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Are you sick of feeling like an emotional sponge? Do you walk into a room and immediately absorb the mood — picking up everyone’s stress, sadness, or anxiety as if it were your own? If you’ve been struggling to figure out how to stop absorbing negative energy, I want you to know: this is one of the most common things I hear from my community, and there is a way through it.

I spent years in deeply codependent relationships, wide open, soaking up other people’s emotions and thinking they were mine. Sometimes I even thought their pain was my fault. It drained me, it blocked my psychic abilities, it blocked my success, and it blocked my purpose. I don’t want that for you anymore.

In this episode, I’m sharing my most powerful tools for empath energy protection — the exact ritual, prayer, mantra, and daily practices that transformed me from an exhausted emotional sponge into what I call a healthy empath. Watch the full episode here:

Are You an Emotional Sponge? How to Know If You’re an Empath

Before we get into protection tools, let’s talk about whether this is actually you. An empath is someone who is highly sensitive — not just emotionally, but energetically. You don’t just notice what others are feeling. You absorb it, often without realizing it’s happening.

Here are the signs you’re an empath:

  • You instantly sense when someone is upset, even if they haven’t said a word
  • You absorb the emotional tone of a room the moment you walk in
  • You feel completely drained after spending time around intense or negative people
  • You struggle to separate your feelings from someone else’s
  • You carry other people’s problems in your body — hours, sometimes days, after the conversation
  • You find yourself over-giving, struggling with boundaries, or feeling responsible for fixing others
  • A stressed or angry person walking into the room makes your chest tighten or your stomach knot — without them saying anything at all

If you’re nodding along, you are almost certainly an empath. And here’s what matters most: your energy field is wide open. That’s not a flaw — it’s actually an incredible gift. But without the right tools, it leaves you vulnerable to taking on energy that was never yours to carry.

Why Empaths Absorb Negative Energy (And Why It’s Not Your Fault)

Here’s the truth that took me years to understand: empaths don’t absorb negative energy because they’re weak. They absorb it because they’re ungrounded.

When you’re not grounded in your own energetic body, your field merges with the fields around you. You become a conduit for everyone else’s emotional weather. Low vibes, fear, stress, grief — it all flows in, and because your system is so sensitively tuned, it registers as your own.

The other thing that can happen — and this is important — is that empaths can swing into protection mode. You feel so bombarded that you start building walls, blocking everyone out, shutting yourself off from connection altogether. But blocking energy is not the same as protecting it. When you’re in full blocking mode, you miss the beauty of genuine connection. You miss the feeling of being safe in the presence of others.

What I want to help you build is something different: an energetic filter. Not a wall. A shield that keeps low frequencies out while still letting love, guidance, and real connection flow freely in.

That is the healthy empath. And you can get there.

The 3-Step Empath Energy Protection Ritual

This is my morning empath energy protection ritual — three steps I want you to practice every single morning. Do this before you leave the house, before you check your phone, before you step into the world. Practice it for 30 days and watch what shifts.

Step 1: The Bubble of Light Visualization

Close your eyes. Visualize a bubble of golden light surrounding your entire body. This is your protective shield — but I want you to think of it as a filter, not a wall. It’s an energetic field that surrounds you completely, designed to filter out low vibrations and let only positive energy through.

Now envision the edges of that light becoming solid — like breathable glass. This glass lets love in. It lets intuition and guidance in. But it keeps emotional noise, negativity, and low-vibe energy firmly out.

Take a breath and feel that golden light all around you. Feel its warmth. Feel its protection. You are sealed.

Step 2: The Sacred Command

With your golden light in place, speak this command out loud — or quietly to yourself if you need to:

“I am the gatekeeper of my energy. I only allow love to enter and only love to leave.”

This is not just an affirmation. This is an energetic instruction to your nervous system, your field, and the universe. You are not a sponge. You are not available to carry what isn’t yours. You are a conscious, protected, loving presence — and you decide what gets in.

I say this every single morning. It takes thirty seconds and it changes everything about how I move through the world.

Step 3: The Cord Cutting Prayer

This third step is for the moments when you’ve already picked something up — when you feel drained, triggered, or energetically tangled with someone else. Place your hand on your heart and say:

“I retrieve any positive energy I may have lost and remove any negative energy I may have picked up. This is not mine. Remove it.”

Now take a deep breath. Feel your power return to your center. Feel your energy come back to you. This is how you reclaim your source.

Free Cord Cutting Meditation

The cord cutting prayer is powerful on its own. But when you pair it with a full meditation, the results go even deeper.

I created a free cord cutting meditation to help you physically feel the release of another person’s energy leaving your field. In the meditation, you’ll visualize the person standing before you and literally cut the energetic cords of attachment between you. Most people feel their nervous system settle in real time during this practice. Some feel a full-body wave of relief.

The other remarkable thing? The people on the other end often feel it too. After practicing cord cutting, I’ve heard countless stories of people receiving an out-of-the-blue text from the person they cut cords with — or that person simply fading from their life entirely, no longer having a hold on their energy.

This is especially powerful if you’re going through a divorce or separation, trying to release a toxic relationship, or feeling like someone has a persistent energetic grip on you.

👉 Access the free cord cutting meditation here

Practice it alongside the prayer for the next 30 days. You will feel the difference.

The “That’s Not Mine” Practice: Your Instant Pattern Interrupt

Even with a morning ritual in place, life happens. A stressed colleague walks in and suddenly your chest tightens. A friend shares a problem and three hours later you’re still carrying it. Your boss is in a bad mood and your whole body goes into knots.

In those moments, you need a pattern interrupt. Something immediate. Something that breaks the energetic merge before it takes hold.

That pattern interrupt is three words: “That’s not mine.”

When you feel yourself absorbing someone else’s emotional state, pause. Get still for just a moment. Then say it — out loud if you can, silently if you need to:

“This feeling belongs to them. That’s not mine.”

“No amount of you carrying their energy can actually help them. You staying in your light is the greatest gift you can give.” — Gabby Bernstein

You are not dismissing the other person’s pain. You are not being cold or uncaring. You are recognizing the truth: you holding their energy in your body does not heal them. It only depletes you. The most loving thing you can do for someone is stay in your own high frequency, because your light is far more useful to them than you feeling drained.

“That’s not mine” releases you from their storyline. It relaxes your body. It reminds you where you end and they begin. Use it as many times as you need throughout the day.

The Healthy Empath Mantra (Use This Daily)

Once you’ve cleared the energy, you need something to anchor you back in your own field. This is the mantra I’ve been using for over 20 years. It has saved me more times than I can count:

“I am a clear channel. I do not absorb any energy that is not mine. My energy is sacred and protected.”

Use this mantra in your morning ritual. Use it before difficult conversations, crowded events, or any situation where you know the energy is going to be intense. It is your reminder of who you are: a clear, sacred, protected channel — not an absorber.

The Difference Between Blocking Energy and Protecting Energy

This distinction matters, so I want to be really clear about it.

Blocking is what happens when you’ve been so overwhelmed for so long that you shut down. You stop feeling. You put up walls. You become guarded and closed, and while it provides short-term relief, it also cuts you off from genuine connection, intuition, and the joy of being an empath.

Protecting is different. Protection means you stay open — open to love, to connection, to your own intuition — while creating a conscious filter for what you allow into your energetic field. You’re not shutting the world out. You’re becoming discerning about what you let in.

The bubble of light is a filter. The mantra is a filter. “That’s not mine” is a filter. None of these tools close you down — they make you more powerful by keeping you in your own frequency.

When you’re a healthy empath, you can sense the energy around you, recognize it as not yours, and actually alchemize it — meaning your presence lifts the frequency of the room rather than being dragged down by it. That is the gift. That is what we’re building toward.

What Happens When You Master Empath Energy Protection

I want to paint you a picture of what life looks like on the other side of this work — because it’s worth it.

When you consistently practice these tools, you move from feeling overwhelmed and highly sensitive to feeling safe and energetically aligned. You stop managing everyone else’s emotions and start channeling your own gifts. You can sense and process the energy around you without taking it on. Your intuition gets clearer because it’s no longer drowned out by other people’s noise.

People around you start to get the memo — energetically, before you even say a word. They sense that you’re not available to be dumped on. They feel your boundary even if you haven’t spoken it. The external world responds to your internal work.

And perhaps most importantly: you stop giving from depletion and start giving from alignment. You become more compassionate, more present, more genuinely loving — not less — because you’re no longer resentful, drained, or carrying what isn’t yours.

This is the healthy empath. This is your birthright.

Your 30-Day Empath Protection Plan

Here’s exactly how to put all of this together into a daily practice. Commit to this for 30 days:

Every morning before leaving the house:

  1. Close your eyes and visualize the golden bubble of light surrounding your body
  2. Envision the edges becoming solid — breathable glass, filtering out all low vibrations
  3. Say out loud: “I am the gatekeeper of my energy. I only allow love to enter and only love to leave.”
  4. Recite the healthy empath mantra: “I am a clear channel. I do not absorb any energy that is not mine. My energy is sacred and protected.”

Throughout the day, whenever you feel the merge:

  • Pause. Get still.
  • Say: “That’s not mine.”
  • Take a breath and feel your energy return to center.

When you feel especially drained or tangled with someone:

At the end of 30 days: Notice how your energy has shifted. Notice how people respond to you differently. Leave a comment and tell me what changed. I read them. I want to know.

Frequently Asked Questions About Empath Energy Protection

How do I stop absorbing negative energy from other people? Use the 3-step empath energy protection ritual every morning: visualize a golden bubble of light as a protective filter around your body, say the sacred command (“I am the gatekeeper of my energy — I only allow love to enter and only love to leave”), and use the cord cutting prayer whenever you feel drained. Practice daily for 30 days for lasting results.

What is the bubble of light visualization for empaths? It’s a visualization technique where you close your eyes and imagine golden protective light surrounding your entire body — not as a wall, but as a breathable filter. The edges become solid like glass, letting love and guidance in while keeping emotional noise and low vibrations out. It programs your energy field to filter for frequency rather than facts.

What is a cord cutting prayer? A spiritual practice for releasing energetic ties to another person. Gabby Bernstein’s cord cutting prayer: “I retrieve any positive energy I may have lost and remove any negative energy I may have picked up. This is not mine.” Place your hand on your heart, say the prayer, breathe deeply, and feel your energy return to center.

How do I know if I’m an empath? You’re likely an empath if you instantly feel others’ emotions as your own, feel drained after being around intense people, absorb the mood of a room when you walk in, struggle to separate your feelings from others’, and carry other people’s problems in your body long after conversations end.

What is the healthy empath mantra? “I am a clear channel. I do not absorb any energy that is not mine. My energy is sacred and protected.” Repeat this daily — in your morning ritual, before difficult situations, and any time you feel yourself picking up low frequencies.

What does “that’s not mine” mean for empaths? It’s a pattern interrupt — three words you say the moment you feel yourself merging with someone else’s emotional state. It releases you from their storyline, relaxes your body, and reminds you that carrying their energy doesn’t help them. Your light, not your depletion, is the greatest gift you can offer.

How long does it take to feel a difference with these practices? Most people notice a shift within the first few days — particularly with the bubble of light and “that’s not mine” practices. For a deep, lasting energetic reset, commit to the full 30-day plan combining the morning ritual, the mantra, and regular cord cutting meditation.

Gabrielle Bernstein is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, spiritual teacher, and international speaker. Her books include The Universe Has Your Back and Super Attractor. She has been teaching energy protection and empath tools for 20 years. Subscribe to her YouTube channel for weekly spiritual guidance.

dear gabby #314 Apr 20, 2026 emotional wellbeing

how to stop absorbing negative energy & set psychic boundaries as an empath

[00:00:00] The following podcast is a dear media production. 

 Hey there. Welcome to Dear Gabby. I'm your host Gabby Bernstein, and if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means that you're ready to feel good and manifest a life  beyond your wildest dreams. Let's get started. 

 Are you sick of feeling like an emotional sponge, like you're picking up everybody else's low vibes? I know I am. So in this episode, I'm gonna teach you five simple spiritual tools to protect your energy as an empath so that you can stay compassionate without becoming depleted. So how do you know if you're an empath? 

An empath is someone who's highly sensitive and they're really sensitive to other people's emotions and energy, and you're also sensitive to the energy of other people's inner states, often feeling like their state is your own. You can take it on as if [00:01:00] it's your own, and you instantly have this sense when someone's upset. 

Okay, I know you're raising your hand. If you're out there and you know this is you. You can absorb the emotional tone of the room. You can feel super drained after being around really intense people or even negative energy. You can struggle to actually separate yourself from other people's feelings. The problem is actually that your energy field is wide open, and when you're not grounded as an empath, you can start to overgive. 

You can struggle with boundaries. You can take on emotional burdens and low vibes without even realizing it. But the good news is, is that when we get you to a place of being a healthy empath, you can start to become this very clear conduit. You can sense the energy around you and recognize that's not mine, but also begin to alchemize the energy around you so that you can be a really positive force in the room. 

Really begin to use your energy as a tool, as a super attractor power that [00:02:00] allows you to really use your feelings and your vibration to create impact and to create the life that you really wanna live. Another thing that can happen to an empath is that you can get into protection mode where you start to feel like. 

I gotta really block other people's energy. And what happens is when you're in that place of blocking, you're really missing the connection. You're missing the opportunity to feel safe in the presence of others. So I'm gonna give you the practices today to start to feel safe inside, to feel more grounded in your body, and to know that you do have the power to protect your energy in any given moment. 

That you are not the victim of the world, that you see that other people's energy does not have to be yours. You can start to create the internal and physical boundaries to help yourself feel more safe. So how do you protect your energy? If you're an empath, you build this protective shield. I'm gonna teach you my empath energy protection ritual. 

You're gonna use this three step morning ritual to protect your energy so that you can stop absorbing other people's negativity. [00:03:00] And the first step is the bubble of light. Before you leave the house, I want you to close your eyes. Visualize a bubble of golden light protecting you. It's like a protective shield that's gonna surround your entire body. 

It's not a wall, it's a filter. It's this energy that's surrounding you to filter out any negative vibrations and only let in what's positive to shield yourself with gold and protective light. And then I want you to use this energy light as a seal. I want you to envision the edges of the light becoming solid. 

It's like breathable glass and it's letting the guidance and love in, but it's keeping the emotional noise and all that negativity and all that low vibe energy out. So you've now sealed yourself with this golden protective light. Then I want you to say a sacred command. This is something I say every single morning to make sure that I am really grounded with my own authority and [00:04:00] boundaries so they don't pick up any other people's stuff. 

Here's what I say. I'm the gatekeeper of my energy. I only allow love to enter and only love to leave. I'm the gatekeeper of my own energy. I only allow love to enter and only love to leave. What you're doing when you say that command is you're really setting up an intention with the universe. I am not a sponge. 

I am not picking up what everybody else is putting out. I am living with a protective shield that is only giving off love and only receiving love. Everything else is not mine and what is not mine cannot enter my consciousness, cannot enter my realm. Cannot enter my energy field. Now let's try this together. 

Okay? I want you to gently close your eyes. And I want you to visualize this bubble of golden protective light around you. Just feel that light surrounding your entire body. I want you to envision the [00:05:00] edges of that light becoming really solid, like glass, but breathable, and this glass. Starts to let guidance and intuition in, but it keeps that emotional noise out. 

It's gonna really protect you from the low vibrations, and I want you to repeat after me. I am the gatekeeper of my energy. I only allow love to enter and only love to leave. Say it again. I am the gatekeeper of my energy. I only allow love in. And love to leave gently open your eyes. Now, notice how you feel inside. 

Do you feel more boundaried? Do you feel more grounded? Do you feel like you've set up an energy wall of protection? And just notice how that feels inside your body. And I wanna tell you why it works. It's working for you because you're programming your brain and your energy field. To start to filter for frequency.[00:06:00]  

You're not just filtering for facts, you're filtering for energy and frequency. So when you want to set yourself up in the morning, you can return to this part of the episode and just repeat these steps really, every single morning for 30 days. Just come back to it, memorize it, and then do it every day for 30 days, and you're gonna see how your energy shifts. 

You're gonna see how people respond to you differently. There's also this thing that happens when you start to create energetic boundaries inside is that the external world, the people around you start to get the memo. They get the memo that you're not open for business. They get the memo that only good vibes are allowed and that they cannot just dump on you. 

So these energetic boundaries speak really loudly. They speak way louder than your words, and you can really recognize that your work that you do in the morning to set yourself up and to protect yourself can dictate the energy that you receive and give all throughout the day. Definitely try this for 30 days. 

I really wanna see what happens for you. The next step I wanna talk about clearing negative energy. How [00:07:00] can we clear negative energy, right? How can we do this? And this is why I wanna teach you this clearing practice. This is a clearing technique for releasing your energy and cutting the cord. And this is one of my favorites. 

It's called the cord cutting prayer. This is how you stop absorbing negative energy when you feel drained by another person's bullshit. Try this cord cutting prayer. You are gonna place your hand on your heart, and you're gonna just say simply and clearly. I ask that I retrieve any positive energy that I may have lost, and remove any negative energy that I may have picked up. 

This is not mine. Remove it now. Say that with me. I retrieve any positive energy that I may have lost and I remove any negative energy that I may have picked up. This is not mine. And just take a deep breath. Just feel your power return to your center. This is how you reclaim your energy. This is how you reclaim [00:08:00] your source of power. 

You can take this step further by giving yourself the practice of using a cord cutting meditation. I created a gorgeous cord cutting meditation totally free for you. Just click the link in the show notes and you can practice it, and it's a practice that can really help you recognize those moments when other people's vibes are really coming on to you and you're feeling like you're that spongy energy again. 

Maybe you get triggered by somebody, maybe you're feeling their low frequency. Just go practice this cord cutting meditation and I'll help you cut those cords of attachment. Uh, it starts with that prayer, but the meditation will really help it lock in for you. You'll actually feel the other person's energy moving off of yours. 

It's that powerful. Now for the next step, if you're an empath, you need this affirmation for energetic protection. You don't just notice what others are feeling. You actually often can emerge with their feelings, so your emotions become so blended with the other persons that sometimes that person can just walk into the room stress, and you suddenly feel [00:09:00] your chest tighten. 

You can start to feel your energy is clenching. You feel like you're shut down, or if a friend shares a problem with you and then hours later you're still carrying that problem with you, and maybe you feel it in your body. Maybe you're ruminating on it and you're holding it for them, or maybe you have a boss who's angry all the time, and it puts your stomach into knots just to be around them. 

In these moments, you actually need a pattern interrupt. You need to unblend with the other person's energy. You need to pause. You need to just be still for a moment and clear that energy. This is when you can say to yourself, this feeling belongs to them. That's not mine. This is when you're really being clear with the universe that that's not mine. 

You're not dismissing them, but you're recognizing that no amount of you holding their energy can actually help them. And no amount of you being drained and your energy carrying theirs can actually get them to a better place. So instead, you're just really being clear and boundaried and you're saying, that's [00:10:00] not mine. 

That's not mine. And when you say this. That's not mine. You're actually being of a higher service to the other person. This is an affirmation that when I realize I'm carrying somebody else's energy with me, or I'm walking around feeling like I'm drained from other people, I just say this out loud, that's not mine. 

And what it does is it actually releases me from their storyline, and it just helps me relax my body, and it just reminds me. It's not my responsibility to hold this for them. It's like my friend Mel Robbins says, let them right, just let them. This simple practice of saying that's not mine puts you into a really powerful state where you recognize the distinction between the energy that you wanna carry and the energy that you wanna let go of. 

And most importantly, what vibrational frequency do you wanna remain in? What is it that you're gonna do to protect your energy? You are now a conscious creator of the energy in your [00:11:00] life. You have an antenna up that's saying, nah, not for me. If you're gonna bring that in my space, I'm just going to say clearly to myself, that's not mine. 

And this really is recognizing that that feeling belongs to them, not you. This is the greatest gift you could give the other person, because like I said, no amount of you carrying their energy is gonna help them. And the more boundaried you are and the more clear you are about what you're not willing to pick up, the more loving and compassionate you can be. 

Because you're not resentful, you're not feeling drained, you're not feeling their burdens. You stay in your light. And by you staying in your light, you bring a positive frequency rather than draining yourself with their low vibes. So really use this tool that's not mine. Take that with you. 

I know exactly what it's like building a business and showing up for a community while [00:12:00] that inner critic is still running a million miles an hour in the background. I know it. And as an entrepreneur and a mother, I have realized that no matter how much external success we achieve, that internal programming can still try to keep us small and make us doubt our value. 

And we talk about energy and mindset on this show all the time, but sometimes you need a specific toolkit to dismantle those stories, those old stories, and stop apologizing for your ambition. And if you know, you should be more confident and sure of yourself, but your brain second guesses that and criticizes you all the time. 

There's a podcast you need to listen to. It's called The Unfuck Your Brain Podcast, hosted by New York Times bestselling author Kara Lowenthal. Kara is a two times Ivy League grad, and what I truly appreciate about her approach is how she helps women identify. The invisible scripts we've all been handed. 

Kara shows you exactly how this programming is messing with you, how it's messing with your confidence, and she [00:13:00] shows you how to change it so you can speak up for yourself. And on the show, she blends psychology with a deep understanding of how society and sexism shape our internal dialogue. She also brings on incredible guests like Tori Dunlop and Mel Robbins to share their wisdom on changing limiting beliefs. 

The purpose is simple. So many women can finally. Separate who they really are from who the world told them to be. With over 56 million downloads, it's clear this message is changing lives globally. If you're ready to take control of your thoughts, listen to unfuck your brain wherever you get your podcasts. 

Every chapter of a woman's life asks for something different from her body. And if we're being honest, those demands can feel relentless. As an entrepreneur, as a mother, and someone who is deeply committed to my fitness and wellness, I feel like I'm constantly navigating a high risk hustle era between recording these podcasts and messaging my team and just so much going on, and that's why my energy is the most valuable. 

Currency and Ag one is one of the things that shows up for [00:14:00] me on. All levels to keep my energy moving and flowing and going. And I've made it a non-negotiable part of my morning routine because it's that one simple thing I do for myself before the rest of the day, before my coffee even. I have my ag one. 

It's just one scoop in eight ounces of water, one and done. I've got my vitamins, I've got my digestion going, I've got my superfoods, my probiotics, my antioxidants. It's all in this one serving. It saves me time and it's making me feel good. And this is the next gen. Formula now people, it has more vitamins and minerals and is clinically proven to fill those nutrient gaps that women face at every stage of life. 

So Ag one now has over 50,000 verified five star reviews and comes with a 90 day money back guarantee. So visit drink ag one.com/gabby to get a free morning person mug plus a one week supply of Ag one samples with your Ag one Welcome kit When you first subscribe, that's drink ag one.com/gabby. Drink Ag one.com/gabby. 

That's drink ag one.com/gabby.[00:15:00]  

When you master these energy clearing techniques, you're gonna start to feel like you're able to clear that negative energy in seconds. You're gonna take your power back. You're gonna have this beautiful energy of the healthy empath, and you're gonna start to serve from this place of energetic alignment and a place of safety inside, not sacrifice. 

You're not gonna be drained anymore. So when you're not busy managing everybody else's energy and emotions, you can actually become the healthy empath. This is where I want you to get to. This is what I want for you. You move from the feeling of being overwhelmed and highly sensitive to the feeling of being safe and energetically aligned. 

In that place of alignment, you can actually sense and process energy without taking it on. You're allowing your light to flow, you're allowing your inspiration to move through you. And so I wanna lock this in with you with what I call the healthy empath mantra. This is something I've been using, like I [00:16:00] said, for probably 20 years. 

This is one of my biggest tools. I love this. It saved me every single time. You can use this mantra for energetic protection. You can use it to stay in that energy of the healthy empath and you can use it also in the moments when you notice you're picking up some low frequencies. This is your mantra. 

I'm a clear channel. I do not absorb any energy that is not mine. My energy is sacred and protected. I am a clear channel. I do not absorb any energy that is not mine. My energy is sacred and protected. I want you to repeat this whenever you need to protect your energy. This is your way to stop absorbing the low frequencies and start really leaning into what's yours and what's not. 

And step two is I want you to use the empath protection ritual. Every single morning. You're gonna visualize that golden bubble of light around you, and you're gonna affirm that you're not picking up what anybody else is putting out. Use that golden bubble. Walk out [00:17:00] into the world shielded before you even start your day. 

Then the third step is use that mantra. That's not mine. That's just not mine. That's not mine. Repeat it over and over again. That's not mine. That's not mine. Because what you say when you put that out there is you are distinctly defining what you wanna pick up and what you don't wanna pick up. You're creating a clear boundary. 

You're sending a message to the universe, and you're energetically sending a message to other people. I am not open for business. I am not here to carry your shit. That's not mine. The fourth step is to clear that lingering negative energy with the cord cutting prayer, but also I want you to use the free meditation I'm giving you. 

You can use this meditation for the next 30 days. The cord cutting meditation is a practice of visualizing that person standing before you and literally cutting the cords of attachment. When we have this practice of cutting those energy cords. We can physically feel the relief [00:18:00] in the moment that it happens in the meditation. 

You can feel your entire nervous system settle. And the interesting thing that happens is that other people feel it too. You might notice that you get a message from that person that's like, Hey, I'm sending you some love. Or maybe that person just disappears from your life and just no longer bothers you. 

It's incredible how this practice works. I really recommend doing it regularly, particularly if you're going through a divorce and you feel like your ex has this really strong hold on you, or if you are trying to uncouple yourself from a situation. This is a practice that you can do where you behind the scenes clear the space for that cord to be cut and the energy to be clear, and you let the universe do the rest. 

This is a powerful practice. And then step five. I want you to repeat your healthy empath mantra regularly. I want you to affirm that your energy is sacred, that you are protected, that you are safe inside, that you don't have to pick up other [00:19:00] people's stuff. This is not for you. You have more power than you think. 

And listen, my friend, my heart is so open to you because I lived for so many years in very codependent relationships. Wide open, taking on other people's stuff, thinking that it was mine, thinking it was my fault even. And this just drained me and it held me back and it blocked my psychic abilities. It blocked my success, it blocked my purpose. 

I don't want that for you anymore. I want you to release the attachment to other people's stuff. And even if you just choose one of these tools today, you're gonna feel a radical shift inside. You're gonna feel a sense of safety inside. You're gonna feel a sense of agency. A sense of knowing that I am not the victim of everybody else's shit. 

I have the power to create healthy boundaries, to be a healthy empath, to lead with compassion and love, but not get drained at the same time. This is your opportunity to just take one of these tools, practice it for 30 days. Maybe  

 start with the cord cutting [00:20:00] meditation. You can download it again at the link in the show notes. 

 And if you're anything like me, you don't just want the tools, you want to understand what's underneath them. So before we wrap, I wanna give you something extra if this episode resonated with you. And if you're recognizing yourself as someone who feels. Everything very deeply. Then I want to help you understand why this happens on a deeper level. 

So I'm gonna share with you a very powerful conversation I had with Intuitive healer, Wendy Osa. In this clip, we go deeper into what it actually means to be an empath, and we talk about why we take on other people's energy and what's happening in your nervous system and your energy body when that occurs, and this is gonna help everything that you just learned land in a much more grounded and lasting way. 

 So I just wanna define empath for a moment for people to answer this question or just to talk about this, which is that an empath is someone who feels the energy [00:21:00] of other people through their sentient body, and a lot of times that's emotional energy. Oftentimes being an empath gets equated with. I'm an empath, therefore I take on the energy of others. 

But the true empath is someone who feels the energy of other people and taking it on is overly empathic. It's a different experience in the body. I think that in my experience, and when I was writing my book, becoming an Empowered Empath, I realized that a lot of people are having empathic experiences without really necessarily identifying as an empath. 

 Mm-hmm. I'm just gonna unpack this for one second that you just said. We can be an empath but not be a overblown empath, I suppose. Right? Like   

 So I actually never really identified as empath 'cause I do pride myself on proactively and consciously not taking on the energy of others as often as possible. 

And when I do doing whatever I can to release that. But I do feel the energy of [00:22:00] others very, very deeply, and in some cases, particularly the most intimate connections in my life. The feelings I have for other people's energy I do take on. So that's a big topic that I hear a lot of our listeners bringing in, which is I'm practicing my manifesting and my retractor methods and I'm doing all of that stuff, but my mom just has all this low vibe energy and I just can't get rid of it. 

My husband is so negative and I come home every day and it's just like taking me down. Or What do you say to that person who may lean positive? And in many situations may not be overly empathic. Mm-hmm. But it's just feeling like they are being drained by a person close to them.  

 Yeah, it's interesting 'cause I might even loop back co-regulation in this. 

There we go. Answer in that. In that I think we think of emotions as good, bad, right, [00:23:00] wrong. And not everybody does, but we see darker, heavier emotions as, you know, it gets lumped into unhealthy or we've gotta get rid of that. And we see like good, positive, happy, joyful emotions as, yeah, we want more of that. 

But what happens here is we're human beings. We're multifaceted human beings who have human emotions, and all the emotions are part of our spectrum. And as someone who's, whether identifying as an empathic or not, when we start to increase our capacity. To be able to sit with the heavier emotions or the darker emotions, the more intense emotions. 

We actually as empaths increase our capacity to be able to hold space for people to be in their emotions because they don't scare us. Overly empathic experiences happen in fight, flight, or freeze responses, so it's [00:24:00] when we. Don't know what to do. When we've contracted on some level, the energy will transfer over because in that moment we've lost a split second connection to our own sense of being in regulation with ourselves. 

So when we do that, we aren't really co-regulating with the other person because we're actually in a freeze response and in that moment, energy transfers. And then here we are now. How do I just reregulate in my own being to be able to respond to that or to be able to be in relationship with that? The deeper practice in how we stay with ourselves in relationship with others on an empathic level is increasing our capacity to be okay with, I'll say, the heavier or darker emotions. 

Not calling them bad or wrong. Literally, I call it the shame blanket, like there's shame, and then underneath it is the heavier emotions, and [00:25:00] sometimes we have to go through the shame blanket to get to those emotions that are just as important and powerful and necessary for us to feel that is part of this. 

Co-regulation piece with others is that if I'm able to be with my own emotions, I know exactly what fear feels like. I know exactly what anger feels like. Exactly. You know what all of these guilt feels like. Therefore, I can recognize when someone else is in it and I won't go into fight, flight, or freeze. 

 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I wanna really say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to all of that, because. In my EMDR therapy, my therapist, Tammy, who we have a whole episode with, talks about how we expand our window of tolerance. Like any kind of trauma work that we do expands our window of tolerance and puts us into a place where our nervous system is in a different space, right? 

We're able to hold more, we've processed more. We're not [00:26:00] living in that chronic state of fight or flight, and therefore we can actually tolerate. More like, it might even be just like tolerating more stimulus. Like I, prior to doing a lot of my trauma work, I, you know, it was like I couldn't handle like bright lights or concerts or just, you know, it was like I couldn't understand like, why do I hate going to a concert? 

Oh my God. It was too much stimulus for me. And so, yeah. You know, and now seeing how I can go to a concert, right? So it's really seeing the difference. Now let's say somebody has done a lot of work and they have. Really noticed that they have a larger window of tolerance to handle stressors and whatnot. 

But there are closed people in their life that have chronic negativity.  

 Mm-hmm.  

 Or, um, chronic upset and that's their own stuff. Right. That's their own story.  

 Mm-hmm.  

 But how would one actually, even with the best skillset behind them and the best work of drama therapy and stuff, what would be some practices for. 

[00:27:00] Coexisting and co-regulating with people like that.  

 I might even suggest transparency with the person, and this is a power of an empath, is that they are vulnerable and transparent and clear and empowered. Empath, when you say those things, I do feel affected. I'm not sure how to respond or how to be in relationship with you when. 

I am offering some advice and it feels like it's not enough or it's not good enough. It makes me wonder if there's anything I can ever say that will fill that cup, or if my advice isn't helping or our discussion isn't helping. How would you? Fill that cup. I might even point it out to them. And this would be somebody who, like you're saying, has done a lot of work and has themselves, is with themselves and understands I can make a choice around who I wanna be in relationship with. 

And then there are the people that we will know for our whole lives, and we're probably related to [00:28:00] that. You can't, it's like, I'm going to relate to this family member or this person, and I have to, and so I have to learn in myself how I wanna be. In my center and in my being. And some of that might mean I'm willing to speak up for when I notice when I might feel my body contract or I feel like I wanna walk away. 

 Mm-hmm.  

 When I hear this, and it doesn't mean that you're making the other person wrong, but it's about naming for myself what happens in my system when I hear you say that quote unquote to the person.  

 Or like, I'm noticing that I'm feeling uncomfortable with your shutdown or your distance or whatever. 

 Mm-hmm.  

 Is, and then what would be the next, what would be the  

 next, I might even say something like, it seems to me like you might be shutting down and I'm wondering if [00:29:00] there's something I'm saying that is scaring you. 'cause it is not necessarily an overt fear, but it might be something that's getting touched. 

Is there something I'm saying that might be making you uncomfortable? I might even name the fear, the feeling that might be there.  

 Could you say like, I notice that you're shutting down and that makes me feel sad. Yeah. And I'm feeling sad.  

 Because if you're an attuned empath, likely you're picking up the same quality. 

 that correct? Interesting. Yes. And here's the thing about empaths too, is that we were often raised in environments where people weren't naming the subconscious experience. So. People weren't naming or owning the energy, so there was a lot of projection in the space. There might've been shaming and blaming, there might've been yelling and screaming. 

There might've been different experiences going on in those early years. But the empath, [00:30:00] learning to have a voice and name exactly what they're experiencing is moving from deeply subconscious. I don't know who I am in this dynamic right now to Uhuh. I know exactly who I am and how I'm feeling in this moment, and I'm noticing that when I'm feeling this way, I need to say something. 

I notice that I feel sad when you shut down and I'm giving voice to our deeply subconscious or to the silent experiences is very powerful for an empath to do,  

 to highlight how big what you're suggesting is because some folks. In IFS therapy, I'll just use the example. I've, yeah, recently got become obsessed and did the training and I'm gonna keep growing with this. 

What you're saying is very similar, of course, it's all the same when you're in self, when you're in self-energy,  selfer energy, which is your undamaged, [00:31:00] adult resourced part of who you are, then you can say calmly and without affect and just generously. It's not always about what we say, it's about the energy through which we say it. 

And I just wanna highlight this because some folks who have not done any personal growth work, or haven't done any spiritual development or anything where they can start to one, know what it feels like to be in that undamaged resource self, right? Or two, let alone go underneath the shame blanket. Right. 

That's a lot. It's a lot. What could that person, which I think is the majority of my listeners. These are folks who've done a lot of work on themselves. They're in therapy, they have coaches, they have done a lot of work, but they still may have not gone through that shame blanket, or they still may have not understood fully and completely what showing up in self would feel like, right? 

 What is not a stop gap, but. What can that person do to stop taking on [00:32:00] the energy of others and be a little bit more effective and fluid in their life and their relationships when they don't have that broader awareness?  

 So I think that the shift and it opens up a door to like, honestly, my entire book, but I'll say, I was gonna  say, other than Read Become an Hour An Empowered Impact. 

Right. Read the book. Right. Everyone just go get the freaking book. Okay. Yeah, go ahead.  

 Yeah. In the energetic system, shame. Has a lot to do with what we hold from the waistline down energetically. I work with chakras, so I would say those are the first three chakras of the body. They often are also our relationship power centers and how we are in relationship with our social constructs, our family of origin, our intimate partnerships, and with ourselves and our emotions. 

Interestingly enough, they are power centers, meaning we hold immense power in those areas, but they're also [00:33:00] steeped in conditioning, and that conditioning can be. The systems we were raised in, that can be church, family, school, whatever country culture, it can be any system and everything we marinated in prior to seven years old. 

That's deeply subconscious. The reason why people become overly empathic is not because of what's going on from the heart upward. That's where they're consciously living and saying, I don't wanna be taking on the energy. I'm doing the work. I understand it conceptually, I'm getting it. The work at this point, from my opinion and my perspective, is actually everything from the waistline down or solar plexus, basically base of ribs down that we hold and we aren't necessarily. 

Conditioned, or it's just not modeled to go into that subconscious energy that we hold in that area, those areas of the [00:34:00] body. And keeping in mind, we coexist. There's two qualities of energy that coexist in those power centers. The self and the conditioning of the collective and our personal family and all of that energy is when we are. 

Triggered or when we are not connected to self or we use the word grounded. And I don't mean that sometimes I think when we say things like, this person isn't grounded, it's a shaming term in that case. And there are reasons we might not be. And it has to do with the energy we hold in the first three chakras of the body where there literally isn't enough flow moving down in that area of the body because there is energy. 

Stuck there, there's blockage, and when there is that and we come up against the world on that subconscious level in our social constructs, the energy we take in from the world around us is literally. Intermingling with the lower [00:35:00] chakra system and we can't stay with Selfer Center, so we move up higher in the body where we can stay high functioning and shifting that pattern has us deeply clearing what we're holding in the first three chakras of the body. 

So literally, our soul can come back down into those power centers and we can find power and self, and we can find power in anger in a good way. You know, if we come back down into our body, we find our boundaries by feeling the sense of self in that area of the body.  

 What's one practice that someone could do today to ground in that center in in the lower chakras? 

 I would say that one practice is the grounding cord, and that would be I, it's sometimes depicted as a skinny, energetic. Meridian or cord from the tailbone to the center of the earth. I like to widen the image to include the sides of [00:36:00] the hips, the low belly and low spine, kind of like a pillar or a tree trunk and extending that deep into the earth. 

And then imagining just with some breaths, and maybe we could do a couple Yeah, please. A minute of it. 

 Okay. Mm-hmm. So we'll just imagine here that this hoard is holding the sense of security around your low hips, low belly, and low spine. That's the top of it, and it extends deep into the center of the earth. 

And to take about maybe 10 deep breaths. You don't have to do all 10 right now, but as many, it can be 10 minutes of breathing any amount of time that you have to [00:37:00] allow all the energy that's up in the head and in the heart. 

To be shared with the lower half of your body. And the affirmation I might give in this case is I belong here in my lower body, I belong here. This is my body, this is my power, this is my sense of self, the source of my intuition. And my boundaries. I belong here, 

and you can spend as much time as you need to allow our energy to take a deep seat in your sit bones, your tailbone, your legs, and your pelvis and your belly. [00:38:00] Just so that you feel that there's an evening out of energy between the upper body and lower body. We're not losing the upper body consciousness. 

We are expanding it into the lower body, and then you can spend as much time as you need to here for anyone listening even up to 10 minutes. But notice that our thoughts. And our responses and our actions come out of our consciousness. And when we're in our upper body consciousness, our thoughts, our responses, and our actions might be different than when we start to come down into our body, our thoughts, our responses, and our consciousness might shift when we go about the world from. 

That grounded place. Notice the difference.[00:39:00]  

 If you love this content and you love this podcast and you wanna get more, Gabby, I want you to subscribe for weekly spiritual guidance. It's a big vision of mine this year to grow this podcast, to grow this community. So please share this episode with your friends, subscribe, stick around for the miracles. 

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 Hi there, Gabby here. This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I'm not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.