It is a spiritual truth that all you can see, is yourself reflected. It is a spiritual truth that You, your Divine Self is All that Is. Through Spirit, we are all One being. So, if you are making judgments about someone, they are reflecting something you do not like, about yourself. The ego is what we think we are, the Shadow is what we think we are not: the stuff about ourselves that is rejected and repressed gets projected onto others.

Most often the cause of unwanted empathy is an unconscious projection on the part of the empath. On an unconscious level, everyone is perfectly empathic and telephathic. It is because of ego that most people do not have conscious access to the information. Their unconscious hears you, feels the energy you are sending and reacts to defend and protect itself from your projection. So if you are walking around thinking about how unenlightened people really suck, or whatever your bitch is that day, then you are broadcasting that message to everyone within range, and sending it out into the unverse like a prayer. What you put out comes back multiplied.

Projecting it like a projectile, and do not be surprised if the universe shoots back. You may get the unconscious negative emotions your projections stirred up, coming back multiplied to be dumped on your head like instant karma. I find that to be most often the underlying cause when people are struggling with really bad empathy. Thou art God, it is self created.. which is good news because it means you can do something about it by changing your attitude.

Even gentle, typical "new Age" projections of love and light can really lead to a bumpy road. Do not broadcast love and light at other people, because judging them as being in need of it, is a negative projection. It is not the same as seeing "thou art God".

Everyone has their own definition of what love is, what Spirit is, what enlightenment looks like... so projecting your own definitions gets you into an energy-argument, like all the Holy Wars of human history.

Projecting high vibration energy at someone who is not ready for it may not be doing them any favors. There is a joke I use to illustrate the hazards of projecting light onto someone:

What is the worst, most terrible Chinese curse?
May you clear all of your karma by next week and become enlightened.

It is a curse because most people would not survive having all of their karma coming up in one week. The "growing pains" might overwhelm them. I know of one person who kept projecting unconditional love and light at a school principal who she felt was abusing her daughter. The man committed suicide. Your blessing of "love and light" might be a bomb setting off more karma than they can handle. A lot of the shrapnel is going to flow back to you as the cause, too. To avoid this, make sure you do not send energy to someone without their consent.

It is natural, compassionate to want to help others with your prayers and love, but this is most effective by sending the love to the Divine to deliver as Goddess thinks best. Vertically, through Spirit to rain down on them as their own Higher self thinks best, instead of horizontally like bullets of ego based "good intentions". Often, a simple affirmation of faith, like "Goddess has it handled" will result in awe inspiring miracles that free will ego consciousness could never arrange. I sometimes refer to this as the Angelic courier service. People ask me for my blessings, I hand the blessings over to the Angels to adjust and alter as they think best, and to deliver at the most appropriate time. The most appropriate time, might be ten years from now... as Goddess wills. The funny thing about the angelic courier service, is that I have done energy work on people who recieved it *before* I did it. The energy went backwards in time. Love can do that, it transcends time-space. It is never too late, to have a happy childhood.

Science tells us that everything is already made of light. E=MC² If you see something that you think is not light, that is your ego opinion. Acting on your ego opinions creates karma that gets you beat up. If you are judging that someone is in need, then likely you are not seeing them as the Divine manifest. Remind yourself, "Namaste". The Divine in you meets the Divine in them and recognises the Unity. Affirming their Divinity is more positive than projecting need onto them. When you do this, you will find that Goddess speaks to you, through them. Between the lines, between the words.