5 Self-Care Action Steps You Need If You're An Energy-Sensitive Person

Self-care is the best energy shield or protection around, and my new book Self-Care for Empaths offers 100 exercises, quizzes, and rituals specifically designed for energy-sensitive people. Here are five reasons it's so important for empaths to practice self-care—particularly this year—plus action steps to get there:

Empaths—people who are very sensitive to the energies and emotions of others—need to have a mindful relationship with the news cycle. It's important to stay informed about what's going on so you can be a change agent, ally, and do your part to make a difference. Yet 2020 taught many empaths they need a balanced relationship with news consumption.

If your hyper-perceptive system is frazzled, drained, or overwhelmed, balance reading about the difficult stories with exposing yourself to stories of hope and connection: Listen to an inspiring TEDTalk or watch a video about a community pulling together. Do something to make a difference—whether it's making a donation, reaching out to a friend struggling because of world events, upping your activism, or volunteering. This will make you feel more in control and grounded.

Since energy-sensitive people pick up so easily on the energy around them, it's important they learn to anchor into their own energy—which they can get better at choosing and monitoring. This will be easier some days than others! In a year when a simple trip to the grocery store can be anxiety-inducing, small things like focusing on the beautiful colors of produce you pick out, or the gratitude you feel for being able to still get healthy food for your family might have created a lovely little energy bubble for yourself while you shopped.

Learn what affects your energy in a positive way. Is it listening to your favorite music? Wearing clothes you love? Concentrating on a specific mantra? When you're around people who are dealing with challenging emotions and energy, remind yourself that you can create a little energy bubble for yourself that's nourishing. While you cannot choose your emotions—and it's important to honor the challenging ones—you don't have to just absorb everyone else's.

Where your focus goes, your energy flows. I recently had a client who wanted to get over a past lover and was finding it difficult. "Should I try to sever our energy cord or do some other ritual?" While rituals can be powerful, sometimes the most powerful way we disconnect from someone else or a group of people is to take our thoughts elsewhere.

When you're focusing on something and it's not productive or helpful, only draining, don't fight with your mind—gently give it something else to focus on. It could be thoughts regarding a creative project you're excited about, something kind a loved one said to you recently, or a theme from a great movie you watched.

For many of my empath clients sheltering alone during COVID-19 quarantine, daily rituals were a lifeline. It might have been a morning routine of meditation, pulling an inspiring oracle card, or journaling. These mindful moments to center and ground into your own energy can happen any time of day and often make sensitive people feel calmer, more resilient, and more present.

What daily rituals help you reground and re-center? It might be taking the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood, listening to an uplifting podcast on your lunch break, a gentle Zoom yoga class, a beauty or skin care routine, or reading quietly before bed. These nourishing routines will give you greater energetic stamina to handle whatever's going on in your life or the world.

Learning to identify signs that your energy is scattered is important for empaths—your thoughts might race, you could have trouble concentrating, you may feel more anxious, or you might be short or curt with people. These are indications that your hyper-perceptive system is overstimulated and needs a break. 

It's Self-Care Awareness Month and an ideal time to pause, reflect on your self-care practices, and get more support for yourself.