How to Stop Absorbing Other People’s Funky Energy with Linda Roberts • Ep 70
Ever left a conversation feeling foggy, heavy, or just "off," with nothing you could point to as the cause? Like when there was no argument, no bad news, and nothing obviously wrong?
Linda Roberts, a well-known animal communicator and shamanic healer joined me today to talk about what's happening in those moments, and what you can do about it.
Borrowing Someone Else's Load
Linda told a story that a lot of people will recognize. After a brief, pleasant chat with her child's preschool teacher, someone she genuinely likes, she left feeling completely tapped out. When she checked in with her spirit guides about it, the message was that the teacher had unconsciously been pulling on her energy, sensing something in Linda that she herself was missing.
The key word there is unconsciously. Most people who leave us feeling drained aren't doing it on purpose or even realizing it. They simply feel comfortable and good around us, and something in them reaches toward that without any awareness it's happening.
The reverse is true too. Some conversations leave us feeling lighter and more energized. That's the same kind of exchange running in the background, just flowing the other direction.
What Makes Someone "Empathic"?
Linda's definition of an empath is someone who's tuned in: to the world around them, to other people's emotions, and to their own inner state. It's the ability to pick up on what's underneath the surface, in the gray areas that aren't spelled out.
Here's a belief Linda and I share: empathic ability isn't a rare gift handed to a select few. It's more like an aptitude for math. Everyone has some baseline capacity, and some people develop it further than others. It exists on a spectrum, and most of us fall somewhere on it whether we realize it or not.
Not sure where you land? One clue that a feeling isn't actually yours: it shows up out of nowhere. It has no connection to what you were just thinking about or doing, and it interrupts your train of thought entirely. That kind of sudden, unexplained shift is worth noticing.
For Linda, these signals sometimes show up in her body. She's felt physical sensations that turned out to belong to animals she was working with, including tasting blood connected to a dog with bleeding ulcers, or experiencing acid reflux tied to a dog that had stopped eating. Our bodies, it turns out, can register what's happening in someone else in very real, physical ways.
Even Places Have Energy
It's not only people. Locations carry a charge as well. I told the story of pulling up to a cave in the Vermont woods and immediately knowing, before even stepping out of the car, that I didn't want to go in. I turned around without ever seeing it. That instant "no" was intuition doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
Linda's advice: trust that gut reaction instead of talking yourself out of it. Your intuition is there to keep you safe. At the same time, it's worth getting curious about why a place feels off. Sometimes it's simply energy that isn't a match for you. Other times, it might be surfacing something inside you that's asking to be examined.
A place that unsettles you isn't necessarily bad. It might just not be right for you at this moment, or it may have a lesson for you down the road.
Your Nervous System Is Always Listening
The same logic applies to screens. Linda's rule of thumb is simple: pay attention to how things make you feel, whether it's food, drinks, the people around you, what you watch, or what you scroll. Ask yourself: does this leave me lifted up, or does it leave me anxious and on edge?
The nightly news is a textbook example. I gave it up years ago and haven't missed it. News programming is built to hold your attention, and it does that by looping through alarming stories over and over. That's not just uncomfortable to sit through. It triggers a real, physical reaction in your body.
When you take in someone else's stress, or absorb tension from your surroundings, your nervous system treats it like a genuine threat, even though your conscious mind hasn't flagged any danger. Your body doesn't distinguish between stress that's yours and stress you've picked up from somewhere else. Cortisol rises. Heart rate climbs. Blood pressure ticks up. Muscles tense. Breathing gets shallow. Your fight-flight-freeze-fawn system switches on, all without an identifiable threat in front of you. That's why you end up drained or anxious with no obvious cause: your body reacted to something your conscious mind never even clocked.
Energy Hygiene: Washing Off More Than Germs
Remember constant hand-washing during the pandemic, especially after touching shared surfaces or meeting new people? Masks created a physical buffer. Energy hygiene works on the same principle, just applied to your energetic field instead of your hands.
Before walking into an interaction you suspect will be heavy, Linda suggests building an energetic boundary: picture a bubble of light surrounding you. She also uses sacred geometric shapes (easy to look up) as an added layer of protection. The goal is to stay present and useful to others without soaking up what they're carrying.
Just as important: clearing your energy afterward, the same way you'd wash your hands. This is what lets her see client after client in a single day without ending up depleted. A literal version of this practice, standing at a sink, washing your hands while intentionally releasing the other person's energy from your field, works well too.
If you work in a helping profession (therapy, chiropractic care, energy work, nursing, medicine, or any role that involves holding space for other people all day) this kind of preparation isn't optional extra credit. It's foundational. Staying clear between sessions is what keeps you from dragging one client's "stuff" into the next appointment.
I think back to my early EFT training, where nobody taught us to prepare energetically beforehand. I'd finish a session completely drained and honestly couldn't picture sustaining a full practice that way. Managing your energy isn't a nice-to-have if you want to do this kind of work long-term. It's essential.
Don’t Deplete Your Personal Energy
Linda shared a moment that reshaped her whole healing practice early on. When she first began practicing Reiki, she worked on her elderly dog and afterward felt utterly exhausted. A call to her master teacher cleared it up fast: she'd been pulling from her own personal reserves instead of channeling universal life-force energy. That distinction changes everything.
In any kind of healing work, the aim is to act as a conduit, not to hand over pieces of yourself. Your personal energy is tangled up with your own history and unresolved experiences. Channeling universal energy instead keeps things cleaner for both you and the person you're helping.
Linda says this principle runs through all of her Reiki and shamanic training. Her reminder: we have our own lives to tend to, and we're not meant to carry everyone else's burdens on top of that.
Strategies to Protect Your Energy
Dressing for the Day
Linda approaches energy protection from a place of confidence, not fear. She compares it to getting dressed each morning: you wouldn't head out into the world without clothes on, so why go out without some form of energetic protection either? It's simply practical prep.
Heading into an especially intense or crowded environment? Add more layers. That could mean setting an intention that draws a clear line between your energy and everyone else's, wrapping yourself in white light, or calling on sacred geometric shapes as protection. The heavier the environment, the more layers you might reach for.
If you want the simplest possible entry point, Linda recommends starting with intention and visualization: picture a bubble of white light around you and carry that image into your day.
Spiral Breath Mantras
I'll add one of my own favorites, the Spiral Breath Mantra, a quick morning practice that needs no visualization at all, just breath and a few words to set your energy before the day starts. Try this phrase: "I clear my field. I center my breath. I begin my day." Pair it with a 3-3-3 breath pattern (inhale for three counts, hold for three, exhale for three) and match each phrase to its breath.
If you sense you've picked up something during the day that isn't yours, use this as a reset: "I return all energy that is not mine. I reclaim my own." A shorter version works too: "I release. I return. I reclaim." Again, sync it to the inhale-hold-exhale of that same 3-3-3 breath.
You can repeat any Spiral Breath Mantra 3-4 times for a deeper effect, so feel free to do a gentle loop. Saying it just once is a perfect place for beginners to start. Learn more about Spiral Breathing right here.
Resources from this episode:
- Learn more about Spiral Breathing & Spiral Breath Mantras for Energy Hygiene
- Linda’s Energy Hygiene Masterclass (click “classes” in top menu)
Linda Roberts is an internationally known animal communicator and shamanic healer who bridges communication between animals, humans, and the spirit world. She helps clients find clarity, healing, and peace through intuitive sessions, energy work, and teachings that awaken natural intuitive abilities.
Connect with Linda: Website | Instagram | Facebook
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