Curses happen, and they happen often. We even refer to swear words as curses, because they ARE. I've said this before, and I'll say it many times over. Our words have power, massive power. So, we need to be mindful about how we use our words. And when words are weaponized against us, we need to know how to alchemically transmute their energy into powers that serve us. As empaths, we are particularly susceptible to the power of curses, but that also means we can be particularly powerful in our intention to transform them into good.
The Biggest Curse
I think the best example of a curse I endured that I can offer you is depicted in the second chapter of my divorce memoir The Gift Inside the Wound. My first marriage ended as a result of the biting words of a very powerful curse, the most powerful. Just two little (but very strong) words.
A school teacher, a supposedly spiritual man who practiced daily meditation, spat out the two words intending to pierce my eardrums, break my heart, splinter my soul.
F u c k Y o u
He stabbed me repeatedly with those two huge little words and told me he wanted a divorce so he could live the life of a celibate monk. . . His verbal assault felt worse than the date rape I endured in college. I was left with a massive wound, a giant gash in my earth. While he didn’t use the c-word at me that day, and he didn’t physically rape me, his words felt like the deepest violation I had ever endured in my thirty-nine years on the planet. When it was all done, my entire world shifted. An earthquake, and I was left gripping the edge while he stepped on my fingers.
As a result of that day, and that curse, I spent the next several years watching everything in my world crumble. I not only lost my marriage and best friend, but many other things in my life "died" from that curse, and I spent the next few years rebuilding. My home, my career, my family relationships, my friend connections, my finances, and even my health all suffered major setbacks and disruptions.
When an Empath is Cursed
For years after my then-husband cursed me with his F-Yous, I told therapists that I literally felt like his words were more than just words, but were some kind of energetic curse. No one believed me. That made the curse even worse because I was fighting it entirely alone.
Curses are REAL
But to this day, I still believe that words have power, and curses are real. When my therapists said "curses aren't real" and told me some kind of "sticks and stones" bullshit I questioned myself and my values. Watch any super-hero, witchcraft, or Harry Potter sorcerer magic movie and you'll learn that the spells and curses most certainly have power. My therapists challenged my experience of FEELING the power of words. As a result, once I did get back on my feet (no thanks to them), I vowed to never ever let a curse break me like that again.
Curses Make Empaths Question Ourselves More
As empaths, we question our thoughts and moods all the time. I've said it before, and I'll say it many times over. Empaths absorb the feels of others so that we can process them and put them back out into the world as LOVE. But, because we absorb so many of the moods and feels of others, so it's difficult to know what is ours and what is someone else's that we need to process. All we do know is that we need to compost all feels and put them into the world again as LOVE. As empaths, when words are spoken (or written) to or about us, we question them, are they real? or are these feels we need to transform? Are they mine? Or are these someone else's twisted perspective of me? What do I need to do to change this? What did I do wrong that made this person feel this way? What's wrong with me? (isn't that the most common question we empaths ask about ourselves...what's wrong with me?...ugh).
Curses Amplify Empath Feels
When an empath is cursed, the energies we feel are amplified. While other non-empaths can easily brush things off as "that's bullshit" or "that's just so-and-so dealing with their own shit", for us, when we feel a curse, we not only feel the direct assault on ourselves, we also feel the fear/anxiety/pain that caused the person to say the curse in the first place. Damnit, as empaths we explain away other people's offensive behavior all the time because we FEEL why they do things. It sucks! If we don't do the work to counter-act the curse, we can end up royally screwed in so many ways...as evidenced in my divorce memoir story. It will not only make us question ourselves over and over, and over-think everything, but it could then burn our hormones into new patterns that keep us questioning and over-thinking in perpetuity.
Curses Are Empaths Call to Action
As empaths we can't NOT feel the pain of the person cursing us. It's like the spirit or soul of the person doing the cursing is calling to us for help. Any expression that is not love is a begging to return to love. So we help! Our job is to transform that pain for them, and give back love. And we want to stop the pain, because we FEEL it and it hurts, so we need to heal it. So down come our boundaries. Down come our defenses. And we set to work, transforming, healing, processing, and turning pain into LOVE.
Forget Fight of Flight - Empaths FREEZE & FAWN
Supposedly the two stress responses in the human system are fight or flight. But for empaths, it's two different F-energies. Freeze and Fawn. When we feel stress, be it our own or someone else's, we FREEZE first because we don't know whether the stress we feel is as a result of something in ourselves or someone else. In freezing, we don't know quite what to do, so we play dead until our slow-processing can catch up. Then we FAWN, which means we spit out LOVE in anyway we know how. Because that's our job! We absorb the pain, we process it, and we spit it back out as love. We are the world's love recyclers!
This is our super-power. This is what we are good at. This is our life-purpose as energy sensitives, light-workers, healers, or whatever you want to call yourself. It's what we do. So we do.
and it hurts
and it's exhausting
and it depletes us
How to CounterAct a Curse
But how do we protect ourselves?
Again, my answer is what I always say, MINDFULNESS.
When we are cursed, we need to be extremely mindful about how to engage in the world, especially with those who curse us. We need to process that curse and transform it without boomeranging the toxicity anymore than it already has. (because we know that if we meet pain with more pain, it only amplifies and karma becomes the biggest bad-ass bitch demon we don't want to face).
So we need protection. Here's what I've learned to do.
1. BREATHE
Oxygen is the greatest healer. I've said it before and I'll say it over and over and over again because we need to breathe, over and over and over again. Breath is the greatest catalyst to change. Oxygen is the greatest healer. Taking a deep focused breath is the best way to instantly heal yourself of all woes. And a deep focused breath can change the energy of a curse before it does any damage to you at all. To learn more, take my Focused Breathing Online Course.
2. Protection Charms
We did it as kids, so naturally. But somehow between childhood and adulting, the power behind our protection charms got diluted.
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words will never hurt me.
I'm rubber and you're glue
what you say bounces off of me
and sticks to you.
As children we used these simple and memorable rhymes to counter-act curses. While they didn't fend off everything the bullies said or did, they certainly helped, at least a little.
Protection charms are simple affirmations. I apply 3 rules when creating a protection spell for myself.
Keep it short and simple. A protection charm is a message that we are sending along our body's wiring meant to change (or reinforce) our body chemistry. The simpler the message and coding, the easier it is for your body to process it.
Phrase in the positive. If you repeat the curse in the negative, for example, if I were to say "I'm not fucked" my brain is still hearing the word "fucked" and that only repeats the curse. Instead, I would say "I am blessed." Remember, we are empaths, and our job is to emit love, so our messaging needs to always be phrased in positive love language.
Repeat OFTEN The more you repeat a sound or phrase, the more your brain sends that message along the highway wiring of your system and tells your body to believe it and become it.
BONUS - Use Poetry. And if they use any kind of powerful poetic device (rhyme, alliteration, meter, etc.), even better. The poetic nature of sound has a more powerful impact on your nervous system. Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" is an excellent example of a powerful protection charm using poetry. The phrase "phenomenal woman, phenomenally, that's me" is a protection charm I have used over and over again because the repetition of the f, m, n, and w sounds are repeating the feminine energy of woman. I have used this protection charm specifically when I've dealt with sexism or sexual harassment.
3. Use Water
The absolute BEST way to dilute and cleanse a curse energy is to wash it away. As soon as I recognize that I am dealing with a curse, I go to water. If I know that someone I deal with has a habit of cursing me (if even unconsciously), I go to water. If someone has been consistently toxic for me, I go to water. You get the drift (pun intended). GO TO WATER! Here are a few ways I use water to cleanse a curse.
Drink water while being cursed. Whenever I received texts, letters, or emails from energies that feel rather funky, I drink water while reading them.
Wash your hands immediately after. As soon as I leave the energy of the toxicity, I wash my hands while consciously thinking, "I wash this down the drain" and I literally watch the energy go down the drain and away from me.
Take a shower. if the curse is particularly potent and strong, take a full on shower or even a sea-salt bath. The water will wash away the worst of it, and the sea salt will absorb even more.
4. Kill It & Kindness
Notice that I didn't say "kill it WITH kindness." I said Kill It AND Kindness. The best way to kill an energy, any energy, but particularly a toxic cursing energy is to give it absolutely no more energy. To let it starve. Walk away. Don't Look Back. And then, go scatter kindness everywhere else! If you reject the curse entirely by not even acknowledging it at all, and then go on to live your life of goodness, you will replenish yourself with more goodness and eventually not even feel the yucks. The concept is simple, and exactly in line with our purpose as empaths, to put more love in the world. After you have suffered the blow of a curse, treat it as if it is a non-entity, and go give your energy to those who need to be blessed. Scatter love and joy and kindness everywhere else.
If you are an EMPATH who has suffered greatly from a curse, or you are challenged by a toxic person, mentoring with me will help you find your own protection charms and other ways to protect yourself.
Take the FOCUSED BREATHING course to start your protection spell process.