Keep working at it, that is basically the message of this blog post.

There will be days when you succeed despite all of your sensitivity and “feeling” in being rooted and strong, present and mindful of you and the “everything else”, aware of the clutter yet able to hold a peaceful space in your mind and so much more. And then there will be other days when it isn’t quite so easy. And that is just the way it is!

Being an empath comes with a huge responsibility to manage what we are feeling; we can be all to quick to point the finger and become victim to what we are sensing if we aren’t accepting of the responsibility that we have to be accountable to our “gifts”. This is a constant skill to be developed in addition to the countless other skills we must learn in order to not only cope but thrive in a world that is constructed on vibrations and energy.

This short post is a quick reminder to just keep trying.

More days than not we won’t succeed, or something will blind side us, or tests will come our way when life triggers our emotional wounds, or we explode after a long day of too much stimulus, or we retreat from our loved ones when things feel wobbly, and so the list goes on. However, the other days will be a success.

You will succeed.

And whether you are at the end of a successful day or a more challenging day as you read this post right now, remember that there are always lessons to be learned, nudges to follow, and new ways to see old challenges. It is in truth, never a failure day.

You’ve got this!

We live in a world where we must balance the “getting out there” with the quiet spaces that all empaths carve out called “alone-time” (this is crucial, if you aren’t making space for peace and quiet alone-time in nature please consider starting). It is not good to avoid life completely; like everyone walking this planet we have something to bring to humanity and hiding away from people and feeling and big energies will not ultimately make us feel good for very long.

The greatest paradox of being highly sensitive is that you will only feel alive around people where you get to use your gifts and skills, the very place that feels too much, too big and too overwhelming.

Trust me, you have got this! Keep testing yourself, keep practicing, keep jumping into as much as you can when it comes to life, career, sports, and relationships. Within all these you will find something that you thrive in and developing strengths here will open you to see that you are strong, and that you can, and then when you can, you will… no excuse: keep throwing yourself in!!

My happy space is sport. I love nothing more than running or cycling in the countryside; near the trees and water and nature. In this space I practice presence and grounding and I have been pushing myself a little on a mission to see just how connected to earth and mind-empty and in flow that I can be. It’s been going well. I love this little test to see just how much I can let go and morph into the vibes of life. If I can master this I will grow in my professional work with clients and my healing work. I will also learn to race with less anxiety and less clutter from others. I am chasing FLOW.

Today I ran a half marathon in a forest;

Portumna forest, Co. Tipperary to be exact. A magical place!.

This is the type of racing that I love; it’s on my territory. I can connect to the trees and wildlife, dig my feet into mother earth, and despite the people and their pain find my happy space. I set these very goals for this race this morning in my journal.

My fitness is slowly improving after what we can just describe as an horrendous year last year of extraordinary challenges and as a result of this health that led to disappointments in sport and a massive loss of fitness and strength. I lost out on a lot of things that I wanted to do. So; sob story aside I have been thoroughly enjoying being back at sport and building my fitness and to be honest super proud of just how kind and supportive of myself I have been. There were some gold nuggets in the tough 12 months… I am choosing to not see the year as a waste, but as a win… just a different kind of win. A personal growth win, a relationship win, a professional learning win, a win in terms of deeper compassion and so much more…..

Anyhow today did not to to plan! I had a race that I am more than happy with as it is progress on my last race; the weather was kind and my boyfriend stormed his race.

But I was a mess in my head with all that I was sensing and then it went into cognitive over drive. I was negative, I had heavy legs one side of the forest and light legs the other, I kept telling myself that I had heavy legs and that I wasn’t on pace or form, let’s stop (what the fuck I thought to myself when that thought hit, I was perfectly fine to keep going), I kept thinking that my gut was about to explode with diarrhoea (it had been off before the race getting worse as we drove to the race location), I was even so irrational to think that I was going to puke at the race finish, and on and on the insanity went in my head.

I was completely aware of this (madness), yet struggling to create my normal happy space, my go to strategy of connecting to the forest, to build a bubble around myself. I focused on not focusing on the negatives and simply allowing..

Anyhow, as you see I (I almost want to say we given my mad crazed head) did push on and get into somewhat of a more positive partially connected space, I told myself that I have legs (awesome!!) rather than lead legs and I started to notice more around me such as the ash, the birch, the giant oaks, the wild roses, the lake and so on. But wow, what a stupid waste of mental energy is all that I could think to myself.

So, I guess this is just an example of that we don’t always succeed AND we do our best. As I sit and write this I am content to say that I did my best.

There is so much going on in a race regarding how much the thinking brain is conscious of, the people around you physically, the focus on “running or racing”, the management of pain and discomfort and breathing, never mind the added extras of heightened sensitivity such as the sensations that are sensed from the realm of energy in terms of your surroundings, the history of the ground under your feet, and what other people are thinking and feeling. The brain (or more correctly the sensing brain) would blow up trying to process it all at once. For me I got a bit stuck in the denseness of it all.

I believe that sometimes all that you can do is keep doing….

I did not want to stop and sit on a bench and ask the universe what am I feeling right now, how can I help/ heal/ understand or how can I simply leave be! This is what I would do in normal life and perhaps with time I can improve on what I do on the go. I have become very good to block out other peoples pain and thoughts normally when racing, but today I was not entirely successful!

In retrospect one lady was vomiting at the race finish. I didn’t see her but my boyfriend later told me. I also sensed some spirit realm beside me at one point (it helped to feel this actually; it was something I could manage then as I “knew”), I am bang on before my period which is always a time of heightened sensitivity, and finally now that I have a little time and read more about the forest (I am curious!) I feel a pang of sadness that the beautiful ash, of which a lot of this forest is, may die in the coming years due to ash dieback disease. This makes me incredibly sad as the ash to me is a beautiful sacred tree of the feminine (please read my other blog here). Here is a little more about the forest and I assume if I dig more there will be stories and history as there always in the local land here. So, maybe I should cut myself some slack… that is what I would tell you after all!

Don’t be too hard on yourself on the less good days

So, take a step back on the less good days; learn the lessons to make the next days great days and just keep loving yourself. Some days we want to curse our sensitivity and empathy; but then could you feel the world and all her exquisite beauty that surrounds you and blows your mind and opens your heart?… no…. so just keep at it, keep believing, keep loving, keep being you.

Xx Andrea

PS the pictures above are of Portumna Forest park; these aren’t mine; I only wish that I had a camera running but I didn’t.

And my doggie, telling me that “Mommy” ran short (race was a tad short), and this is how you stretch if you want to run a little faster with less lead-like legs