Are You an Empath?

What does it mean to be an empath? It is often defined as a person that is highly sensitive to other people’s emotions. It can go beyond this to experiencing the physical aches and pains or hearing another’s thoughts or feeling extremely drained. The challenge is that often the person feels it as if it is their own. The individual that is sensitive does not even realize the sensations, thoughts and pain are from another person or animal being.

This can happen with one person, a crowded room, an animal shelter, entering a someone’s house, at an amusement park or even watching a movie or a parade on television. It can feel random and catch the person who is absorbing the feelings off guard.

I personally have experienced this in a variety of ways:

·        Sitting on a couch with a relative feeling like their pacemaker is in my body

·        Immediately upon walking into a home feeling nausea

·        Shortly after entering an apartment feeling angry or frustrated

·        Watching a parade only to become highly emotional and in tears

·        Feeling physically drained after being with some pets

·        Out on a neighborhood walk only to feel the emotions or thoughts of the vehicle drivers passing by

·        Being at a crowded amusement park and feeling like you have an extremely short fuse

·        Talking with a client and feeling all their emotions around a topic where you become more involved in the situation like it is occurring to you not them

All of these and more are possible - and can greatly affect the empath. So, what can be done to assist the individual? There are several techniques or exercises one can use:

·        Calling in Archangel Michael to surround you and/or your home or car in a blue bubble of energy to assist the person in holding their own energy to observe instead of absorbing what is being given off by others.

·        Grounding yourself by stepping on to earth, grass, or sand to connect yourself with the supportive energy of mother earth. Really sinking into that healing foundation of earth.

Set yourself up for success and create a baseline for knowing where you are by checking in with yourself in the morning to notice whether you have any emotions surfacing, aches or pains or random, circling thoughts or mental chatter that are yours. Once you have scanned yourself, you know what you started with and can more easily distinguish between what is yours or others.

Asking yourself “is this emotion, thought, or pain mine?” will often help you gauge where it is coming from as if it isn’t yours, it will go away in a 3–5-minute period. Creating boundaries is helpful as you begin recognizing when you are triggered to identify where you can go, who you can see and even for how long before you must step out to take care of yourself.

Getting into nature is very important as well as finding places and activities that allow the individual or yourself to recharge. The key for many is awareness of our own selves and what we were experiencing just before going into a place, situation, or meeting up with people or our pet friends.

As an empath, it is our responsibility to set our self-up for success, learn to protect ourselves, and know what we need to clear, release, and refuel. Awareness is our best friend, followed closely by boundaries that are the important facets to living a healthier existence as highly sensitive beings. It is a continuous learning experience built daily on the situations, places and beings that unknowingly trigger us to fall into absorber reactive mode versus being in a calm, responsive state of the observer.

One step at a time and lots of patience will help you along the way.