The Roaring Brook Fiddler: Creative Life On the Wings of An Empath

Discovering I’m an Empath

As a child, I didn’t understand why I cried tears for loved ones when they couldn’t, how I received information from those around me through a nameless channel of awareness, or why I was happiest when hidden from the outside world. Though my parents were loving, communicative, and supportive, it didn’t take long to realize they wouldn’t understand an aspect of their daughter even I had no words for. I shunned an important part of myself for decades including with people who would have understood or might have provided language for the information I was able to pick up through perceptive abilities that vacillated between slippery, mysterious terrain and moments of extreme, but surprising clarity. But none of this was conscious.

The day I promised my mother I’d finish writing her memoir in 2006, she was lying in a Hospice bed, had said her goodbyes, but was still lingering. I knew why she couldn’t yet pass. She’d worked on her book for six years—from the day my father died until the moment I made a heartfelt promise to finish and publish her work. A look of relief had spread across her face. She started her fast the next morning and, three days later, punched her way out of a used-up body to make her way into the sixth ray. But I had no idea that this promise would lead me to expose my intuitive side, something I’d kept almost completely secret my entire life for fear of ridicule or expectation.

My Connection to My Mother

The energetic umbilical cord between my mother and myself had always been a creative gravy train. She was deeply linked to my muse and nurtured my creative spirit. We became more than mother and daughter. We were friends and creative allies, cheering one another forward through demanding projects, roadblocks, and challenging professional relationships. Yet, I’d never tried to share this important aspect of myself. I’m a published author of a dozen books, twenty-five string orchestra scores, two National Public radio series, and countless seminars for bowed string players. I shouldn’t have been surprised that her parting gift—the pact to finish her book—was to become the deepest creative challenge of my life, and as such, would push my skills and relationship with myself to a new level.

Perhaps I should thank the literary agents I approached for introducing me to the buried half of myself as well. The response was unanimous: “It’s beautifully written, but the author isn’t alive to promote this book, so we can’t possibly consider representing it.”

I proceeded to interweave her writing with my own until, at last, we merged into one voice, one story, and a brand-new book. Fourteen years later, after thousands of drafts and dozens of professional edits, the book has gone to the printer as my memoir … with everything my mother wanted to communicate to her potential readers. Her title, Creative Life Even Under a Cloud, morphed into The Roaring Brook Fiddler: Creative Life on the Wings of an Empath. But with one major difference: “Julie-with-Whiskers.”

Keeping My Empathic Sensitivity to Myself

My ingrained habit of keeping my sensitivities to myself entailed avoiding other empaths and support groups or books on the topic. In retrospect, this probably made the writing process even more difficult. I didn’t have the skills to describe my perceptions, nor had I ever tried to articulate my inner castle. I had to invent language to convey my early experiences as a child. I described it as the development of “whiskers,” with which I syphoned outside information. Later, when I began to write proposals to literary agents, they required that I write up synopses of similar books and explain how mine was different.

At that time, the few works written by empaths didn’t describe receptors similar to mine. This was the beginning of an important realization. There are many variations to the type of information each sensitive receives and even how she or he obtains that information—as many, most likely, as we can find within any group of living organisms: the dandelion, marigold, pansy, and rose are all flowers, but share very little in common when it comes to look, scent, or size. I began to suspect that my information was coming from someone who’d crossed over.

As long as I kept working on the project, I felt safe. But the closer I came to publication, the more my anxiety level mounted. I have a fairly large following as a musician, author and composer. My fear of disclosure began to heighten as I contemplated revealing an aspect of myself that had never been public before. Up until the book’s final month as a larva, only women had vetted the manuscript in my writer’s group and amongst its editors. The only male writer/editor who’d provided feedback, had done so long before I added this material into the manuscript and changed its title to include the word empath.

Moving Forward

I sent the book to a former student who’d become a professional colleague as well as friend. His enthusiastic response set my soul at ease, but I still needed more reassurance. Just when I began to contemplate burying the book, an email arrived from a stranger offering a past-lives reading on some of my relationships. Her message confessed that she didn’t know how she’d obtained my email address. I immediately replied “yes.” But in addition to the five names she’d required for the reading, I also sent a question about the book and described what I was going through. I figured she, of all people, would totally understand.

I received a recording from her meditation a few days later. At the very end of it, she told me she’d received the information from my personal guide on the other side: “Your guide says ‘yes, Yes, YES … get the book out there any way you can. Don’t be afraid. This is a time when the planet is stepping up in consciousness. We want people exposed to spiritual aspects of life. This whole pandemic is a pause, so that people can look deeper into what they’re grateful for and not take anything for granted, not sleep-walk through life.’”

That was all I needed to move forward.

About the Author:

Julie Lyonn Lieberman is an internationally recognized performer and violin teacher. She was one of the first violin teachers to advocate teaching violin through world music rather than the European classical genre. Her latest book, The Roaring Brook Fiddler: Creative Life on the Wings of an Empath, describes her journey as an empath and a musician.