To counter all of this, the gusher should first try to center his/her emotions before spewing it out.  Love yourself mentally and verbally by offering yourself a word of affirmation.  Set your intention to clear your emotion.  During meditation, exhale negativity.  Focus on your intuition to find a solution rather than soliciting tons of advice.  Find the answer within.  Center and ground your emotions when you are lost within them.

However, the rock tends to be reclusive and does not take emotional risks unless prodded.  The rock can remain calm in difficult situations but refuses introspection into his own emotions.  The rock can watch a lot of television and take  a lot of naps.  Rocks are not really the most passionate of people even though they are very giving and respect others and wishing the best for them.  They can harbor anger and frustration and refuse to challenge themselves to grow emotionally.

The ways to improve for a rock are first to light a fire to stir things up.  Engage in life.  Remind yourself that showing emotion is a form of generosity just as much as being dependable is.  Keep a journal to express a feeling a day even if it is a negative one.  Try to elicit emotions.  Take a risk to share your emotions with someone by with your mouth and your heart.

Interestingly, this describes a lot of me.  I think even though I have become more emotionally mature, the rock is who I am in many respects.  These blogs are designed for me to become more active and to free myself from the confines of just being.  I really love sharing my emotions more profoundly than I usually have in the past.  It is an awakening for me.  Rocks unite!

However, the downside for an empath is that the empath can be easily overloaded, feel anxious and depressed.  They have a hard time saying no to people’s requests.  They feel tense in a crowded place and can be emotionally drained at the end of the day or after spending time with others.  Orloff believes that many individuals who are considered to suffer from chronic fatigue may be mislabeled empaths.  Many empaths cannot easily handle criticism, as they are overly sensitive.  Sometimes, they are so emotional that they have hard times determining boundaries for their emotions with others and therefore may be less developed in their cohabitation skills and may remain single because of it.

If you have some or most of these traits, then Orloff offers ways to combat the negative attributes while preserving the good features.  First, enlist your intellect.  Use your logic that may not be a typical way for you to respond by saying, “I can handle this situation” and then breaking it down into how you will do so.  Allow yourself quiet time away from all the noise.  Either step outside into the fresh air for a time alone, especially during a bustling work day.  Or, what Orloff (who is a self-proclaimed empath) likes to do is to go to a public bathroom and then just meditate for a few minutes.  She contends that public bathrooms are the only areas of sanctioned spaces for solace and respite.  Practice what she calls “guerilla meditation” meaning that you counter the emotional overload by finding a private place to close your eyes to decompress and to lower your expectations for yourself.  Focus on the exhalation to release all of the low energy vibrations and to get yourself less worried and at peace.  Outside of meditation, she says recall your five most emotionally rattling experiences and figure out a plan to avoid them again.  Learn to say “No.”  As she says, “No” is a complete sentence and a complete response.  No explanation beyond that is required.  If you are overwhelmed in a social environment, have your own means of transportation to leave that situation before you become agitated or flustered.  Before entering a crowd, eat a high-protein meal beforehand to ground you and sit at the periphery or aisle of the theatre or party, not the dead center.  Carve out private space in your home where you can retreat when you are feeling overwhelmed.

Although I myself am very empathic with others, I do not share many of the negative attributes of this emotion but have some friends who now I recognize in them these characteristics.  I think what is wonderful is that even if we are not a certain type of individual we can help recognize who is and not put that person in a vulnerable situation and also teach that person strategic mechanisms to avoid the situation to begin with.

The first emotional type that she discusses is the intellecutal.  This individual is very cerebral, as the name implies, usually using the functions from the neck up to answer problems.  They cannot handle individuals who are overly emotional and cannot relate to others well emotionally.  They are thinkers.  They weigh an issue with pros and cons before making a decision.  There is no gut decision about anything.  They just figure out what they need to do by pure logic, which typically is a very well developed skill set.

For the intellectual, their true weakness is their emotional skills.  They have a difficult time connecting the mind to the body.  In order to overcome this weakness, Orloff suggests yoga and meditation.  Yeah!  That is what I suggest for myself and all too.  Starting with breath exercises, the intellectual can move away from the purely intellectual habit of thinking and to focus on the sensation of breathing.  By using meditation, the intellectual can begin to sense the world rather than think the world.  This exercise is vital for me, who has intellectual tendencies but interestingly I am not this type or am not anymore (as I will mention in a moment).  The second exercise is yoga.  Since yoga requires deep mental concentration to perform, it can stimulate the center of the intellectual’s mind but also free himself/herself from the habit of thinking.  As I perform yoga no matter what clouds my mind before entering the room, I can think of nothing else but my poses during the session.  Yoga can link the mind and the body during the session and cultivate this linking that can hopefully translate into one’s daily world existence.  Finally, the last thing and perhaps the most important is for the intellectual to empathize.  Start with the heart and say the simple words, “I know how you are feeling.”  With the intention set at the level of the heart, the intellectual can gradually free himself/herself from the shackles of one’s own intellectual qualities.

In the past, I used to adore Ayn Rand for her intellectual prose and world view.  I thought emotions were a crippling element but today I realize that I am much more empathic than I would have otherwise believed a few years ago.  These blogs are a method for me to express my emotions and thoughts in well, an intellectual way.  I guess we all can share some commonalities of different emotional types.  I know I certainly do.