Guide to Learning Empathy

Empathy, in the psionic world, means to perceive the emotions of another being. Personally, I sort of "discovered" empathy after a while of practicing other psionic skills; it wasn't something I was trying to do, it just came eventually from messing with other things.  It is among one of the worst skills to pick up, but like riding a bike it is impossible to unlearn once you've figured out the knack of it.  Personally, never wished I learned it.

Before learning empathy, you should know what it entails. Personally, I am glad that I picked up empathy. I find it very useful on a day-to-day basis, and it only annoys me once in a while. I can see how others would find it very troublesome though. If you don't want to know what other people are feeling emotionally, then don't learn empathy. Don't learn it just to be cool or because you want to "master every skill!!!". Empathy can be very hard to deal with at times, so if you don't want to be bothered, don't learn it.

It's hard for me to describe how I use empathy, because it's hard for me to remember when I didn't use empathy. I can't imagine not using it - it seems like one of my primary senses now. Imagine not being able to hear anymore. Sure, you wouldn't get annoyed at alarm clocks or bad music, but you would miss out on so much. That is how I view empathy.

Before learning empathy, you should know how to shield. Shielding is your defense against becoming bogged down from empathy. In large public places, like movie theaters, or malls, it's important to make sure you don't receive every emotion of every person around you. It's also important to be able to block one specific person that might be annoying you, or making you feel depressed. Or block everyone except one specific person. Shielding is what allows you to control empathy, and control is required if you want to maintain a healthy mind.

My warnings are legit, trust me, but in the end it's up to you to decide, and to deal with your decision.  You will find out though that even the 'best' out there are typically lying douche bags with conflicting emotions that may or may not help you in making a decision.  If there is always one feeling you will receive from 99.9999999999% you ever meet, male or female, is this:  "what do I get out of it?".  What they feel will 100% of the times not match what's coming out of their mouths.  Depending on your maturity level, you can take this in one of five ways.

1)  "Boo hoo" and wear your heart on your sleeve to get it stomped on.
2)  Learn how to use info to your advantage to turn the table by playing possum and scripting them.
3)  Just laugh a lot, because you understand how stupid their nonsense is.
4)  If they ask, help them but keep an arm's distance.
5)  Ignore them and muddle on with what you need to accomplish. 

The last one is a very difficult position to accept for, again 99.9999999999% of people that have the knack will always fall back into dogmatic patterns of how they approach their own position in the assumption their understanding of a solution is complete.  Most of the times baffling themselves with religion, a god of some kind, anything but the truth of where the source of their problems come from or stop to think about if their position has the merit required to assist.

Remember this:  A scorpion always stings.  A cat will bite.  A bird will fly.  A person will always prefer to listen to their own lies or repeat the lies taught to them by others.  Do not get involved in other people's drama or scripts, they've got their own issues.  Their OWN issues, up to them to work it out 99.99999999999% of the time.

I cannot stress this single point enough.  It is important to note that before approaching learning how to harness empathy that it is NOT your job to 'fix' someone.  All you can do is point out how someone can improve their situation if they ASK.  It is not your job to run around shitting in other people's cornflakes unless trolling or doing it for a lark.  Most people are very comfortable in the corners they paint themselves into, it is not anyone's job in the universe to fix stupid, piddly-ass problems that are easily solved.


Now that I've effectively bored you with cautious chit chat, let's jump into how to do it. 

I personally don't prescribe to the "chakra" theory on things, but when I actually practice empathy, I do feel it in my heart area. When I practice telepathy, on the other hand, I feel it in my head. For that reason, when I actively practice receiving emotions from someone, I visualize a link coming out of my heart, and connecting to the targets heart.  For some people though, their link never stops probing because of obviously mis-wiring somewhere in their lives.  To most people, these people are usually referred to as emotional doormats.

Imagine the link coming out of your heart area, and hitting your target in the heart area. Don't be too rough; gently connect to the person. Then just sit back and wait for some feelings to come through. Beforehand it's usually wise to note how you're feeling, so when new information comes in, you can tell your own feelings from your target's feelings.

Actively connecting to someone and trying to read their emotions is a bit different than passively sitting around and receiving random emotions. To passively receive emotions, the best advice I can give is to just open yourself up to it. I know it sounds weird and a little fluffy, but that's how I did it. It's just a matter of relaxing, sitting back, and opening up to the world around you. Don't visualize anything, just relax, and maybe think to yourself "I wonder what Johnny is feeling?". Feel your emotions, notice changes, and remain passive. It's hard to teach a passive skill because you don't really DO anything. It's passive Blah.

If all else fails, just keep practicing actively receiving emotions from other people, then try to see if you can do it passively. If you have shields up (which you should), program them to receive emotions. Maybe try (carefully) taking them down (if you think you can handle it). Work slowly, be cautious, but try things out too. Stay relaxed and see what happens. Maybe nothing, maybe something? Who knows?

Empathy, in essence, is pretty simple. I think it's something everyone has an instinctive feel for. It's just a matter of exercising it and keeping it under control. Open up, try it out, practice with your buddies, and have fun.  If you can't keep it in line and your life is a mess, you need to learn shields and self control.