Releasing: how do you do it?

[~*Ginger*~]

i'm curious, now that Dragonsinger has brought it up to me, here.

how do you release the pain, anger, illness, and other things that you pick up on, or absorb from others?

I've only just found that this can and should be done.
What I have tried is working with the earth to release negative, and absorb positive, by laying on the ground, or if not being able to do so, trying to ground thru my feet, or wiping down, and past my feet to the earth.

so, how do you do it?
Got any interesting ideas that you've only heard about, but not tried yet?

Talk to me....

[ShamanFeather]

Well you can try sheilding to not pick it up in the first place. I also appreciate the use of Kanzanite which absorbs and transforms negativity, I have also used Tigers eye in conjuction w/ quartz on the really bad environements.

I also have bathed in epsom salt baths and rubbed lemon essential oil on myself and it has helped. I have smudged with white sage and that helps sometimes. A shower can help tremendously even with a lemon based shampoo, I used one from Avalon that was very lemony. I have also burnt lemongrass incense. Sometimes you can breath it out, go in natural bodies of water, sometimes just being in sunshine helps.

[Bethra]

Being a bit of a Qabalah geek I tend to use the Qabalaistic cross a lot.
http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=96051 (http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=96051)

I find this not only works as a sheild but also as a cleansing ritual. It doesn't have to take long amd can be done pritty quickly when needs must. Just the action of steping back from the situation long enough to do this helps me no end. I can then return to the situation with an extra little sheild to protect me and fresh and clear of the negative energy I was building up before.

Other than that salt baths, aromatheripy and meditation when I have more time. The cross takes seconds, you can do it in a bathroom brake if you need to. So it's a wonderful tool for a quick fix.

[Branwyn]

i'm curious, now that Dragonsinger has brought it up to me, here.

how do you release the pain, anger, illness, and other things that you pick up on, or absorb from others?

I've only just found that this can and should be done.
What I have tried is working with the earth to release negative, and absorb positive, by laying on the ground, or if not being able to do so, trying to ground thru my feet, or wiping down, and past my feet to the earth.

so, how do you do it?
Got any interesting ideas that you've only heard about, but not tried yet?

Talk to me....

I have a few ways. If I'm feeling especially "dirty", I'll take a long shower. While I'm doing the physical componants of a shower (getting wet, soaping up, rinsing off) I'm visualizing white light coming from the shower and also in the soap. The white light starts to rinse off the muck, and the soap continues it, with the white light rinsing all the muck down the drain to where the earth can transmute the energy.

Another thing I do, if it's not so bad, is to smudge myself with sage or another blessing herb.

And if things are really bad, I go into Circle and ask my patron diety to help me get it all off.

Hope any of these help!

[Pesha]

Hey ginger love, here is what I do. I do use my sheilds. But there are times when I can't and so I grab onto an inanimate object such as a piece of wood or a chair, anything not living. I pass it out of me into the wood etc. I know the Universe will grab it up and pass it into the Great void. I also take long showers and I call upon the Undines....water sprites...to come and help me cleanse myself. Those are some of my tricks of the ttrade so to speak. HUGS.

BB
DS.

[Teresa]

i'm curious, now that Dragonsinger has brought it up to me, here.

how do you release the pain, anger, illness, and other things that you pick up on, or absorb from others?

I've only just found that this can and should be done.
What I have tried is working with the earth to release negative, and absorb positive, by laying on the ground, or if not being able to do so, trying to ground thru my feet, or wiping down, and past my feet to the earth.

so, how do you do it?
Got any interesting ideas that you've only heard about, but not tried yet?

Talk to me....
I do that and I also take ritual showers and let all the yucky negative stuff flow down into the drain. I often go out into the woods and sit under my favorite tree and left my feet rest on the ground and push out the negative while talking to this tree and thanking Mother Nature for all the beauty I see there.Sometimes I take my offerings to my ancestors with me and visit my outdoor altar afterwards. If I am seeking answers I spend sometime there.

[~*Ginger*~]

Oh, how interesting!
And makes lots of sense.

I do love being able to go to the creek and just let the water take away.
I've often stayed so long as to feel totally drained myself. (never really realising that it was helping in that way...)
I could stay in water all the time if it were possible.

thanks ya'll!

Bethra, I'll check out that link of info. :thumbsup:

[SilverMaiden]

I use the Earth, trees, plants, meditation, standing in the rain/snow and my animals to get rid of the excess energy and to reconnect with the more positive emotions. When I touch my animals empathically it's like touching "a happy go lucky life is so good river." You just can't help but feel better and laugh.

Connecting with nature helps bring me in balance too. Barefoot in the dirt or creek/river is so cleansing.

[Pesha]

My male cat Randell alan silkpaws is an empath. Also his wife Cookie Candypants seems to be also. I have been having a bad dream and felt both of them but more often just Randell rubbing his face on mine and meowing and purrings. I wake up and feel like I have had a bath in sparking water and go back to sleep feeling better. Needless to say Randell is my familiar.

BB
Ds.

[StarCraftLia]

s

[Pesha]

Now that is a great idea. Putting it on paper. I find that very cool indeed. So many different ways are there are different people.

BB
DS.

[MoonDust]

ok this is how I do it. no clue if it's "right" or not, but it works for me.

I close my self of completly. I make sure nothing can penetrate and touch me. I sit on the floor (or lay down with my palms to the earth, if it's really bad).
I sit an meditate for a while.
I let the earth know what it is that I need to do.
And just put it all to the earth.
Imagine everything just draining out of you and the earth's helping you by absorbing it all.
I sit & meditate some more.
When I leave I make sure to leave some sort of offering. I usually do this during a full moon so I poor a glass of milk.

[Pesha]

Yes you do it right hun. Allowing the Earth to take it and disipate it in to the void is a very good way of releasing. I have done it myself.

BB
DS.

[MoonDust]

I love it when people tell me I'm right! :T

[Raintreewolf]

I find, no matter how much I shield, I can not remove the awareness. Other peoples stuff is not clinging to me but they linger with me....the images, the insights...somehow it still gets into my pictorial brain. So, I suppose this is yet another reason why I do ceremony/ritual: the cleansing bath, the anointing, the clearing, the meditating than doin some symbolic physical thing with the images....like this rock is for this thing I saw with this person and I will cleanse and purify it and then give it back to the earth again ( as an example ).Sometimes this take me to my garden where on a nother level I will tend my garden as a way of doing something about things I'm picking up from others....as in, when I plant a seed or fertilise or water or weed, I will put symbolic imagery behing it and channel, with the help of nature good energies back to those who need it....( doing somthing, acting on the knowledge I have gained seems to help.)

Another form of this I do through creating.....While I create, it is long a long meditation and it gives me plenty of time to process and think what I need to do with something i have picked up. Sometimes I just need to do theropy art work either ofr myself or another to help work through something.

So, Does anyone else know about the concsiousness one gets even if shielded? Or is it poor shielding on my part??

[~*Ginger*~]

For your question, i'm not sure...

I do know that from reading your post, that I miss my plants, and having a place to be truly 'creative.
i am 'mis-placed' at the moment, but have hopes and dreams of correcting this... :fishtank:

[Raintreewolf]

For your question, i'm not sure...

I do know that from reading your post, that I miss my plants, and having a place to be truly 'creative.
i am 'mis-placed' at the moment, but have hopes and dreams of correcting this... :fishtank:

((((hugs)))), Being displaced is very difficult...I hope the place for you happens soon!

[~*Ginger*~]

Yeah, being displaced sucks! :sick:

thanks for your hopes, it means alot!
:hugz:

And just realised that i'm more a plant person than an animal person...

[Pesha]

Then the plants are blessed for it dear. Stop worring so much ginger. Being empathic has no real right way or wrong way. no hard and fast rules as to what you are supposed to be feeling.You experience things that are natural to you. Just as I or anyone else has their strong points. Relax and enjoy this amazing gift and give loads of light and love to the plants. :hugz:

BB
DS.

[Kalika]

I clean like a madwoman. :) Seriously... for some reason, cleaning my house helps me to cleanse everything out of myself as well.

[Kalika]

So, Does anyone else know about the concsiousness one gets even if shielded? Or is it poor shielding on my part??

Meaning....?

Are you still aware of what others are feeling/thinking? If so... you may need a stronger shield, or you may not be shielding effectively. What do you use? Typically, something that's easy for you to imagine (for me, I "build" a brick wall) is going to be most effective.

[TakingWing]

~WATER~ *does a spritely dance*
showers, baths, rivers, ponds... the water takes the world away and leaves me clearheaded...
(hmm.. now that I think of it.. maybe that's why I'm so grumpy if I don't get a shower first thing in the morning and just before bed...)

I'm also a writer and fanatic cleanser... I agree with Kalika.. cleaning your home and personal spaces seems to clear out everything else.

[MysticWitch]

Sometimes I can't let go of anger so Im like this...:aburst:
Other times I make a cup of tea and relax

[Crystal Raven]

k, here I go sounding stupid again...
when we moved in here there was a fairly big 3 x 3 (if not a touch bigger)rock in the yard but it was gorgeous white quartz, with a black piece that looks like a the eye of a face and I just knew this "rock" could help me, so I hauled it into the house and up to my room...

k, i didn't realize this was a "method" but this is what I do when I am over whelmed...
I go to my "rock", lay both my hands on it and pour all the bad stuff I have picked up over the day into it. It doesn't seem to mind as long as I give it a splash with water once a month and a moon bath (on my balcony)

[Xerenity]

I usually write, get vocal about the negativity, pace like a lion in a cage, or just think of a tree with it roots littered with garbage and allow the rainfall to wash away everything. I also like to listen to Heavy Metal/ loud rock & roll music and let the drums or the bass guitar player would their fingers through my soul and carry away the "bad" energy.
Everyone is different in their approach to "emptying" themselves but the general consenses is meditation and water; a very close runner up is stones or wood to carry away the negative.

[Pesha]

Alot of times I just raise my hands up to the sky and chant a releasing chant and feel it flow out of me.

BB
DS.

[Kalika]

Punch something.

But seriously... a pillow, the bed, a punching bag... giving it a physical outlet helps me the most.

Oh, hey look... I replied to this already. :p Oh well!

[Lunacie]

Punch something.

But seriously... a pillow, the bed, a punching bag... giving it a physical outlet helps me the most.

Oh, hey look... I replied to this already. :p Oh well!

Yeah, seriously. I may have posted this already, but when I used to reach the boiling point I would take a small block of wood and a hammer and I would "create splinters". :hahugh: Very theraputic.

[brymble]

all the shielding and cleansing in the world won't do you a bit of good unless you are aware of your own power. you need to be able to separate what thought patterns, emotions and energy is yours and what belongs to other people before you can either shield or purify effectively. otherwise you might end up taking on other's energy as your own, and "sealing" it up with your own when you try to shield, or wind up feeling drained when you try to purify. before you can choose what energy to let go of and what to allow into your personal sphere, you have to be aware of it, not just on an emotional level ("i feel so much pain here!") but on an intellectual and spiritual/archetypal level as well ("my friends are in pain, but it is not my pain, and i cannot allow myself to take it on or feel it for them if i'm going to be able to function myself or help them through the pain at all.") it's easier to let something go if we know where it's coming from.

so i think being well grounded is the first step. but i think a few words need to be said about grounding, because i think a lot of people, especially empaths, who may be more in touch with others at times than with themselves, have only a vague or underdeveloped idea of what grounding is. we think of grounding as being "in touch with the earth" but it must go way beyond just visualizing crystals or tree roots. when we are grounded, we are psychically rooted in the physical earth, the here-and-now, and fully present in our own bodies. it is in this state only that we can begin to sort out the energies around us. we must be fully aware and present in our own bodies, feelings and power before we can shield, purify or actively take on the energies of others.

empathy is a gift, but as i'm sure everyone here is aware it is a gift of shadow. for most empaths, the "gift" arrises out of surviving circumstances that may be painful and dysfunctional or even violent and abusive. many of us have taken on the role, in our families of origin, of "feeling" for everyone else, being the "bad" child or the trouble-maker or the scapegoat so that our family (or "tribe", if you will) as a whole won't crumble with the psychic weight of it all. however, if we are to fully mature as individual adults and fully come into our own power, we cannot continue in that role. we need to be able to separate our own energy from that which we have taken on. in the long run, you are not helping anyone by taking on their energy or feeling their emotions so they won't have to. that pattern is co-dependent and dysfunctional and ultimately damaging to everyone.

for those who are struggling to claim their own power, i want to recommend some resources that have been helpful to me. caroline myss's cd's the three levels of power and how to use them, available from soundstrue.com, have been very enlightening in terms of helping understand the spiritual aspects of what my own power is and where it is going. the works of dr. harriet lerner have been helpful in understanding family systems theory, and the psychology of the "tribal" sources of power-loss, particularly the dance of anger, the dance of intimacy and fear and other uninvited guests. finally, anodea judith's classic work on the chakra system, wheels of light has been helpful to me in understanding the nature of grounding, what is going on on an energetic level and how to heal in the physical, emotional/intellectual and spiritual realms. these books may be found second-hand in used bookstores or on the internet, or in larger public libraries, for those who are struggling to heal themselves with limited funds.