What Is An Empath?
Many of the people who seek me out for energy healing are empaths. What is an empath? It's someone who has an intuitive gift for insight into the feelings of others. Put simply, they can feel what others are feeling.
It's both a blessing and a burden. Often, empaths come to me with one or more chronic physical ailments, or anxiety or depression. Usually, it's related to their intuitive gift and to the wear and tear on their energy, psyche and body that happens if it isn't managed or taken care of properly.
If you're reading this, chances are that you (or someone you love) is an empath. So let's delve a little deeper into the question of what an empath is.
What Is An Empath?
Empaths are people who have a gift for intuitive insight into the feelings of others. They not only understand what others are feeling, they may often feel it as well, taking on their physical pain and emotional suffering.
Empaths are highly sensitive. They tend to have porous boundaries that let in a lot of energy and information. They're energetically like sponges, absorbing the emotions and sometimes the physical symptoms of others. Often empaths will be sensitive not just to subtle energetic information, but also to environmental input like scent and sound.
You would often describe empaths as big-hearted or warm-hearted. They lead with their hearts, feelings first, and often have difficulty intellectualizing their feelings. If you have a chance to assess their whole chakra system, often their heart chakra stands out as particularly strong or active. They connect deeply with others. They want to help anyone and everyone. Often they are generous to a fault, with their time as well as with their resources.
Empaths are highly intuitive people, so their sixth chakras are also highly activated. Working to develop the sixth chakra can often be a way to help empaths get some perspective and distance from the strong feelings that tend to overwhelm them.
Being an empath is a beautiful gift to the world, but unless they learn to manage that gift, these highly sensitive feelers can become overwhelmed and it can impact their emotional and even their physical health.
I believe that empaths are born, not made. At any rate, the patterns of behavior and perception are laid down so early in life that they can be thought of as inborn. Because of this, empaths tend not to realize that they are different from other people, and take their gifts for granted. Helping them see that they have a special gift is an important step in teaching them mange it in ways that aren't draining. Learn more about empath self-care here.
At some point, empaths often have a kind of crisis, where they realize that the can't continue taking on everyone else's feelings. Find out what to do if that happens to you.
Returning Suffering To Its Rightful Owner: An Exercise To Help Empaths
Once, a client who is an extreme empath was telling me how a close friend's problems were bringing her (my client) down emotionally. We talked a bit about how, from an energetic standpoint, this indicated that she was letting the energy of her friend's suffering into her own energy field, including her physical body. She realized she could actually feel it in her body as a kind of heaviness. This meditation came to me, and I think it might be useful for other empathic people as well.
If you feel you've taken on someone else's suffering:
- Sit comfortably with your hands palms up and resting comfortably in your lap.
- Feel, envision or imagine the suffering you've taken on from someone else, wherever it is in your energy field and/or physical body. It may be in one place, or it may be diffuse.
- If it's diffuse, use intention to consolidate the energy into one distinct entity (or imagine that you're doing so). It may be a particular shape or thing, or it may just be a lump. Doesn't matter.
- Again using intention or imagination, place the object that represents the suffering in your open hands.
- Imagine that the "owner" of the suffering is in front of you.
- With love and kindness, return the suffering to them. You can imagine handing it to them, or you can actually stretch your physical hands out toward them.
- At their highest level, they know the suffering belongs to them alone. Imagine them accepting it. Imagine yourself letting it go with as little emotional charge as if you were returning a borrowed book or sweater. What they do with it is their business, not yours.
- If it feels like there's any residue of their energy left in your hands, you can release it: shake your hands off, wash your hands in cool water, or whatever works for you.
- Take a moment to notice how you feel. Do you feel any different?
I encourage you to start scanning your body and field any time you have encountered the suffering of others, especially those you're close to. If you notice that you have taken on their suffering--indicated by any feelings of sadness, anxiety, heaviness, etc. that are not specifically related to your own life--try the exercise above.
I hope this is helpful. --Nancy
Go from What Is An Empath to Empath main page.
Go to Energy Self Care page.
If you're wondering, am I an empath?, you might enjoy this self-assessment by empath expert Judith Orloff.
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