When Two Worlds Are One
On empaths, work, and the quiet cost of keeping ourselves split
So it begins. I now have two publications here on Substack (at least for now).
Reflections from The Temple and Big Empaths, Tiny Spaces
Over the past several years, I’ve been in a not-so-quiet internal resistance to allowing what I believed were two distinct personas in what I do in this world today: my inner-focused transformational work (transformational life coaching, sound mediations, conscious-connected-breathwork) and my buttoned up corporate and consulting work.
We spend years curating personas both inside and outside the work place. We are constantly and heavily conditioned to keep things separate or risk losing credibility on either side.
Since 2018, I’ve been on a path of transformation, healing, completely re-arranging my life, which I am passionate about walking alongside others who are on that path, too.
It hasn’t been until quite recently that I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge that I get to be wholly myself, regardless of which space I am in. I get to be both a transformational guide AND a very experienced corporate professional. With this acknowledgement, I also had to drop the ego of, “no one is going to understand this…they’re not my audience”.
My god, how presumptive is it that I thought I’m the only person in the world who has lived life, gone through hardship, believes in the power of personal transformation AND can show up and talk about marketing technology, processes, and best practices at the same time. I don’t have to be small to fit into the spaces I am in, the lessons learned carry over with us regardless of where we are showing up.
I am essentially still guiding, coaching, helping, mentoring while simultaneously putting into practice the things that helped me arrive to this day in all areas of my life.
The Tricks the Mind Plays
Sometimes, our mind will interpret a change in the surface we’ve been walking on and translate it into danger—imagining a cliff where there’s only a shift in color or texture.
We feel it in our body, our mind reels, we think we have to gather ourselves up for flight or a leap, when all that’s needed is a single step forward.
My dear little Momo (may he rest in peace) was a fairly fearless dog.
But when running through the house, he’d leap over the seam between the kitchen and dining room floors. The color shifted from tile to wood—no ridge, no step, perfectly level—and yet he’d always take a running jump, never realizing he could simply walk across like everywhere else.
I’ve stood at that same threshold often, this being one of them, looking between what’s familiar and what’s next, convincing myself I’m standing at the edge of something perilous. Yet, nearly every time I put one foot in front of the other, or shifted my perception, the ground has been solid beneath me. And if it doesn’t, great, I get to take a step in another direction. That’s the beauty of it all.
Taking the Leap
I’ve realized that while I’ve been helping to guide and offering others the insight to trust what’s underfoot, I was staring at my own line and mistaking it for some sort of an abyss.
Then I remembered Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Near the end, Indy faces the final test before reaching the Holy Grail: a canyon too wide to jump, the inscription in his father’s journal reading, “Only in a leap from the lion’s head shall he prove his worth.”
He looks across the void, exhales, and steps forward.
His foot lands on stone.
The bridge, carved to blend perfectly with the canyon walls, had been there all along.
The test wasn’t about distance—it was about faith. It was about trusting in what couldn’t be seen until movement began.
That’s the real test of every threshold: Not whether we’re brave enough to leap, but whether we can remember the foundation has always been there.
Knowing it has been built from everything we’ve lived, learned, and survived.
For me, that realization changes everything.
Whether I’m consulting in corporate, facilitating breathwork and sound meditations, or coaching individuals, I am still me. Regardless of which realm I’m in, my ethos and my values remain the same. I don’t have to split myself in two.
Get to the Point, John!
I’ve always been a highly sensitive person (HSP), an empath, and as such it almost gives me “spidy senses” about a space, a person…a sense of what is going on under the surface, because I can feel it.
That’s what us HSPs and empaths do, we feel what is happening around us, if not careful we confuse those feelings for our own, or take on what someone else or a group is feeling, and end up losing ourselves.
We will lose ourselves to keep the energy around us calm; we will do more, sacrifice our boundaries, appease…and in the workplace, an empath can be seen as an easy target to manipulate, control, and guilt into situations that suck out their life force.
So to me, the workplace is a series of Tiny Spaces: cubicles, offices, conference rooms, zoom and Teams calls that all come together to become a bigger entity. We get to embrace Big Empath energy in each of these tiny spaces and the players within them.
Reflections From the Temple will continue for the inner-world of nurturing of the temple that each one of us have inside as we come home to ourselves. This to me, is the most sacred of work, when we care for ourselves.
Big Empaths, Tiny Spaces meant to help us in dealing with the outer world, providing some comfort that you aren’t alone. That there are indeed bat-shit crazy things that go on in the workplace that make you go “What fresh hell is this?” Regardless if it with processes, company culture, co-workers, staff, managers, vendors, bosses…I’ll share tips, tricks, and tiny tools that will hopefully allow you to bring them into your day-to-day worklife and be the proud, strong, and sensitive Big Empath that you are.