Product Description

The Empath. The word has found its way into our consciousness accompanied by ideas of healing, sharing emotion and pain. Empaths are sensitive, caring, responsive people who have at the core of their nature an innate ability to receive energy, information and awareness from others with a depth and intensity that is beyond our customary understanding of empathy. Yet, this very receptivity and permeability brings its own challenges. It is vital for empaths to recognize themselves as such and to consciously explore, understand and address this energetic flow in their life. Self-inquiry is the essential tool to understanding all that moves, motivates and colors your experience of the world. This book explores in depth the principles of such a receptivity, as well as tools, concepts and approaches to support your understanding of yourself and how to flourish with this heightened receptivity. Includes a glossary of all the tools and principles explored with bolded quotes throughout for easy reference. Chapters cover Understanding Yourself As an Empath, Tools of Awareness, On Relating and In Relationship, Dancing With the Physical, Children and Childhood and an opened-ended chapter of questions shared by workshop participants exploring their own Empath nature and the answers that emerged from these dialogues. This book is a shared journey, edited from years of workshops and person sessions with those who have been exploring Empath Energy, beyond empathy with Elisabeth Y. Fitzhugh and the Orion group.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68319 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-01
• Released on: 2006-11-01
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• 196 pages

From the Inside Flap
'Empaths are Dancers Between Realms -
carrying a quiet song of
receptivity and responsiveness
in a world that can be
loud, harsh and insensitive.'

About the Author
Elisabeth Y. Fitzhugh has been sharing in the personal growth arena for over twenty years. Long attracted to understanding the nature of things, Elisabeth came to her exploration of spiritual awareness through studies in psychology, anthropology and art. Experiences during the in-retreat Gateway Voyage program at the Robert Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia in 1982, led to her work with expansive consciousness and today she is in her second decade of sharing from this broad perspective.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Understanding Yourself As An Empath:
Consider empath energy as the capacity to experience connection far beyond the rapport of empathy. We all carry a capacity for empathy. We can be receptive, sensitive and intuitive in varying degrees. Empaths find these qualities amplified in an innate way. They are led by a strong recognition of the energy that flows between people. Energy, in these terms, is the core dynamic quality of life, imbued with capacity for action. It is the current of life that flows through all of us and all things; a vitality that can ebb and flow. Energy is experienced as feelings and emotions -- your own and others. Energy represents connection -- within yourself, between people, with cultures and places. Energy vibrates as a sense of affinity and resonance. Energy is experienced in the physical body, in the realms of the mind and in what is called the heart. Whatever words are used to describe or point toward it, energy is always felt and recognized. The vocabulary and concepts of energy are continually evolving and becoming. In the broadest way, energy exists, is present and will make itself known.

Empath energy and awareness is embedded in a broad spiritual perspective that is rooted in the spiritual perspective of the interconnection of all things. As you explore empath energy, you can also recognize a deeper, innate connection to the All, the vast consciousness of being. Bringing a spiritual perspective to your inner work allows awareness through more than your conscious mind.

Empaths experience empathy, sensitivity and intuition in a strongly amplified or even accelerated manner. Empaths feel very permeable to sensing other people and their energy, especially in large groups or crowds and new situations. In addition, this sensitivity also results in an amplification of one's own energy. Thus, worries and concerns, reactions and responses can be heightened and feel overwhelming or even invasive. Empaths often do not recognize how the degree of their sensitivity is different from others.

Individuals often struggle for a long time before they are able to recognize that they are more receptive and responsive than others they know. Typically, someone else declares, "You're too sensitive. You're too reactive. You're too emotional. You are too..." This is often the first time people begin to understand that perhaps they are sensitive in a different way. Thus, your first awareness of yourself as an empath comes as a critique and criticism. If you are acculturated as most, this difference is negatively internalized and becomes an effective superego, one you agree with by saying, "I am too sensitive. I am too emotional. I am too much." Many people experience difficulty living with this capacity in this world of immense interaction and input. At the same time you hold qualities of connection that can touch others, building bridges of understanding and compassion.

The customary model of being receptive is reflected in this language of "too much;" implying that one degree of emotion or sensitivity is acceptable, but other degrees of response are not. Sensitivity is seen only as a byproduct of psychological development or the conditioning of life experience. Empath sensitivity is an innate quality, neither optional nor a mental choice. The empath system of receptivity and sensitivity is intensely acute; an integral part of the mental, emotional and physical self. Consider this receptivity as "empath DNA." The term highlights that this quality is innate, intertwined and embedded, not something you can just get over, throw out or deny. When you consider your sensitivity as part of your physicality, you open to a different perspective.

Empath nature expands like a sponge; absorbing into itself all the fluid energy, contact and content of interaction with others. The difficulty with such a receptive capacity is that there is often confusion about what is in the original "sponge" and that which is filling it. "Do I feel this way within myself or have I absorbed this from another?" A further challenge is that most empaths are not aware of the intensity or fullness of their receptive nature until certain events occur that feel interfering or even dangerous to the self. You find yourself saying, "I did not feel like myself," or others say, "You are not acting like yourself," etc. Hints come into the conscious mind that something other than the self is interacting in their lives.

It is vital for empaths to consciously explore, understand and address the energetic flow in their lives. You begin to learn about empath energy by first recognizing it as a principle -- empathy energy is an innate capacity for deeply intensive receptivity. From there, you can begin to consciously address and question your receptivity, responsiveness and the actions which flow from them. Naturally, this amplified receptivity impacts one's psycho-social-emotional development. Simple inquiry will lead you to learn your own patterns and eventually bring your attention to working with and managing the flow of input. Begin by wondering, "Does this idea of empath nature speak to me? Do I sense myself in these descriptions?" This may lead to asking, "When is this my energy alone? When am I receiving or responding as an empath?" You can ask, "If I am receiving in this empath mode and if this feeling is not mine, what am I to do with it? Can I have clarity as to what this energy is?" Listen to what arises from such questions and allow yourself to discover and apply what you sense.

Customer Reviews

And you thought you just needed a thicker skin!
Thank you, Elisabeth Fitzhugh, for ushering this information into the popular culture! For all those times when someone said, "you're too sensitive," or, "you're going to have to grow a thicker skin if you expect to survive in the world," we now have Dancers Between Realms. With straightforward wisdom and practical guidance, Dancers helps the empaths among us to identify ourselves - and to navigate the sometimes-tumultuous waters of our and other people's emotional seas. Definitely a must have for all empaths and possible empaths!

A gift for all sensitive people
"Dancers Between Realms" explains what it means to be an empath. An empath is a person who is unusually sensitive to the energy of others, a stance of being in the world that has its peculiar blessings and unique problems. "Dancers Between Realms" explores both the blessings and the problems and offers much practical advice for being an empath in today's world, one overloaded with stimulating energy of all sorts. It also provides an overall spiritual perspective to assist empaths with their own spiritual growth and service to others. I recommend it to everyone who feels overwhelmed at times by the energies that swirl around us all. Jim Marion, author of "Putting on the Mind of Christ, the Inner Work of Christian Spirituality."

Feels Like Validation To Me
I was about seven years old when I was told by an adult (okay, it was my mother), "Don't be so thin-skinned". It wasn't really until reading this book and fully embracing my Empathic self that I truly understood the resonance of that comment and my role in All There Is ... My Truth. We all need to have our feelings validated. Well, at least we Empaths do. Dancers Between Realms is like a warm, accepting hug. Elisabeth and Orion offer this in an intellegent blend of cognitive awareness, knowing advice and their special teaching method which asks the questions we should all be asking of ourselves. To help our understanding even more, they bring us real stories of real people's experiences - both positive and negative. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know themselves (and others) better. Those who practice the more esoteric healing modalities can also gain much from Dancers Between Realms.