The Empath

A collection of empath-related items

[zenmister]

Violent Thoughts

A major obstacle to peace of mind is violent thoughts. Violent thoughts are the thoughts that harm you or others. You can be the peace lovingest, tree huggingest person there is and still upset your pursuit of peace by entertaining all kinds of violent thoughts.

The violent thoughts we think of others can be less harmful than the violent thoughts we think about ourselves. Violent thoughts about others are generally symptoms of our own suffering. Violent thoughts about others are not usually things like, I’m going to rip your arms off. They’re more like, you stupid idiot, don’t be such a moron. We may think these things about people who stand in our way for very brief moments and whom we will never see again. Yet the thoughts we have about them upset our peace. The violent thoughts we have about other people hurt them when we open our mouths, lean on our horns, or somehow convert those thoughts to actions. The unconverted thought though, still hurts us.

If we are not prone to unleashing our violent thoughts on those around us, then the violent thoughts we think about ourselves are the more damaging ones. They are damaging because we don’t know them as violent, so we just think they are the truth. These thoughts are things like: how could I be so foolish, I wish I were better looking, I’m hideous, I’m stupid, I can’t take it, I’m not good enough, nobody loves me, I wish I were dead, this sucks. When these kinds of thoughts find their way into your awareness, it is important to recognize them as violent thoughts. You’re beating yourself down with them. If you have such a thought it is not a problem. When you don’t recognize it as a violent thought and passively believe it, it becomes a problem.

Violent thoughts come with suffering. As you practice recognizing when you are suffering, you will see that suffering brings on violent thoughts. If you practice recognizing violent thoughts, you will see that they come when you are suffering. Whenever you recognize suffering in yourself or others, the desire to ease that suffering that comes with the recognition is compassion. If you notice the suffering first, you will have compassionate thoughts before violent thoughts. If you notice the violent thought, you can assume there is suffering and undo any potential damage with a compassionate thought such as, I’m sad, I’m scared, I’m bored, I made a mistake, I’m stressed, I deserve to feel peace, I need a hug. Compassionate thoughts help.

When you practice watching your thoughts you will become better and better at seeing when you are thinking violence. As you recognize the thoughts and feel compassion, you will find more peace. As you find more peace you will suffer less and you will have fewer and fewer violent thoughts to notice. You’ll still have plenty of compassionate thoughts.

[thelovelyempath]

It's important to take care of yourself as well!

[zenmister]

Zen Broken Heart

The purpose of Zen is to break your heart wide open. Instead of loving a small circle of people, when your heart breaks open there is just love. There is no lover, no loved, it is just free flowing love.

It is not easy to break your own heart. We like to protect our hearts, that is why we are so careful about who we trust with our hearts. We develop our egos to help keep the love contained in our hearts. Our egos know that our hearts can’t contain all that love, that it needs to flow, so they are always on the lookout for safe places to let the love out. Close friends and family provide opportunities for the love to flow. When those relationships become strained, it is extra painful because the ego tries to resist the love flowing. The love still flows, but the ego gets in the way and transforms all that loving energy into pain.

With romantic relationships, between partners, the heart finds a great outlet for love. When the relationship ends, the ego gets in the way, and pretends that the love can no longer go in that habitual direction. The pain that comes from the ego standing in the way of that intense flow of love is intense. That is the feeling of the broken heart.

If you turn to Zen to try to get away from the pain of a broken heart, you can find some comfort. Zen offers a way to peace and equanimity, those very feelings that are missing when you are suffering from a broken heart. Zen, however offers no safe haven for the ego. You can’t stop feeling like your heart is breaking if you are still trying to stand in the way of all that powerful love. You can’t stop feeling the burn if your hand is in the fire. The regular feeling of a broken heart is just a crack. Zen welcomes that crack as an opportunity to break the heart wide open by exposing the ego’s life-long habit of holding the heart hostage. In Zen, it is not the heart that breaks, it is the ego.

Zen meditation and compassion can comfort a broken heart in many ways, but it is always secretly swinging for the fences, not by trying to put the pieces back together, but by exposing the raw love at the heart of it all. Crack!

[motivatedaily]

[thelovelyempath]

Any INFJ empaths out there?

This personality type tends to stare straight into someone’s soul. Above is a 5 min video explaining this kind of look, why it happens, and how it comes across to others.

[thelovelyempath]

Self-sabotage is a defense mechanism. Do you possess the eight qualities in this video?

[thelovelyempath]

Shadow work helps us to better accept ourselves and refrain from hiding from reality. Because of this, we can live our best lives, free from fear of what we're hiding from ourselves. As empaths, this is important because if we can heal ourselves and erase any self doubt or self hatred, we will become much better healers and much better at protecting ourselves as well.

[motivated-mindset]

“The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.”

—

[thelovelyempath]

Anyone else ever feel the need to just curl up on the floor at any given point throughout the day?

[thepowerwithin]

Amidst an entire garden, each and every flower is watered. None are left to wither. None are left behind.

You are an entire garden and each part of you deserves to be nurtured. Not a single part of you should be left to die. To be left unloved and forgotten.

You are garden that grows as a whole unit, not just in single flowers.

Nicole Addison @thepowerwithin

[thelovelyempath]

[thelovelyempath]

💙

[thelovelyempath]

💙

[extramadness]

[xenxone]

🍋🍋🍋🍋

[create-a-positive-mind]

[spoonofconsciousness]

#MondayMotivation

16 Reality Checks We Need To Be Reminded Of Regularly

1. The world doesn’t owe us anything.

2. We’re all going to die one day.

3. True beauty shines from the inside out.

4. Every day may not be good, but there will be some good in every day.

5. The relationship we have with ourselves is the relationship we will have with others.

6. How others see us is nothing to do with us and has everything to do with them.

7. Haters are just confused fans.

8. Everything happens for a reason and those reasons are to be determined by us.

9. We create the reality we experience with the dominant thoughts we hold in our minds.

10. The conflict we’re experiencing on the inside will be reflected on the outside.

11. Others often behave dysfunctionally because they are emulating the behaviour of their parents.

12. Money does not equal success, but neither does poverty.

13. Time is an asset to be invested, not a commodity to be squandered.

14. We become the average of the people we spend the most time with.

15. The root of all suffering is a lack of self-love.

16. We are multidimensional beings having a human experience, the only thing that matters is who had the most fun.

If it won’t matter 5 years from now, don’t spend 5 minutes worrying about it.

Peace & positive vibes.

Follow me on Instagram for daily positive affirmations <3

[imgrateful]

― Barbara Marciniak

[thelovelyempath]

I need to continue to work on this