Self-Care for the Self-Aware

em•pa•th / émpˈæTH/ N: a person who can experience the thoughts, emotions, energy and direct experiences of others

Many people identify themselves as empaths, but few know how to use this skill effectively. When understood and used correctly, the burden of empathy can be a divine gift for the betterment of all humankind. After years of misunderstanding and denial, the author was forced to better comprehend his empathic abilities in the most unusual of circumstance. The catalyst was an atypical evening with friends in several bars. Not having drank anything other than water the entire evening, Dave Markowitz got drunk.

This opened up a whole new wave of clients in the following years. Over 90% of them had seen multiple practitioners yet still suffered from acute and chronic conditions. Their hopes of healing, their bank accounts, and their trust and faith in themselves, medical practitioners, and sometimes their higher power were constantly getting crushed. Medical doctors to shamans hoped for the best, but the best these clients could receive was an occasional and temporary relief of the symptoms. True healing could not be found. Clearly, something was missing.

What was missing is now found.

Dave’s new bevy of clients had three distinct commonalities:

• they’d done a large amount of self-growth and healing work yet nothing had permanently shifted their pain or illness;
• they had an overblown sense of responsibility;
• and they were all empathic.

These clients often wondered why they were still unwell, having done all of the things recommend by the experts. Dave danced on the shoulders of the giants in the field, and was able to intuit that a combination of the above-stated commonalities were a recipe for much more than a temporary sharing of energy and emotion typically associated with empathy. There was an addictive quality to being an emotional and energetic sponge. What untrained empaths take in— stays in. This led to pains and illness that could not be traced, understood, or healed by conventional or even well established alternative methods of healing. Simply put, the empath’s symptoms were not their own.

For example, if a friend is going through a difficult time, I naturally want to help out. As an empath, I can absorb the energy of my friend and begin to feel what he’s feeling. In a small amount, this can be a great thing; it can increase my compassion. But over time, an untrained empath can unknowingly develop symptoms of pain and illness that have an origin outside of the personal self; compassion is usurped by empathy due to a misunderstanding and misapplication of responsibility. The author knows this absorption process to be true because when energy is returned to its original source through a method described in this book, the empath heals even long-standing conditions.

We all know that metaphysically speaking, we are all one, but oneness does not have to include a lack of boundaries and an unhealthy empathic response. To do so is an invitation to become dangerously enmeshed with others. Empaths typically and often unconsciously avoid certain situations and people to prevent this unhealthy enmeshment. At best they have applied commonly accepted techniques that the author has found to only be useful in the short term; however, when using these walling techniques, there is no deep-seated learning or permanent transformation. Self-Care for the Self-Aware details vastly healthier responses for the empath. It offers linear, easily applied, long-term protective solutions so that the empath doesn’t take on or keep unwanted energy.

Self-Care for the Self-Aware documents five powerful concepts and simple corresponding action steps. Dave intuited these to help himself and other empaths see our burdens transform into healings and realizations. Empaths learn that their skills—when worked with as described in the book—are a divine gift that can benefit all of humankind. Through detailed concepts and action steps, this book teaches the readers how to prevent themselves from becoming an emotional sponge, and introduces an incredible powerful exercise called Return to Sender that harmlessly “gives back” the misplaced energy, emotions, and more to their original owner with permanence. Return to Sender as described in the book provides immediate shifts and incredibly effective long-term results. The author states that in almost two decades of healing work, he has never seen a more powerful exercise that offers so much clarity to an often-desperate client. Overall, this work lets the empath know they’re not alone, and that there is hope for what they’ve learned to believe was hopeless. Self-Care for the Self-Aware can help you transform illness into health, eliminate pain and embrace freedom, and convert confusion into clarity and direction.