In my twenties I started to see these mental images of my girl next door. I was on a holiday in Miami, totally relaxing, and suddenly they came up. The girl used to live in the same neighbourhood where I grew up. And I don’t have any active memories of her, since I was a child back then (4- or 5-year-old), while she was older. But I was told by my older siblings that she was fond of me, that she played with me, and that she would ask for me, whenever she had the time.

The mental images I saw weren’t pretty: they showed me something like their attic, and the atmosphere was nasty. In fact, for some reason I got the feeling that she had been sexually abused by her brother. I told my (back-then) girlfriend about the images, and she was as surprised and shocked as I was. But I pushed the images away. Where did they come from? Were they even true? Some things I wondered. And my life just continued.

Triggered

Not until many, many years later, did the thought of the girl next door come up again. This time it was triggered by a fling in Madrid, Spain, where I was living back then. This time I couldn’t ignore the images anymore. And for my own sake, my peace of mind, I had to figure it out. But where did I need to start? I couldn’t just enter the life of my childhood’s girl next door, couldn’t I? And where would I find her, what would I tell her? Fortunately providence had been on my side: I realized that like 12 years ago she had sent me an email – out of the blue – ’cause of something I had published. So it wouldn’t be a total surprise; we had already established some kind of contact 12 years ago.

Psychic Impressions

So I found her. And I approached her (by email) with the highly necessary carefulness. She didn’t open up immediately (initially I hadn’t mentioned any kind of sexual abuse), but when I started about her brother and some kind of painful, abusive experiences, she apparently felt safe enough to share her complete story. She confirmed the psychic impressions I had, and she told me some things that were really comforting to her. On the day I had to think of her, her husband had passed away. And her late husband had something in common with me, so she was aware of some spiritual and mystical stuff. The fact that I had suddenly appeared was really surprising, but with her mystical knowledge she was less overwhelmed. It meant something to her.

Furthermore, he had been the only one that knew about her sexual abuse. And for some strange reason: now I was the only one who knew about it. As if her late husband wanted to send her a message, and to let her know that she didn’t need to feel alone with her secret. Someone else knew about it, someone she was fond of, when she was young – me. It was a sad thing of course that he had died, so she told me, but at the same time – because of this – she felt some kind of relief and gratefulness; that I had appeared in her life to tell her all this. And I have to say, the feeling was mutual: I was happy I could be of some kind of help.

Eye-opener

This experience had a huge impact on me. And although I was already familiar with doing energy readings for people, this one somehow opened my eyes. As if my abilities had been clouded in a way, and now it had cleared up in a huge way. I do have to say that I had learned a lot about myself, in the time that I was living in Spain. And I had been clearing up my life back then. So in a way it shouldn’t have been surprising, but it actually was. Guess my shadow work started to pay off in that way as well.

Worthy to Receive Energy

Shadow work can be healing in general. But I believe that you can improve your empathic skills even more – clear them up more and more – if you dive into your own trauma’s and shadows. Embrace being alone as well; we empaths thrive when we can charge on our own. It doesn’t mean you should be living like a monk – in fact, I love being with people, to connect with them. But I mean, it’s good to disconnect from people, from time to time, also because we tend to bypass our energy to other people. And last but not least: value the energy you have – we are worthy to receive and use the universal energy that is offered to us. Only then you can be of use for yourself, and the people around you.