We were born very sensitive—At first, we didn't worry about the pain such openness would create. 

That is why being in the presence of a small child feels incredible. They don't hold back from showing their true sensitive self.

In that way, children are powerful. 

They can shift the energy in a room in a moment, simply with their presence. 

For adults with unexamined wounds, children are an easy prey. 

First, the adult feels uncomfortable in the presence of so much love and light that they shut down even more. The child feels the separation and the distance. There is no more connection and connection is love. 

The child experiences this as a disruption of emotional safety. 

Then, in order to feel better or regain power, the adult will say or do something to hurt the child, often under the pretense of safety or discipline, e.g. "It's not how we behave.”

Eventually, the child develops a protection mechanism in order to mitigate the pain of the emotional betrayal. That protection ...

This month, I was invited to be a guest on the podcast SecondWind with Joyce Buford.

The title of the episode is Why Highly Sensitive People are Prone to Experiencing Burnout.

In our conversation, Joyce asked me how I was using the word “burnout” in the title of my new book, “The Burnout Antidote: A Spiritual Guide to Empowerment for Empaths, Over-givers, and Highly Sensitive People.”

I told Joyce that I see burnout as a crisis in meaning. What I’ve noticed in the past 10-15 years is this: even if you’ve found your path and purpose and it brings you a lot of joy, you can still burn out. 

In the podcast episode, I talk about my own burnout journey, coming to understand how something that was aligned with my passion and purpose—one-on-one coaching, in particular—was causing my burnout. 

Highlights of our 35-minute conversation include: 

• Investigating the root causes of burnout
• Why do we hold on to trauma
• The power of processing emotions

You can listen to the podcast episo...

Does your day begin with other people in mind? Perhaps you wake up in the morning with the best of intentions to share your gifts with others in the best way possible. You have hopes and dreams for the people you care for, your children, your clients, your patients, your customers, your family, and your friends. You do it because you are a giver. You have a big heart with extra love to give. Nothing is more meaningful or brings you more joy than to help ease someone else’s pain, to inspire them, to care for them, to teach them, to make them feel better.

You are attentive to everyone’s needs. You spend your day, on a sort of “selfless service automatic pilot”, extending your resources to others, whether it is finding creative solutions to improve your clients’ businesses, your customers’ lives, or your patients’ health, listening to your coworkers’ marital problem around the water cooler, offering a helping hand to a charity, organizing a bake sale for your kids’ school or a meal chain ...

Discernment is key here.

If your truth is not integrated within you, and you share it prematurely, two things will happen. First, if the person you are sharing your truth with doesn't understand it and can't see your truth, it won't feel good and you will doubt what you know to be true. Second, your truth won't have the clarity and the precision it is meant to have. It will be difficult to be clear and grounded and not get triggered. So next time you have a personal transformational experience and have understood something profound and life-changing, before you share it, make sure you have integrated the information enough to be ok with the other person's response. What you know is sacred. But not everybody around you is where you are and on a similar path as you. Honor your truth, keep it safe and nurtured with your love. You are the one to validate it. You are the one to believe you. You are the one to be the advocate and the mama bear to what you know to be true. There is a time to...

Fire needs to move, to flow, to express itself. We are used to controlling it, managing it, keeping it under wrap. It eats us up, it burns us out. It’s exhausting to manage our fire. Breathe into the intensity in your solar plexus, trust that your fire is intelligent and has purpose. Allow it to disentangle from your organs and nervous system. Let it unfurl and be set free. Bring it down into your belle, follow it up to and through your throat. Your fire is sacred. Don’t be scared of it. It is to be loved and embraced

This morning when I woke up, I was thinking of the phoenix rising from the ashes, and it reminded me that loss has always brought us back to life. Always. This cycle has never failed us, even in human death. The soul continues its journey, expanding beyond the boundaries of this world. This constant renewal, rebirth, re-emerging from what has died, is the collective truth of our nature as spiritual beings here in human bodies. And right now, there is a brand new experience of reality, waiting for us on the other side of everything that is dying within and around us. How wondrous!

Contemplating our current situation, whatever it may be, not from a place of ego or achievement or results, but with a soft inquiry within our heart, is an excellent practice to help us lean into what is dying to emerge anew. It helps us get unstuck and brings momentum to our process, it brings clarity to what feels confusing.

You can ask: How is the landscape outside of me, the reality out there reflected w...

On the path, there comes a time when you can no longer keep for yourself the knowledge you have acquired along the way and the gifts you were born with. Your healing journey has freed you from the weight of insecurity and doubt, and you sense a deep desire to connect with others and share your own unique medicine with the world. You are an artist in the medium of life, a leader, and you want to inspire, teach, entertain, coach, guide others.

Arriving here is such an accomplishment. We know the bravery it takes to choose the awakened path, to face adversity differently than it was modelled to us, to go against how things should be done, to create from the unknown, to commit to it, and to stay loyal to our light, no matter what. We know the immense freedom and joy we find within, the reward for our patience and our trust.

To arrive at this place is also the beginning of a whole new chapter, a whole new way of being in the world. When we choose to step out publicly with what we know, wi...

Toxic Empathy
Psychologists make the distinction between “emotional empathy” and “cognitive empathy” or “social intelligence,” which is to appreciate what’s going on emotionally with another person without any contagion of feelings. Cognitive empathy allows us to understand that someone is suffering and still want to help, but without feeling what they are feeling. This distinction makes all the difference when it comes to serving and still conserving our energy.
Emotional empathy is a disembodied emotion, meaning that your attention is outside of yourself. You project yourself in the other person’s body, you feel what you perceive they feel.
Emotional empathy takes you out of yourself and places you in the other person’s shoes where you are disconnected from your inner world. You are out of your body and in an emotion that doesn’t belong to you. In the process, you contaminate your present moment awareness. In this state, it is easier to betray yourself because you have lost touch with...