I recently did an interview with a major network where I talked about being an empath, feeling deep emotions and how to transmute them. I’m sworn to secrecy about the details of the interview for now, but I’ll be able to talk about it later this month as it gears up to go live.

Toward the end of the interview, the host asked me, “What’s next for an evolving empath?” and I felt a joyful fire unexpectedly light up inside my belly at the thought of the question… and the promise of the answer for YOU, fellow empath.

Knowing the darkness, confusion, disappointment and total brokenness from where you came, and also knowing the light, playfulness, joy and total POWER of where you’re going, it absolutely delights me to be able to witness your evolutionary journey!

This website was originally created for those in darkness, those who are emotionally overwhelmed and just learning what it means to be an empath and a sensitive soul. This website was created to offer a guiding light, like a lighthouse shining brightly in the darkness to help lost ships navigate their way to safety. Stick Girl and I wanted to help guide you to land, so you can plant your feet firmly on the ground. So you can know how it feels to be anchored and solid and sovereign within yourself.

Because you had been lost at sea, your emotional sea legs were so wobbly, you kept falling down and hurting yourself.

Because you had been beaten black and blue and whipped back and forth by the merciless winds of life, you stopped trusting.

Because you had listened to everyone else when they told you weren’t good enough, you forgot who you truly are.

This website was originally created for the newly awakening, newly emerging empath who was just starting to open her eyes, sleepily, after a groggy lifetime of living in darkness and not-knowing of her true power.

But I never intended for you to stay there, dear one. I never intended for you to be stuck in the newly awakening, newly emerging phase of your journey. I never intended for you to stay in bed, basking in this new awareness, this new glimpse of your power.

I wish for you to keep growing and becoming more of your true self and discovering that your evolution is infinite, there is no end. There is rest, perhaps, a small reprieve to lay down for a while and settle in the mold of the new, emerging you, to let the growing pains subside a bit… but then there’s more.

It keeps going.

You are not done, yet.

And so, to help you out of the initial phase, I want to offer a practice, a tool, to help you move from one evolutionary level to the next. This is for you as much as it is for me. To be completely transparent and honest, I don’t want to write about overwhelming emotions anymore. I don’t want to focus on your pain and show you tips and tricks to get through it. I don’t want to guide you out of the darkness.

Let’s move beyond the darkness together. 

Let’s get into the light and let’s talk about using our power to serve humanity, rather than just figuring out how to survive the day. If you’re still in self-survival mode, there’s nothing wrong with that. We all must go through the evolutionary steps from the bottom up. There are plenty of articles on this site to help you through it. You can start with my Emotional Survival Guide here. It’s free. If you’re beyond the basics of emotional survival, you can dive deeper with my Emotional Resilience course here, and get a taste of your own inner power.

For those who’ve taken my courses or practiced my techniques as taught in the Emotional Survival Guide or any of my other writings, or figured out your own way to break free from survival-mode, the rest of this article is for you.

It’s Emotional-Transmutation 101.

It’s a practice I used in the past to learn how to transmute emotions, how to not only release painful emotion (survival) but also taking the next step (evolving) and learning how to turn that same painful emotion into something powerful and positive.

Make no mistake, this is not about positive thinking. It’s about ENERGETIC ALCHEMY. We’re not just making the best of our pain, we’re literally transforming it.

Allow me to show you how, first, with a true story…

Six months after my dad died in 2013, I woke up to a wet pillow. I had been crying in my sleep. In my dream, I was with my dad and I watched him die. I experienced the pain of his death all over again.

Whether you’re dreaming or awake, the sorrow is real. You can’t tell yourself it was just a dream and make the pain go away. The emotions linger long after the dream has been dreamt.

In the dream, we were walking home together and suddenly he was lying on the ground, on the cold, hard cement of the sidewalk. His chin curled tightly to his chest and he was hunched in an odd, circular way. The look in his eyes was one I’m too familiar with now. It was the same look he had in my awake life the week he lay in the hospital dying of leukemia. It’s the I’m-dying-and-there’s-nothing-that-can-be-done-about-it look that I have not been able to get out of my mind’s eye since.

Some things you just can’t unsee.

A dark crimson liquid began oozing from under his chin onto the gray pavement, staining it red. I touched it and realized it was blood. I reached under his chin with my hand and put pressure on his neck where he was bleeding, not caring that my hand was being bled on by someone else’s blood, not worrying that I had a cut on my index finger.

He looked up at me, scared, pale, a faded pasty white yellow.

I leaned in closer to him and stroked his bald, fragile head. As he breathed out, I breathed in the air he had just exhaled and suddenly I was sobbing, telling him how sorry I was for not talking to him for 10 years, how I wished I could have those years back, how I wished I would have known what I know now about anger, forgiveness and compassion and how sorry I was for hurting him.

As the words spilled out of me, he inhaled my sorrow with his breath and I saw forgiveness exhale out of his eyes. It was as if everything had become our breathing. We breathed in the present moment and breathed out the pain, the regret, the love, the fear, the dying, everything.

It all became the breath.

One breath.

And then the breath left him.

His body was still there but he was gone. And I was left alone with only my own breath and an empty shell of a body in my arms. I collapsed onto his chest and sobbed.

And then I woke up, still sobbing.

Being an empath, I often have vivid, emotionally charged dreams.

Usually I’m able to let them go quickly but the pain of this one followed me throughout the day.

I had recently moved into my own apartment after a difficult breakup and I spent the day unpacking leftover boxes and trying desperately to take my mind off the dream. But the image of my dad bent over inhaling my sorrow repeated itself over and over and I just couldn’t shake it.

What did that mean? Why did he inhale my sorrow? And why did he exhale love in return?

Then I stumbled across an old shoe box I had forgotten about. Inside was a small Weeping Buddha I’d sculpted out of clay years ago. It looked just like the image in my mind of my dad curled up, inhaling my sorrow. Suddenly I knew exactly what to do. Within 10 minutes, my pain had been replaced by a deep sense of peace that penetrated my entire being.

There are several different stories about the Weeping Buddha and how it came to be. One story is that the Weeping Buddha weeps for the pain and suffering of the world. He absorbs the pain for humanity and transmutes it with his own being.

When I hold a Weeping Buddha in the palm of my hand, I feel deeply loved. Maybe it’s the round, delicate curvature of the shape which adds to its softness, but instantly it connects me to my compassionate nature and I feel an overwhelming sense of appreciation to be part of his story and part of something larger than myself that’s unconditionally loving, giving and compassionate.

I realize now that my dad was trying to show me how to not only release, but also transmute my pain over his death. From the other side, he visited me in my dreams to give me my first conscious lesson in transmuting emotions.

Whether you’re an empath, a highly sensitive person or simply one who feels deeply, here’s how to use the Weeping Buddha (or any object) to transmute your own pain.

Note that this could be ANY object. For me, the Weeping Buddha became my personal symbol of transmuting sorrow, but for you, it could be anything else. Follow your own impulses and let the Universe show you your own personal object of alchemy. It could be a rock you found while hiking. Or a piece of jewelry that resonates with you. Or a cross if you love Jesus. It doesn’t matter.

The steps are the same.

1) Find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed.

This is non-negotiable. You must be alone for this, especially if you’re new to energetic alchemy. Eventually you’ll stand with such sovereignty in your own power that it doesn’t matter who or what is around you, but for now, if there’s someone else around, you may absorb their emotions and find it harder to release yours. Their energy can get muddled up in yours and you’ll find it difficult to sort out. Nest yourself in your room, a closet, a bathroom, wherever you can go to be alone and undisturbed. Turn off your phone, the TV and anything that makes distracting noises. If classical music or any other music puts you in a sacred, peaceful state, it’s okay to play it softly.

2) Sit comfortably.

You can sit in traditional Lotus position or any position that makes you comfortable. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the floor, a bed or a chair.  I find that sitting on a pillow on the floor tends to ground me more as I envision roots shooting from my core deep into the earth harnessing its strength and power.

3) Hold the object in your hands.

Hold the Buddha in the left palm of your hand and cup the top of the Buddha with your right. In energy healing, the left hand receives energy and the right hand gives it. You can rest your hands in your lap or hold them out in front of your chest, near your heart.

4) Close your eyes and breathe deeply.

Take a few deep, long centering breaths in and out. Become mindful of the present moment, letting go of any thoughts that arise. Take your time, and if you feel frustration or impatience come up, breathe deeper and let them go too. Continue breathing and turning deeper inward with each breath. If you find it difficult to quiet your mind, count silently as you breathe in and then out. The act of counting still keeps your mind active, but at least it’s not thinking about your To-Do list or what you’re going to make for dinner or how silly you feel. Repetitive counting is a meditative, passive form of activity since you don’t really need to think about what comes after 2 or 3 or 4, your subconscious knows how to count, and often your conscious mind gets bored of counting and finally surrenders itself to the subconscious.

5) Transfer your sorrow to the object.

Imagine that your sorrow is flowing away from your core, from your heart or wherever you feel it in your body, down your right arm, out through your right palm and into the Buddha. Give yourself permission to hand over your sorrow to him. It’s OK. He can handle it, he wants to take your pain from you. That is his gift. And that’s how much he loves you. Sit with this as long as you need to. Don’t take this paragraph with a grain of salt and skim through it. Let these words sink in, deeper. The Buddha WANTS to take your suffering from you. It longs to help you. You are deeply loved and it wants nothing more than for you to KNOW this. This has nothing to do with being Buddhist or not, by the way. The object is just a symbol. Whatever the object you hold in your hand, transfer this knowing onto it and trust that divine source loves you and wants you to be free.

For many, this step can bring up powerful emotion, especially deep old wounds from the past that have never been healed or properly released. Let the pain arise, don’t push it back, fight it or judge it. Keep breathing deeply, allow yourself to cry, wail or sob. Remember that all your emotions are being transferred to the Buddha, but in order for them to be transferred, they must first flow through you. It’s perfectly safe to let them flow.

6) Receive the object’s peace.

When you’ve released, you’ll know. You’ll feel lighter. You may still experience some sadness or pain but it will be noticeably less. Once you start feeling a shift in your energetic field, visualize the Buddha’s peace flowing out of him into your left palm, up your left arm and into your heart and core. Give yourself permission to receive his peace. Let the Buddha take your sorrow and transform it. The Weeping Buddha has an infinite supply of peace and can take on an infinite amount of sorrow. This is why he’s created in the shape of a circle, he’s never ending and curves inward within himself infinitely.

This step causes a deep energetic shift in some. For many of us, we’ve never experienced the unconditional love and compassionate giving that the Weeping Buddha offers. If you feel moved to cry or even weep during this step, know that it’s a natural part of the process of energetic releasing and healing.

And for even more of us, we’ve never moved beyond the step of releasing our painful emotions. We stopped at step 5. We didn’t know there was a step 6 or beyond. We were simply relieved not to feel so much overwhelming pain and sorrow.

But step 6 is where we empaths evolve closer toward what we were created to be and do.

We are alchemists of energy. We are transmuters of energy in motion (emotion) and we can turn sorrow into peace, sadness into joy, darkness into light. Curving inward within ourselves, we discover that we ARE the weeping buddhas of the modern world. We are infinite sources of peace, love and energy.

Eventually, we’ll no longer need symbols like weeping buddhas and we’ll no longer need to hold objects in our hands and transmute energy through them. We’ll know how to do this naturally, in a crowded room, with nothing more than our intention.

But for now, this is how we begin.

This is how we practice becoming.

7) Express your gratitude.

Once you feel as though your sorrow has been transmuted to peace, thank the Weeping Buddha. This step may seem obvious or silly, but I’m amazed how many people get up and put the Buddha away without giving its due honor. Expressing gratitude not only reveals your kindness, it’s also a good mindful practice to develop, and in this exercise, it creates a closing ceremony that supports your transition into the rest of your day.

Plus, the Buddha appreciates being thanked for his service, just like one day, someone will thank YOU for your service of transmuting their sorrow into peace.

One day, someone will say to you, “I don’t know why, but I feel calmer around you, more at peace.”

And you’ll smile to yourself, knowing EXACTLY why. Because you’re an energy alchemist. You’re an empath and this is what you were put here on this densely vibrating earth to do.

You weren’t put here to struggle and survive.

You are here to play and dance with the Universe like the photo at the top of this article.  

You are here to evolve into the powerfully transformative being that you already are.

You are here to become… to come into your beingness… to come home to YOU.

Now, let’s get on with it, shall we?