Thriving as an Empath

September 2, 2019
Orloff (The Empath’s Survival Guide), a psychiatrist on the UCLA Psychiatric Clinical Faculty who specializes in treating highly sensitive people, provides a practical guide of daily prompts and intentions for each day of the year. Combining “self-care practices, perspectives, and meditations” from ancient traditions with the science of modern psychology, Orloff guides readers in becoming “a compassionate, empowered empath.” An empath herself (one with paranormal abilities to sense emotion), Orloff structures one-page meditations to capture the changing emotions of the seasons: “Going Inward, Sensing Truth” for winter, “Growth and Rejuvenation” for spring, “Passion, Play, and Abundance” for summer, and “Harvest, Change, and Letting Go” for autumn. Therapeutic topics include “Opinions Are the Lowest Form of Knowledge” (“empaths tend to take others’ judgments too seriously”) and “I Am Not My Mother” (“empathic children instinctively want to help their mothers and may inadvertently absorb their anxieties”). She also includes passages about the East Asian bodhisattva Quan Yin, the Hawaiian Ho’oponopono Prayer, and Shakti, the force of Hinduism. While bringing so many sources into a daily meditation book creates a compelling overview, short sections dedicated to lesser-known traditions risk oversimplification, like Native American animal medicine in “The Jaguar Meditation.” However, this will be an effective practical tool for sensitive people looking for daily meditations.