Clairsentience – which means clear sensing or clear feeling – is intuitive or psychic feeling and is closely connected to what we usually think of as intuition. In many ways, it’s a heightened or tuned in form of empathy.
Its basis is the ability to tune into the energetic vibrations of people, objects and places and intuitively interpret them.
There are two aspects to clairsentience, which are basically broken down by whether what you’re sensing is animate or inanimate.
- The ability to feel the emotions and energy of people and living things (animate)
- The ability to feel the energy and emotions of objects and places (inanimate), which is also called psychometry
While reading both living and non-living things uses the same abilities, psychometry has some unique aspects which I’ll cover in a later post.
How is clairsentience used?
Clairsentience is the ability to feel the present, past or future physical and emotional states of others or objects.
In mediumship readings, clairsentience can be used to determine the person in Spirit the medium is speaking with, through feeling their size, height, how they carried themselves, how they died, their emotions and their overall personality.
A photograph or item of the deceased can be used to tap directly into their energy, as it emits the specific frequency of that person.
In everyday life, clairsentience can be used to guide you as you go through your day. You can tap into your clairsentient abilities to know what the people around you are feeling or thinking, the likelihood of certain outcomes or which road to take (metaphorical or literal).
Clairsentience is often combined (as are all the intuitive senses) with other psychic senses, such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairgustance or clairalience to give a clearer understanding. Clairsentience is one of my primary intuitive abilities — it’s easier for me to connect with what a person was like in personality and what my client’s relationship with them was than it is to get a good mental picture of what they looked like (brown hair, blue eyes, 6’4”, etc.) or to clearly hear their name, although that information does come through as well at times.
What does clairsentience feel like?
Clairsentience often shows up as a feeling in the solar plexus. It is a sense of knowing, on an emotional level (as opposed to a mental flash of clarity of knowingness, which is part of claircognizance). It is also closely tied in with emotion and can feel like a surge of energy around the heart center.
During a mediumship reading session, folks in Spirit will sometimes step in physically to show me how they died through physical sensations (such as a heart attack, their lungs being unable to draw in air, or the impact of a car crash). As a professional medium, I’m able to control those sensations so that, if they are too intense, the spirit will step back and still convey the information but more gently. (I think sometimes they get a bit too excited to have someone to talk through so they put extra energy on the sensations to make sure I can feel them.)
Or I will get a sense of what that person was like while they were alive, or a sense of the dynamics of their relationship with my client (smooth, easy and loving, or prickly and full of friction, for instance).
Clairsentience can also feel like a tingling sensation in your face or head (especially around your crown chakra at the top of your head). It can also be experienced as a nudging, tapping or pulling (like a magnetic pull), as if to get your attention about a physical object or person.
How do you know if you’re clairsentient?
People who have developing or latent clairsentience abilities often:
- Are aware of the emotions of other people, sometimes feeling another’s pain as their own pain (physical or emotional)
- Feel things deeply
- Are accused of being too emotional
- Feel drained by large groups of people or, conversely, energized by them
- Get sudden “gut feelings” about people or situations that turn out to be accurate
- Get overwhelmed in antique stores or used clothing stores (or, conversely, love them because they can feel the history of objects)
- Feel heartbroken and emotionally overwhelmed by natural disasters
- Are in tune with the rhythms of the seasons
- Are drawn to certain objects or places because of the way they feel
- Often feel responsible for other’s situations or pain and want to help others
- Feel a sensation of walking through spider webs or feel a touch when there is no one there
- Know something is right or true when you get chills or goosebumps
How do you develop your clairsentience?
Opening your chakras
Clairsentience is felt in the heart, solar plexus and the upper part of the sacral chakra. Clearing and opening these chakras is helpful in developing your clairsentient abilities. However, in my experience, most people who are clairsentient experience difficulty not in opening up to communication in this way, but in turning off or turning down their empathic or clairsentient impressions.
However, clearing your chakras and staying grounded will help you have clearer, truer impressions and will help you discern when the emotions you feel are truly yours or are from other people (more on that below).
Tune into your body
Your body is a useful and accurate tool to provide you intuitive clairsentient information. Its information comes in a binary language – a flow or resistance of energy. When you encounter a decision in your life, quiet your mind, deepen your breath and tune into your inner self. Ask your inner self for guidance and feel the energy around the situation. Is it easy or is it tight? Does it flow or is it restricted? Do you feel a change in energy within your own body? Does breathing get harder or is there a feeling of release? Pay attention and follow your body’s signals.
You can also do this during interactions with others. For instance, if you get a sense that someone is lying or not telling the whole truth, see if you can feel the flow of energy. Ask if the statement is truthful and see how that feels.
Take care of your energetic heart
Pay special attention to your heart chakra. Often, clairsentient people will receive an energy hit from someone they encounter and their heart energy will go out to them. It’s important to be loving and emotionally open toward others, but also to not have our heart go out of our energetic self. Keep your heart within your energetic body (do not project it outside of yourself) and let it open and beam love instead. Stay grounded within yourself and simply let love flow. It’s a healthier way to care for the world.
I don’t recommend going out into the world with clairsentience abilities wide open and blazing and trying to read all the people around you. While it’s possible, it’s often a painful experience. Most of the energy people project into the world around them is their pain and negative self-talk. If you want to practice clairsentience with others, find a friend who you love and trust and from whom you can pick up as much love as hurt when you connect in with their energy. If you do find yourself picking up negative thoughts and emotions from others, ask Spirit and your guides to show you information that comes through the energy of love.
Always ask for the highest and best good for both of you first. And remember to release and let go of everything you’ve felt when you’re done.
How not to be overwhelmed by your clairsentience
Does empathy and clairsentience feel overwhelming? Sometimes it can be, especially when you take in others’ emotions that aren’t yours. Your emotional self has no way to process what isn’t yours to process and it can leave you feeling out of sorts, if not physically ill.
Learning to let go
Understand that not everything you feel is yours (nor is it your responsibility to feel everything around you). If you feel unbalanced, out of sorts, unusually depressed (when you don’t know why), or overwhelmed, you may be full up of other people’s emotions.
Your job is to recognize it when it happens and to clear yourself out.
Get grounded.
Release what’s not yours.
When I realize I’ve been unwittingly picking up other people’s emotions (it still happens to me sometimes, although less often and I catch it much more quickly than I used to), I acknowledge what’s happening and say, “OK, Spirit, if it’s not mine, take it. I don’t want it.” And then I let it go. Letting it go, giving up your sense of responsibility over emotions that were never yours to begin with, is an important step.
Once you do that, you should feel much lighter.
You can also smudge yourself with sage smoke, ring chimes or take a shower to help cleanse your energy.
Staying open without being overwhelmed
It’s possible to stay open to your clairsentience abilities without constantly becoming overwhelmed by picking up the energy around you.
The most important thing is to stay grounded. Ground yourself daily. Be conscious of doing it.
Secondly, accept that you’re not responsible for the entire world and that you’re allowed (and encouraged) to set healthy boundaries for yourself and what you allow into your experience. Set your intention each day to experience your highest and best good — and only that.
Learn to discern what’s yours and not yours. Being consciously aware that you can pick up energy from the people and things around you helps you in develop this. You can also ask: is what I’m feeling/sensing mine or not mine? If it’s not yours, let it go. If it’s yours, ask Spirit, your inner/higher self or your guides what it means and what you’re supposed to do with it.
Next up: Psychometry – feeling the energy of objects and places