TEA: Can you be too young to understand empathy?
The Empath Accelerator, I know that's an unusual name for an "accelerator" -- better yet, empathy is probably a unique approach for many. However, it's one that more of us should engage in as a tool for personal and professional growth.
Here's why it was important to me to launch The Empath Accelerator (TEA): women of color need more spaces where they can be themselves and completely understood without a need to communicate the why.
But, honestly, I didn't know who would apply and the circumstances that would draw them to such an opportunity. I have a pretty mixed clientele, but the majority are millennial professionals in creative occupations. It wasn't shocking that the millennials applied in larger numbers than older women.
Two younger professionals stood out to me. Typically I look to work with women in their 30s. There's been a couple of reasons for that, the first being that was about the time I received my first spiritual guide from the universe. I had been through enough situations to have the awareness that I wanted to make a change in my life, and I realized that I was the common denominator in all of my problems. We are always at the center of our circumstances, but I didn't know how few people realize that before coming into spirituality. I went to the awakening stages of my journey with that truth, and in doing so, I was more present and responded readily to the guidance. In short, I had already chosen the path with the least resistance.
But in our youth, we are not yet ready for that realization. Truth in our youth is based on the concept of right and wrong as we have experienced it through our childhood lens. That said, certain circumstances in life help us emotionally mature more quickly than our peers of the same age. So, though two of the WOC that applied were younger than most, I still felt drawn to guide them somehow.
Here's what I learned:
You can be too young to experience empathy in the spiritual sense. In the space between emotional maturity and childhood, our very rebellious and resistant aspects are present as we force our own pathway and assert our identity separate from our parents. But, in spirituality, there is no place for resistance. We must accept, and faith is required. In the absence of faith, we lean on curiosity. Though many people are curious about spirituality, which pulls them in as they struggle with belief and try to put language to what they seek, curiosity is not the way of spirituality. In spirituality, there is only faith.
In our faith and in our surrendering to our awakening, we can achieve peace through healing our wounds and learning about what it means to exist. One of the absolutes in spirituality is that you can never return to a less aware state of consciousness, and it's because we are designed to grow and evolve. When we try to return to a place in time mentally before the awakening, we create natural disorientation. It then becomes our choice to act in the new reality or experience the natural consequences of not acting on our own behalf in our new awareness. Even the context of what I just explained can be far too heavy for the immature soul.
But, what you want to know is what happened in the accelerator, right?
So I will tell you that there were two that did have some aha moments and experienced a new level of awareness. Still, fear left them confused and unwilling to take definitive steps forward in the awakening process—fear of what was on the other side of understanding and the necessary action that must ensue.
Let me preface what I need to say about being too young to understand empathy. Everybody is where they are on their journey. All of us move forward through the awakening stages when we are motivated by circumstance or merely by accepting the spiritual path. However, a prominent aspect of awakening is when you begin to have perception shifts.
We learn to express our divinity at random and when we are helpless. This expression or lack thereof is a mark of immaturity-- which is not always synonymous with age. It is the nature of an underdeveloped soul to wait for crises to evolve and yet resist the transformation. One of the younger participants most definitely had begun to see herself in the spiritual messages and the resistance she brought to the experience. What she couldn't connect with was that the guidance was available to her for the sole purpose of grounding her in her new reality. Instead of accepting the guidance as a gift, she rooted herself in fear of change. And, the fear of change or uncertainty is the go-to excuse in spirituality. The very mention of uncertainty in spirituality speaks to emotional immaturity no matter what the earthly age is. Humans have six categories of core needs, and one type speaks directly to the need for change. Uncertainty, variety, diversity, and unique experiences are a few things we must have to keep moving along our path. All of our human behavior and emotions are fueled by the energetic pull to meet specific primary needs that we all share. What I learned here is that some people are unwilling to find the truth in their own existence. Our youth is often filled with distraction, and we become so separate from our soul's essence that we lose our way. Our environments teach us that our experiences are typical and that spirituality and the universal can wait. It is a brief dabbling in the woo woo, or perhaps even something unnecessary.
In contrast, I learned the lesson of carelessness with the other twenty-something participant. If I am honest, we had a participant who squandered the opportunity to heal and experience the benefit of learning and being present in a room filled with women of color. I am embarrassed to admit that because several others would have and probably should have taken her place. My takeaways have helped me to process this shame. I understand that no matter what you have in front of you regarding your circumstance, it is only there to help you realize yourself. I now know more than ever that you can not save someone from themselves. And, you certainly cannot help those that have learned to rely solely on ego.
Spirituality is a part of us all, but it is not everyone's focus in each incarnation. This participant taught me that you can be in one of the most energetically elevated places and still show up wholly selfish and not even know it. What we dismiss in showing up in ego is that it puts us in some of the lowest vibrational energy where you fight to be right and even while having no capacity to understand the reason you fight. Negative energy creates the separation between us and a more tangible connection to Spirit. It is here that the divide expands so profoundly that the light cannot penetrate the density we create when we need it most. The absence of light feeds the ego, sadness, and deprivation. But such a scenario is a construct of our own making.
Spirituality exists to help you find yourself, and when you seek approval from others and try to right wrongs that were never intended for your life, you end up wasting a lot of time and energy and not just your own. I have been blessed to spend time learning from very few spiritual teachers in a one-on-one setting. Each time I hung on their every word because it is rare to experience this. There are hundreds of thousands of psychics that you could google right now, but someone teaching you how to solve your problems from a spiritual perspective and someone that invests in your energy is simply hard to come by. Three of the people that have helped me in recent years on my journey have already transitioned. It's still hard to believe that these guides allowed me to understand my journey and the universe's laws that reside in the unseen world. I appreciate guidance because I overstand that it is priceless. However, the value of anything can only be determined when you have an awareness, when you have lived, and when you have both experienced abundance and deeply suffered.
Any real student of spirituality will always tell you that acceptance of your path must start at the beginning. When you accept who you are and where you are in your circumstances, you understand quickly that the journey is about learning to control the being. Everything else on the trip must be accepted and then examined for truth. Acceptance and soul-level truth may seem simple, but I understand they are concepts that are far too advanced for the soul drowned in ego and still unsure of the purpose of life and spirituality's role in their existence.
With New Age spirituality abundant, millennials have come to rely on the energy of freedom of choice to allow them to be curious, explore, and accept what resonates. Anyone can understand a prediction, but spirituality and spiritual guidance is reserved for higher consciousness. This is a lesson I will hold near as I continue to walk along my journey to enlightenment and continue to guide others seeking the light as well.
Here's why I wouldn't crowdfund again:
In spirituality, there must always be an exchange. Offering this type of service without a tangible exchange, some took advantage of what was being provided, even in the application process. It became apparent that some participants showed up and participated to say that they were accepted. Although, those some souls leaned in and put in work along the path beyond just being in place at the designated times. But, in offering something without an exchange, some did not respect the energy of the space held for them-- a testament of emotional immaturity.
We also had a complete lack of emotional maturity with many of our donors. The Empath Accelerator answered the call of the outcry for healing. Everything about George Floyd calling out for his mother in his final moments in this realm spoke to the need for healing, especially in the African American community and other communities of color. We need more support from people that look like us and understand our experience. Our white counterparts often get it wrong because they feel they are unaffected by the generations of the trauma initiated in this country by enslaving people to the work they were unwilling to do. They believe they absolve themselves of the trauma by not calling themselves racist, marrying outside of their race, and tolerating and agreeing to exist with black people. But when asked or called upon to serve a good cause, most do so with great expectation to direct or control some aspect, and that is not the energy that creates flow in spirituality.
I am not sure what the pathway forward is for TEA. My soul is down for the work of guiding others, but crowdfunding or creating an organization cannot be the only options for such an important project. I will share more stories throughout the month about my experience. It'll be the good, the bad, and the spiritual. If you would be interested in solo intuitive coaching, schedule some time with me here.
If you have a team and would like to consider how pairing emotional clarity and guidance through empathy could improve connectivity, and improve your employees' whole being, let's talk.
And check out the these episodes of the podcast:
Beyond George Floyd and Amy Cooper