Judith Orloff Quotes

How you react emotionally is a choice in any situation.

I don’t care how intelligent or attractive someone is, if he zaps your energy, he isn’t for you. True chemistry is more than intellectual compatibility. Beyond surfaces, you must be intuitively at ease.

I crave the sweet surrender of sleep and my dreams' uncensored communication: no tiresome small talk, sucking up to impress, or tiptoeing around charged topics. Dreams are the naked truth; get ready for it.

An (emotional) vampire goes in for the kill by stirring up your emotions. Pushing your buttons throws you off center, which renders you easier to drain. Of all the emotional types, empaths are often the most devestated.

Look at your life as your main career and your divine classroom.

Energy doesn't lie. Keep sensing it, trusting it, letting it liberate you.

The art of communicating is to speak with a non judging sensitivity and mean it rather than impulsively verbalizing whatever feelings arise; there's no better way to make a point.

Words ride on the energy of tone, its warmth or coldness; think of tone as the music of how words are expressed. You want this music to be soulful, whether you're giving sweet talk or tough love.

The First Prescription’s formula for success: Do whatever makes your inner light brighter. In other words, try to treat yourself and everyone else with love. 

When encountering emotional vampires, see what you can learn. It's your choice. You can simply feel tortured, resentful, impotent. Or, as I try to do, ask yourself, "How can this interaction help me grow?

Sometimes violence cannot be stopped no matter what we do. But the more peaceful we are, the better chance we have of bringing out the peace in those around us.

Always, emotional freedom involves choosing where you put your attention.

Remember to show yourself compassion,

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

Friends can be the best co-conspirators in charting the unknown.

Courage not aligned with a higher good isn’t always positive—a burglar can be plenty courageous as he robs you blind.

The launching pad for emotional freedom is always yourself.

EMPATH AFFIRMATION I vow to honor my sensitivities and treat myself lovingly as I explore what it means to be an empath and embrace my gifts. I will appreciate myself every day.

IF YOU FEEL AS IF YOU DON’T FIT INTO THIS WORLD, IT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE HERE TO CREATE A BETTER ONE.

I’m intrigued with the idea of surrender not as defeat or loss, as it is frequently thought of, but as a positive, intuitive way of living, a power that grows as you develop trust in the moment as well as in change and the unknown. Contrary to common stereotypes that equate surrender with weakness, I’m presenting it as a way to gain mastery of your life, not give up power.

Use gemstones. Carry a crystal to help ground you and ward off an emotional hangover. Try black tourmaline, amethyst, or black obsidian. Shamans say that if you carry or wear black, you will be more protected.

The most spiritually credible people I know are humble and soft-spoken. They don’t strut around like peacocks, enchanted by how wonderful they are. My heroes are the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Rosa Parks—gentle persuaders to a more noble path, not power-hungry egomaniacs. Don’t get me wrong. I advocate a healthy ego. It’s our conscious sense of self, the “I” of the human equation. However, egotism is having an inflated identity, a strain of negativity that infects spirituality and the liberation it brings.

Intuition intelligently informs patience. It’ll convey when to have it and if something is worth working on or waiting for.

A noxious stimulus, such as an angry person, crowds, noise, or bright light, can agitate us because our threshold for sensory overload is extremely low.

Egotism is not a sign of self-esteem. It masks feelings of inferiority, which is why these Mr. Bigs denigrate others and often have unquenchable ambition.

I know how tempting it is to believe that something outside—a great job, meeting Mr. or Ms. Right, winning the lottery— can make you feel okay and mollify envy. For a while these may seem to work, but an outer fix alone, no matter how gratifying, can’t sustain self-esteem.

AS A CHILD I FELT MYSELF TO BE ALONE, AND I AM STILL, BECAUSE I KNOW THINGS AND MUST HINT AT THINGS THAT OTHERS APPARENTLY KNOW NOTHING OF, AND FOR THE MOST PART DO NOT WANT TO KNOW. LONELINESS DOES NOT COME FROM HAVING NO PEOPLE ABOUT ONE, BUT FROM BEING UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE THE THINGS THAT SEEM IMPORTANT TO ONESELF, OR FROM HOLDING CERTAIN VIEWS WHICH OTHERS FIND INADMISSIBLE. Dr. Carl Jung As

The biology of emotional freedom depends on getting your endorphins flowing and turning off your stress hormones. How you achieve this? Laughter, exercise, meditation and doing anything that makes you loved.

As an empath, you are part of a countercultural revolution to put what is humane back into humanity. I applaud you for being a path-forger, willing to venture off the beaten track. I applaud your courage to face yourself, to express your authentic needs, and not to give up on the world, with its many failings.

I love when the environmentalist David Orr says, “The planet does not need more ‘successful people.’ The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds. It needs people to live well in their places. It needs people with moral courage willing to join the struggle to make the world habitable and humane, and these qualities have little to do with success as our culture defines it.

What makes an empath’s overload symptoms worse? Fatigue, illness, rushing, traffic, crowds, loud environments, toxic people, low blood sugar, arguing, overwork, chemical sensitivities, too much socializing, and feeling trapped in overstimulating situations such as parties and cruises. Any combination of these conditions intensifies an empath’s overload. Therefore, keep the following in mind: stress + low blood sugar = drama and exhaustion.

Empaths are incredible listeners but often make the mistake of tolerating chronic talkers for too long. Then we become exhausted. To protect ourselves, empaths must address our tendency to people please. Everyone loves telling empaths their life stories because we’re so attentive. But with chronic talkers, we must learn to set boundaries, a basic form of self-care.

You may also freeze around inauthentic people, which can convey aloofness — but this is clearly a protective device. Some empaths prefer socializing online to keep others at a distance, so there’s less of the tendency to absorb their discomfort and stress.

In addition, certain actions are a balm for both body and soul. These include taking quiet alone time, associating with positive people, being in nature, immersing yourself in water to clear negative energy, meditating, exercising, and defining limits with energy vampires.

We are in the midst of an evolution of human consciousness, and empaths are the path forgers. A sacred responsibility comes with our sensitivities, which demand more of us than simply retreating into isolation. It’s vital we learn how to avoid feeling overwhelmed so that we can fully shine our power in the world. Empaths and all sensitive people are pioneers on the forefront of a new way of being for humankind.

Some empaths become addicted to alcohol, drugs, food, sex, shopping, or other behaviors in an attempt to numb their sensitivities. Overeating is common since some empaths unwittingly use food to ground themselves. Empaths can easily become overweight because the extra padding provides protection from negative energy.

Highly sensitive children can come from mothers and fathers with the same traits. In addition, parenting plays a role. Childhood neglect or abuse can also affect sensitivity levels for adults. A portion of empaths I’ve treated have experienced early trauma, such as emotional or physical abuse, or were raised by alcoholic, depressed, or narcissistic parents. This could potentially wear down the usual healthy defenses that a child with nurturing parents develops. As a result of their upbringing, these children typically don’t feel “seen” by their families, and they also feel invisible in the greater world that doesn’t value sensitivity.

Though there is a spectrum of sensitivity that exists in human beings, empaths are emotional sponges who absorb both the stress and joy of the world. We feel everything, often to an extreme, and have little guard up between others and ourselves. As a result, we are often overwhelmed by excessive stimulation and are prone to exhaustion and sensory overload.

Your soul mate can become your cell mate” if both of you are not dedicated to mutual growth and authenticity. It’s

empaths can be depleted if they are their partner’s only significant contact. The hours spent away from an empath are often the saving grace of the relationship.

Empaths thrive on consistency, which fosters trust and acceptance.

Practice loving detachment.

IF YOU FEEL AS IF YOU DON’T FIT INTO THIS WORLD, IT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE HERE TO CREATE A BETTER ONE. Author Unknown

Kairos is sacred time, a nonlinear awareness that is an empath’s truer home.

balance your time-bound and timeless selves so you’re not cornered by the clock.

Empaths are creators, inventors, visionaries, artists, and people who feel first.

Empaths may unknowingly get involved with toxic partners and become anxious, depressed, or ill. They give their hearts too easily to narcissists and other unavailable people. Empaths are loving and expect others to be that way, which doesn’t always happen. They also absorb their partner’s stress and emotions, such as anger or depression, simply by interacting with them,

Get plenty of sleep and take power naps Sleep is a healing balm for an empath’s body and soul. It calms the nervous system. Empaths are more vulnerable to absorbing stress and symptoms when they are tired.

What is emotional freedom? It means increasing your ability to love by cultivating positive emotions and being able to compassionately witness and transform negative ones, whether they’re yours or another’s.

Set clear limits with energy vampires and toxic people. Remember that “no” is a complete sentence. You don’t have to keep explaining yourself. I am adamant about avoiding draining people, particularly when I’m overloaded.

Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön warns against what she insightfully terms “idiot compassion”—using kindness to avoid conflict when a resounding “no” is required. I completely agree. To preserve our emotional freedom, we must know where to draw the line.

Each of us becomes ready to surrender for different reasons and the accompanying change is sometimes painful. Just as a seed starts in the darkness and then splits apart to become something larger and more alive, surrender impels our consciousness to grow—a

our own. It is critical not to feel obliged to inherit something that doesn’t belong to us. Or to misread the bond with our loved ones as including their illnesses. Genetics may dictate the transmission of a disease, but we can do much to break our intuitive link to such a process.

Our visions of courage are what poet Sarah Teasdale describes as “holy thoughts that star the night.” Meditation on Freedom Awakening Courage In a relaxed, quiet state, focus on a time when you were courageous. Perhaps you spoke up for yourself or took the road less traveled despite what others said. Or you fought injustice or helped someone in need. Maybe you just got yourself out of bed in the morning when you felt down. All acts of courage matter. Try not to judge one as better than another. For a few minutes, bask in the feeling of courage, letting it infuse you.

Empaths feel things first, then think, which is the opposite of how most people function in our overintellectualized society. There is no membrane that separates us from the world. This makes us very different from other people who have had their defenses up almost from the time they were born.

I’ve actually left a lunch with friends when a man there got enraged with his spouse. His rage hurt me. In situations like that, I am fierce about protecting my energy, so I said to my friends, “Please excuse me. I’m feeling tired,” and politely left. It was awkward, but I chose my well-being over “social correctness” and sticking it out.

For instance, your low self-esteem attracts people who criticize you, and the criticizer attracts people they can belittle. Be careful not to perpetuate wound-mate relationships. Instead, let these people — whether they are friends, coworkers, spouses, or whomever — spur you to develop self-awareness and heal the initial wound. Then you can grow out of these relationships and find more fulfilling ones.

I’m also fascinated by new research on how pain medications can inhibit empathy. Ohio State University researchers recently found that when participants who took Tylenol (acetaminophen) learned about the mishaps of others, they experienced less dismay than those who didn’t take the drug.1 Knowing that Tylenol decreases empathy is important since fifty-two million Americans take a substance containing it every week!

Eat well. Don’t skip meals, and make sure they include protein, which grounds you. Grazing on protein throughout the day keeps my energy and blood sugar stable. Avoid carbohydrates, candy bars, cookies, sodas, and other sugar sources, as well as fast food for a quick fix when you’re hungry. Instead, bring healthy snacks and stay well hydrated with water, a green or antioxidant smoothie, and other nourishing drinks.

A healthy connection is when partners are mutually committed to the relationship and both want to open their hearts to each other. In contrast, attachment is when we cling to someone with a death grip, hoping that person will change. Attachments are dangerous because they can keep us linked to unavailable people or toxic relationships. If you are looking for intimacy, search out people who are excited to be with you.

Identify three obvious differences between you and your patient. A good intellectual way to distance yourself from a patient’s emotions and pain after a session is to focus on three clear differences between you. For example, I’m a woman, and he’s a man. She’s depressed, but I’m not. I’m a vegan, and he eats meat. This lets you appreciate what’s you and what’s the patient, a boundary that helps prevent you from absorbing unwanted energy.

Preparation for the test was Herculean, requiring months of intense study. Even though she’d been an impeccably skilled, compassionate doctor, beloved by her patients for four decades, she was possessed by a sense of inadequacy. A thousand people could tell her how incredible she was, but if one person said something derogatory, she’d believe him. It was so much easier for her to be kind to others than to herself—a paradox shared by many of us.

We can sense subtle energy, which is called shakti or prana in Eastern healing traditions, and we absorb this energy into our own bodies. Highly sensitive people don’t typically do that. This capacity allows us to experience the energies around us in extremely deep ways. Since everything is made of subtle energy, including emotions and physical sensations, we energetically internalize the feelings, pain, and various physical sensations of others.

Despite fiery disagreements about who or what God is and how to make contact, all these religions agree that patience is the essence of spirituality and thus grants great strength. Judaism says, “A patient man is better than a warrior.” In Buddhism, bodhisattvas train in this practice to become enlightened. Christianity and Islam deem it a sacred virtue. Patience endows you with faith in yourself and your destiny, an illuminated capacity to deal with frustration and disappointments.

What I didn’t know back then was that everyone has a subtle energy field surrounding their body, a subtle radiant light that penetrates and extends beyond it a distance of inches or even feet. These fields communicate information such as emotions and physical well-being or distress. When we are in crowded places, the energy fields of others overlap with ours. I picked up all of these intense sensations, but I had absolutely no idea what they were or how to interpret them. I just felt anxious and tired in crowds. And most of all, I wanted to escape.

My spiritual teacher describes a person with a big ego as “a feather pretending to be an arrow.” Intuitively, this rings so true. When I tune in to patients who are egotists, their self-esteem feels frail and wobbly, but it steadies once they discover a sounder sense of worth and connection to Spirit. Forget about how impressive egotists might look on the outside or how others kowtow to them. They are grand pretenders, even to themselves, with underdeveloped hearts. Egotists parade what they’ve got: possessions, social status, or even the “high spiritual plane” they believe they’re residing on compared to us mortals.

I am very against physicians labeling high sensitivity as a sensory processing “disorder” instead of a gift with its own set of challenges. Medicine too often pathologizes anything “different” that it doesn’t understand. Empaths have special traits that exist on the normal continuum of human experience. They exemplify the wonderful diversity of our species. The problem with conventional medicine is that it lacks a paradigm that includes the body’s subtle energy system. This concept has been central to many healing traditions for thousands of years cross-culturally, including traditional Chinese medicine. What is subtle energy? It is the vital life force that penetrates the body and extends inches to feet around it.

SELF-ASSESSMENT​Are You an Empath? To find out, take the following empath self-assessment, answering “mostly yes” or “mostly no” to each question. •​Have I ever been labeled overly sensitive, shy, or introverted? •​Do I frequently get overwhelmed or anxious? •​Do arguments and yelling make me ill? •​Do I often feel like I don’t fit in? •​Do crowds drain me, and do I need alone time to revive myself? •​Do noise, odors, or nonstop talkers overwhelm me? •​Do I have chemical sensitivities or a low tolerance for scratchy clothes? •​Do I prefer taking my own car to places so that I can leave early if I need to? •​Do I overeat to cope with stress? •​Am I afraid of becoming suffocated by intimate relationships? •​Do I startle easily? •​Do I react strongly to caffeine or medications? •​Do I have a low threshold for pain? •​Do I tend to socially isolate? •​Do I absorb other people’s stress, emotions, or symptoms? •​Am I overwhelmed by multitasking, and do I prefer to do one thing at a time? •​Do I replenish myself in nature? •​Do I need a long time to recuperate after being with difficult people or energy vampires? •​Do I feel better in small towns or the country rather than large cities? •​Do I prefer one-to-one interactions and small groups to large gatherings? Now calculate your results. •​If you answered yes to one to five questions, you’re at least a partial empath. •​If you answered yes to six to ten questions, you have moderate empath tendencies. •​If you answered yes to eleven to fifteen questions, you have strong empath tendencies. •​If you answered yes to more than fifteen questions, you are a full-blown empath.

There’s a wonderful story of two people standing before God. God asks them about their goals in life. One person states, “I’d like to be a saint.” God responds, “That’s very nice.” When the other person says, “I’m just trying to be a good human being,” God replies, “You are very ambitious.

In The Heart’s Code, psychologist Paul Pearsall chronicles arresting accounts of our body’s cellular emotional intelligence. He tells of Claire Sylvia, the famous heart-lung transplant recipient who suddenly began craving new kinds of food—chicken nuggets and beer— as well as experiencing unfamiliar emotions. But why? Stunningly, in dreams, she had conversations with her donor (whose identity had been kept anonymous, standard hospital policy), which allowed her to locate his parents. They confirmed that her new tastes and feelings were those their son had too.

Pearsall also describes an eight-year-old girl who received the heart of a murdered child. After the transplant, the girl started having nightmares about the man who had killed her donor. Her mother then took her to a therapist. Details she reported in therapy sessions were so precise—time, weapon, the murderer’s clothes, crime scene—that they notified the police. Astonishingly, the girl’s information led police to the murderer.

Female empaths who are famous include Nicole Kidman, Jewel (her song “Sensitive” is about empaths), Winona Ryder, Alanis Morissette, and Princess Diana.

Empaths have high sensitivities that can make them more intuitive, able to sense people’s energy, and open to premonitions, animal communication, and powerful dreams.

Highly sensitive men who are famous include Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and Jim Carrey.

Be compassionate with people you know and those you don’t. We are all sacred. We are all achingly beautiful. Intuition allows us to recognize one another’s light. Let’s take our cue from poet Mary Oliver when she writes about “seeing through the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles.” Compassion grants us the sightedness to behold both the surface of things and their deeper emotional dimensions. It enables us to be more giving, thereby consecrating our relationships. It lets us make the earth a better place than when we came.

I will protect my energy around draining people. I will learn how to set healthy boundaries. I will learn how to say “no” at the right times. I will listen to my intuition about the relationships that are nurturing for me. JUDITH ORLOFF, MD, THE EMPATH’S SURVIVAL GUIDE

jobs. Empaths are creators, inventors, visionaries, artists, and people who feel first. We see the big picture while navigating the workday. We often think out of

the added stimulation that comes with togetherness. This differs from ordinary empathy — say, when we sympathize with a partner’s bad day at work — because empaths actually merge with our partner’s joy or sadness, as if it were our own. Thus, romantic relationships, particularly live-in ones, test us.

Empaths tend to be light sleepers. A partner’s snoring or thrashing around can easily disturb us. We may also need more sleep than our mates, and we get thrown off when our dream cycle is interrupted too.

It's a gift to let other people be themselves. Let them face their own difficulties.

Not all dreams are psychic, and yet I believe that each one carries a personalized message that we need to hear. In one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, he asks, “Why does an eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination does while awake?

To paraphrase a Rolling Stones song, you can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.

As the Buddha says, “Suffering comes from both ignorance and denial.” One

EMPATHS ARE NOT “OVERLY SENSITIVE.” THEY HAVE A GIFT BUT MUST LEARN TO MANAGE THEIR SENSITIVITIES. Judith Orloff, MD

A skill that sensitive people must learn is how to deal with sensory overload when too much is coming at them too quickly. This can leave them exhausted, anxious, depressed, or sick. Like

The ancient Greeks had two concepts of time — Chronos and Kairos — which can help you wisely channel your sensitivities.

SOMETIMES I NEED TO GO OFF ON MY OWN. I’M NOT SAD. I’M NOT ANGRY. I’M JUST RECHARGING MY BATTERIES. Kristen Butler

To me, egotists seem bloated, flatulent. They watch out for number one, peer down their noses at you, and tend to be jealous or envious. (Still, egotists usually have varying capacities for empathy and love compared to narcissists, who’re typically more incapacitated in these areas.)

I am grateful for this day and for my health, my connection to Spirit, and my kids and family. Thank you for all these blessings. May I stay calm. May I stay happy. May I be loving.

The Great Bell Chant,” which is narrated by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, as well as devotional music by the artists Enya, Snatam Kaur, Tina Malia, or Wah!

YOUR PRESENCE IS THE MOST PRECIOUS GIFT YOU CAN GIVE TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD

Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön warns against what she calls “idiot compassion,” using kindness to avoid conflict when a definite no is required. There’s a right time to give and a right time to say no.