This is a book about spiritual energy that can fill you. Elaine Clayton zeros in on perception, listening, and self-knowledge, and shows how to access each of these to become an empath.

“Living as an empath means embracing the ideal of heart-centered intelligence by attuning to the experiences and well-being of others,” she explains.

To be an empath is to see what others may not see and to hear what others do not take in. Elaine Clayton calls this a kind of “knowing from the heart.” She talks about it with a real sense of joy -- saying at one point, “Have you noticed that wise, enlightened people seem to have a sparkle in their eyes or an aura of peace about them?” And she explains that the purpose of such empathy is to live a life of generosity for others made possible “through sensing and quiet knowing.”

Early chapters focus on living empathetically, changing perception, struggling positively with egoic pain, and developing the ability for empathic — or spontaneous — knowing.

Later chapters look at difficulties of an empathetic life: “changing ourselves … is not a comfortable process.” Clayton gets into specific areas for empathy that require practice and fine-tuning of abilities, such as sending and receiving telepathic messages (ch. 8), empathic drawing (ch. 9), and how to “avoid energy vampires” — they want to suck the energy out of you (ch. 11).