Empathy: Are You an Empath?
Hi friends! Welcome back! So, to start off I wanted to say that I had thought of this topic many months ago and I had it written down in my content planner, intending to write it in the coming months. After I had set a date to write it, my mom sent me an article from Apple, talking about how you know you’re an empath. Coincidence?
As I’ve been thinking on this topic, I have reflected on things that have happened to me throughout my life. When I was young, I didn’t know what an empath was or what being empathetic meant. By definition, to have empathy means the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. To be an empath, by definition, means to have the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual.
Empaths are deeply sensitive individuals who are highly attuned to the emotions and energy of others. They can easily take on the emotions of others as their own. This can be a challenge when they have porous boundaries and end up absorbing the pain and stress of others. Empaths are sharply intuitive and are adept at reading people and situations beyond just surface-level impressions.
- The Thought Catalogue Empaths - Everything You Need To Know About This Personality Type
My very first experience with being an empath was when I was 8 years old. My dad was older, and had a back surgery due to a misaligned nerve. He had just come home from the hospital. I remember asking him for something and he told me no. I was so frustrated and angry that I hit him - right on the back where the staple holes were. I remember he hissed in pain and turned around and glared at me. He didn’t say anything, but I felt an intense, sharp pain throughout my body, not unlike an electric current. It was the weirdest thing ever and I’ve never forgotten the feeling.
Since then, I’ve had similar experiences. It’s usually when I personally hurt someone - I feel the pain that I cause. The pain can be emotional or physical. I cannot just walk into a room and stretch out my “sensors” and know how everyone feels. From my personal experiences, I need to have one on one contact with an individual to feel their pain.
I’ve also sensed other emotions besides pain. I then ask myself this: is it because I’m actually sensing this emotion, or am I just being really perceptive and can somehow read body language really well? That might be a part of it, but I’m not that type of person to notice minute details about a situation or person. I tend to forget things in the short term, more specifically if they either do not affect me or if I don’t really care about the details.
I also can sense when someone dislikes me. Again, it may be body language but it makes me feel intensely awkward and then sometimes I don’t know how to react or respond to that person. I’ve had this happen in past work environments and it’s truly difficult to work with someone that you know doesn’t like you, but they won’t tell you because they think they are hiding their emotions.
Knowing that you are disliked by someone feels really crummy, because of course, everyone wants to be liked. It is how we carve a niche for ourself and figure out how we fit into the world. At a time in our lives when we have low self esteem, we unfortunately determine our self-worth based on what other people think of us. We, as human beings don’t usually “find” ourselves until our mid-thirties, or forties, or most especially until we’ve had children. In my experience, when you care for another individual more than you care for yourself, you end up realizing that what other people think no longer matters in the fabric of your life.
Empaths not only have to face all of this, but they also feel the pain internally. It’s almost like it hurts double because you feel the dislike or pain of the other person, as well as your own pain from the dislike or hurt. It can be very intense and can also explain anxiety and depression in some people. Sometimes I feel on guard, or I get defensive easily because I am trying to protect myself. I feel really sensitive sometimes, and I’ve always chalked it up to being a personality trait. This is true, but inside, it is because I am an empath.
Empaths also may experience physical symptoms. These show up as headaches, abdominal upset, fatigue, and sometime pure exhaustion. Anxiety can cause these physical symptoms as well, but an empath has a higher risk of being anxious all the time from the different energies that people release.
I sometimes think of other’s emotions as their energies, and I relate their energies with auras. If a person is extremely angry, you can feel the kinetic energy that this emotions releases. The same can happen when you are extremely happy - the feeling of “bouncing off the walls” can be reckoned to the energy of a happy person. Aura’s, or energies are similar to emotions, but emotions are more in the head and the energy is what the person projects out into the world.
There is a lot of stigma around calling yourself an empath. People relate it to “magically” knowing peoples’ thoughts. Some call it a paranormal activity, or “hocus pocus” - something you would find on a science fiction movie or in a book. However, I know from first hand experience that the reality is not as exciting as what it’s hyped up to be. Empaths are just really sensitive beings who can sense how people are feeling.
As mentioned above, empathy means to have the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. The problem is, most people (who are not empaths) do not feel empathy; instead, what they feel is sympathy. Sympathy is feeling pity or compassion for someone. In order to feel empathy, you basically need to be in the exact same situation as the other individual. For instance, I was talking to someone the other day about their dad. Their dad is dying and is currently in palliative care (meaning that someone cares for the patient until they die). I also went through the same situation about 14 years ago. However, despite that I went through the exact situation, I sympathize with the individual. This is because no one can presume to know or understand how another person is feeling. We all experience life differently, because we come from all walks of life. I would say that people do not truly empathize - they sympathize, unless of course they are an actual empath.
To have children as an empath is especially difficult. Sometimes you can tell if your children have inherited the ability, but sometime you can’t. I didn’t recognize it in myself until my early thirties. It is hard for me to watch the news. I can’t watch scary movies that involve kids. I went through this post-traumatic stress thing that some mothers experience. Without actively allowing my mind to do so, I would think of terrible situations involving my children. To be fair, it was probably more of a hormonal thing than an empath thing, but my internal reaction to it was one of disgust and terror. Now that I truly do care for someone more than myself, I wake up every day with terror in my heart, afraid that something is going to happen to one of them.
My son has exhibited behaviour of being an empath himself. He is very sensitive and it is a very difficult time. He is still trying to understand how/why he feels a certain way and sometimes can’t even put a name to the emotion. Occasionally he will ask me how I’m feeling - whether I’m angry, or sad, or happy. It’s weird, because out of the blue when I feel happy, he’ll ask me if I’m angry. I wonder if he perhaps picked up on some of my thoughts going through my head. It’s a very interesting time and I feel like I’m learning even more about myself though my kids.
Now if you’ve ever wondered why you have high anxiety all the time, or physical symptoms such as migraines, or stomach woes, ask yourself if you are also an empath. Have you had instances where you can sense what others are feeling? Let me know in the comment section if you have ever experienced these feelings and how you deal with them?
As always,
💜 SAN
