The first thing is definitely empathy. There are many empaths in the forum (me included), so I bet you can find lots of help here!
We have threads about empathy from time to time too. If you have any questions after looking around for some info, you can open one yourself. Suggestion: maybe seeking to love and understand peoples' feelings instead of controlling them would help you gain more access (at least this seems to help me. Others may have diffrent opinions. I never managed to get good results towards darkworking, so I can't advise you that way
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Judging by the other stuff you feel you may be leaning towards clairvoyance, too (but with feelings, not visions, at least for now). But I suspect this and empathy are close abilities, so aiding the one could help the other, too.