less your natural skill level with being an empathic person are you more geared toward picking up emotions are you more about mental thoughts are you more about the physical? You know, when you start to see where's your wheelhouse and find yourself in a situation, like say if you were taking a test, you know, you'd want your mental body closer to you.

And so you invoke your mental body. You know, if you're grieving, you know, that's where I would ask your spiritual body to come in closer to help you process it um rather than your emotional body for example so you know I have to ask about the um I know we've already kept you for a while but I have to ask about the enlightened ego yes you know our ego is it's a necessary aspect of being human on the physical plane right and so in its highest form or function the ego helps us assess um danger yeah and fortunately you know the ego then kind of felt like it could, you know, decide what needed to, you know, you needed to be more important, you needed more success, you need to feel like you belong, became kind of this cheerleader. But it had a dark side,

it can, you know, really take you places. But when I decided I was ready to stop the narrative, you know, the victim narrative, or looking at the dysfunction, I had to be very aware, like just like how you could hear conversations around you, I became very finely connected to hearing the thoughts that came through my head, because I can also pick up energetically thoughts and conversations. I call them like commercials. They mean nothing to me, but I'm getting to hear it a little bit. And then I think I need to raise my frequency because I don't want to be down and hearing just gossip and chitchat. I started to really listen to myself. And I realized that the ego wanted to process my empathic reception.

And so it was always going to fear. And I realized I could not accept my natural, authentic sensory network, if I was constantly having a knee jerk to go to fear, and fear, what was this? And so that's when I really said, Okay, this has got to stop this relationship, you are not the element of my consciousness that is going to determine how I respond to picking up something. And so, you know, I basically invoked you had to be enlightened ego. And the more spiritual soul based part of me is what is going to discern what I pick up. And it took a lot of training. I mean, it took that during those times of you're going from semi aware to functioning empath, it's when you're really getting in there, and you're being a drill master,

almost. When you determine that, okay, well, who gets to make the decision about what I picked up? Because it's just information, even though I may feel it and it feels still information, there's nothing to be afraid of. And so I started to say, okay, ego, you can let me know you feel something and that you're, you know, you want me to have my attention on this, but then it stops there. And then I'm going to, you know, discern what to do with this. And so what I'm going to give you a job, because you obviously are suited for jobs, and you want to take care of me, I am putting you in charge of my self care. And I said to the, you know, so it sounds like multiple personalities, but it's me having a dialogue with myself that my self-care is paramount

to how well I can be out in the world. So you need to focus on making sure I take care of myself. So this is how I try to get the ego to loosen up about its knee- reaction of fear. And I'm very mechanical oriented. And so knowing and understanding gives me calmness. And so this is really why I had to go through the mechanics of empathic reception so that, you know, when my ego wanted to say, but, and I said, because, you know, this is the way it is. This is how I know it works. You know, I'm in charge here. Love it. Yeah. Ego versus soul thoughts. What thoughts are you? Yeah. Oh my gosh. You're, you're just, I'm just blown away. You're very well-spoken. I also wanted to say, I love the questions for reflection in your book. It was helpful.

It had me thinking, it had me journaling. We need tangible things. What is your wish, your dream, your intent behind putting so much just love and intention into this book? What's your hope? My hope is that it reaches the right people because I do feel, you know, I'm 58. And I believe there is a generation that particularly midlife people over 45, that are empathic and have no awareness of it. And they've hidden the best parts of themselves from themselves. And, you know, it would be lovely for some of them

to understand themselves more deeply. And for the younger generation that has more of awareness and has a very good use of the word empath, maybe before they totally understand it, I would, you know, again, ask them to live their life because your life is where you build empathy and honoring your life and your experiences is what's giving you empowerment. You know, when you are empowered to accept yourself and your path, it's a beautiful thing. And this is what we all need to do. We need to first listen to ourselves. I say that we listen with our mental body, but we hear with our emotional body.

And, you know, this is what I think we each need to do. We need to hear ourselves. And in hearing, know where there's parts of ourselves that need the tenderness and the encouragement to integrate in ego as well. Speaking of that, the ITA medicine, can you talk about that? And maybe then throw out, you know, all the things on your website and your book? Yeah, ITA is integrative therapeutic alignment. And I lived in Australia, I followed my husband there for work. And while I was there, I was like, Well, I know why he's here. But why am I here? And Lord, and behold, there was Melanie Ryan Institute of Applied Consciousness very nearby. And I was like, this is interesting because I've been very comfortable with the energy

systems and my own training. But I was very curious about the higher systems. And I'm always curious about the nature of consciousness. So I had read, she had like an online book, I read it, and I wanted to understand it more. So I reached out to her. And I did, you know, some of their training. And what's unique about her is that she comes from a, I want to say, four generation energy workers that originated out of the Canary Islands. So she, you know, she came from a family where energy was just, you know,

it wasn't out of the ordinary and it wasn't paranormal. And so, but when she started to do her own clinic, one of the things she wanted to show people was you didn't have to come from a gifted family or one that had, you know, a history or a legacy that anyone with the right intention, you know, being taught energy systems and patterns develop of disease. Diseases have certain patterns that affect the whole energy system. So she was really keen to show that you could be somebody who came off the street, you went through some training of understanding the energy systems, and the intention of staying clear hearted and clear minded, because

I think the other thing you could have a whole subject on is projections. Because when you are an energy worker, you need to be very clear, and not projecting while you're inside somebody's energy field. But Melanie, so she's very gifted. She's got three tiers of energy medicine that she teaches. And the other thing that she does is meditation. And it's called Mahat meditation. Mahatma means the greatness in you. And we each have greatness within us, it's in our soul. And so she has created this meditation that is actually moving energy through the different systems into the higher systems. And it's very intentional. And it's is mriac.com.au. The AU is for Australia. Usually they run these online. It's truly one of the self-care tools that I never neglect. I do a lot of meditation on my own different types. I actually create meditations. I can do custom meditations for people if that's

something they're interested in. But this mahat meditation is a workout for your energy system and about integrating and bringing it all together. We meditate individually and then we get together twice a month globally. And there are retreats as well to Thailand and Australia. And that's something but I'm happy you asked me that because I think in the last 10 years, what Melanie is doing is unique. And no ego, there is no ego there, because I'm very much I look at people when they're offering services. And, you know, you can tell when the ego is up front and, you know, it's, it's not never, you can sense it. And that's not to say that they can't offer good energy work, but, you know, I just would rather not have to interact with their

ego to experience it. You know, I wanted to ask you, does that have to do with projection then? So oftentimes when I am in a session and I start to have like an opinion, I like stop immediately and pull myself out of that opinion and just really, truly try to stay in that soul or in that higher dimension and basically allow it to lead me rather than me leading it. Yeah, exactly. And I think the best posture energy worker has is to look at the perfection before them. And even though there may be disease present, there is still a perfect soul there. If there's any pity, shame or judgment that's coming in from the energy worker, that's just unnecessary. What I do with projections is I can use dousing

rods to show people if you know, you're projected upon how it impacts your energy field. Yeah. And so once you kind of understand that the power of your mind and that you know a thought addressed to someone specific it's like an IEP address and that thought goes directly to that person and how it impacts that person is dependent on how much self-love that person has for themselves because you could they're like spitballs you could do a spitball and it may not stick but then it may stick and what makes it stick is if that person has its self-conscious about the same issue um so projections are trespassing so i i like to say you know i'm not very religious but the lord's prayer about trespassing is basically energetically it's projections.

You're interfering with that person's ability to know who they are. You know, I have a friend who describes the definition for terrorism is when somebody else tries to tell you who you are. And that's what projections are doing. I could project on this person. Oh, they have poor dental health hygiene. And if they're sensitive and self conscious about that for themselves, and I've just added another energy block for them. Yeah, yeah, I always just try to let you know, give them breadcrumbs to figure it out for themselves, because I do feel like it's intrusive. Yeah, you know, I'm curious, like, give an example, because I'm not like that. So I want to make sure like, I'm more like it's intrusive. Yeah. You know what? I'm curious, like give an example. Cause

I'm not like that. So I want to make sure like, I'm more like I use intuition. I'm very blunt. If I feel something, I trust it. I tell them. Are we, are we talking about when you have a client or when you're just all over both in life, like, you know, just driving down the road. And if somebody cuts you off, you could take, you know, use some energy and, you know, swear at them or something. And that's more behavior. A projection is when you're actually targeting somebody with negative thoughts. And yeah, and I can use an example. I had done this demonstration with the dowsing rods and what happens to a person. And a mother in the audience realized that they, she and her husband and she said we've got to stop projecting on him inadequacies and this and that and so they made a master list of all the things they wished for their son to know about himself that maybe he couldn't see because of hormones and whatnot

and being human and what but so they have this master list and anytime they felt themselves going negative or ganging up on him they went back and they sat and they read this list until they felt a shift that they the anger went and they went more into their heart about what their hopes and wishes were for their son. And I had no idea they did this. She contacted me three months afterwards and told me that they had done this. And the effects were that their relationship was completely transformed. It really shows the power of being intentional. Yeah. Love that. Wow. That's powerful. That's amazing. She was somebody who was willing to do the work. She recognized from the demonstration what she herself and her husband were doing.

And that was just one example. But, you know, we parents, unfortunately, you know, we can do it by worrying. Worrying is a projection. You know, we don't think of it that way. I think we just got to have you back on to talk about projections. There's a lot to cover. And as you know, my book is pretty dense and not dense in a bad way, but it's very comprehensive. So where can everyone get your book? They can go to any major book retail outlet place to go to my website www.empathfieldguide.com and that takes you to

my website where it's all about the book and there's some links I would also say if people are wanting to help me out go to your local library and ask them to take my book in or go to your local bookstore and order it from them helps me. And then also, if you'd like to leave me a review from Goodreads or Amazon, you know, because unfortunately, publishing as a business and reviews is kind of what helps author out. And podcast. But your book is called The Space in Between an Impact Field Guide guide it's one of those things where if you're not one just understanding what one is will help shift the world and help shift your relationships so parents i mean if you're not in it if you don't if you're not an empath this can

help you to understand maybe your child. It's creating understanding. And I think, unfortunately, a lot of people think when they're feeling like they're an HSP or an empath, that something's wrong with them. And they're being told something's wrong with them and there is nothing wrong. It's a beautiful thing. So it's creating understanding and And that's what your book does. And I can feel that that's your mission. And I love it. So thank you for putting it out. And thank you for coming on Sense of Soul.

Thank you for having me. I was so delighted to come on today. And the fact that you guys are in Colorado was just an extra pop for me. So Rocky Mountain high there. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. When you're able to connect with people, you're like, Oh my god, me too, which is exactly why we did this podcast. And that's exactly who's listening. So I'm sure they're going to connect. I'm so honored to be here. I know I've waited a while. So it was really great that you guys followed through and reached

out to me and you know, you were on my bucket list. So thank you for having me on. That was great. And now it's time for. Break that shit down. I would like to leave you. With the invitation. To find beauty. Beauty and truth.

And creativity. These are all things that will help you come back to your heart it will help expand you it will help connect you and beauty is it can be anything there is no right or wrong it's whatever moves you it moves you into your body it moves you into your breath and beauty can take your breath away it's so powerful and it can give you inspiration so honor where you find beauty can you do one other thing okay do you have your you have your book you showed me Can you read the space between thing that you wrote? Yeah. The space between the space between me and you is no farther than that quality in me that you represent. The space between me and you is absent when I find that you and I are one. And in that my freedom, I have one. Pretty amazing. Thank you.

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