Welcome to Gaia! ::

Welcome to the Empathy intro! blaugh

This will be a fairly breif tutorial me thinks... I will just be discussing how to use empathy and some basic sheilding techniques.

Empathy- noun. expiriencing the feelings of another as one's own; also: the capicity for this- empathic; adj.

Basically you feel other peoples emotions so strongly that sometimes you cannot tell the difference b/w the their emotions and your own. To most this gift has to be accessed and so it is not overwhelming. But empaths who develop the gift natually usually have trouble controling what goes in and out, as well as identifying whose emotions they are feeling.

Sheilding

Shields are a key tool when using empathy. They can protect you from getting too emotionally worn out if your in a crowd or around raging emotions.

Each sheild can be unique and especially designed for your needs. You can have a solid wall to block out all emotions, or a more specific one that only lets in good emotions, keeping out stress, sadness, anger and all the other mal-energies.

Since you make shields with your psi, the limit to what you can do with them goes only as far as your own imagination. Niccolo even described one that can keep out mosquitoes by messing with the electric waves in the air. Don't limit yourself.

However, if you only draw on the energy from your own body to make the shield, you will quickly become phisically fatigued if the shield is in constant use; like if your in a crowd for a long time. It's best to 'ground' the shield to something. Have it surround you, but let it have tenticles that reach out and take energy from elsewhere, like the excess energy most people are unaware they are giving off. It's going to be wasted anyway, why not use it for your own needs?

Now, here are some different ways to form a shield around you.

Bubble shield- Summon a psiball into your hand, program it to your needs, and then expand it. Blow it up like a balloon or a giant piece of bubblegum until it surrounds your whole body.

Wrapping- Imagine your psi like a sheet of silk, and envelop it around your body till it's secure.

Liquid covering- Start from wherever your psi is strongest, (i usually start from the top of my head) and have it 'flow' like water from that point to cover your body.

Condensing- summon a good amount of psi outside your body and condense it onto you like a hard shell covering.

I know your going, 'Wait, doesn't empathy have to do with the mind and the emotions? Why am I covering my body?' Because your mental 'psi' energy flows throughout your entire body. If you only protect one spot, like your brain or heart, the mal energy will still get through riding on the constant flow of your own energy. It would be like just protecting your nose from the poison in your bloodstream.

Okaysies! I'm done yapping on this one! As usual, feel free to post and ask questions, or add on anything you like.

I just thought I might add my two cents in on the bubble-shield idea: this one works very, very well. It is the most basic shield, and most every other shield - mirrors, absorbers, and so on - are just changes made to the bubble.

It is officially the most versatile shield... But if you have trouble doing the whole expanding thing, what you can do is make the psiball in your hand and then let it dissolve. Kinda like a mosquito coil, imagine it turning into a cloud of vapour around you. Because mist and stuff is formless, most people have an easier time of visualising this than the hardening bubble.

That also falls under empathy, yes.