Empaths are often criticised and pathologised and that’s not fair. Below I’ve set out some of the characteristics of being an empath. I’ve added some thoughts below each heading. If you’re an empath:
YOU OFTEN FEEL OVERLY STIMULATED
If you’re disturbed or triggered by sudden loud noises and other sensual realities that you can’t readily control, you might be an empath. Part of the challenge here is being prepared for sensory overload — it’s inevitable.
You may not be able to control your environment, but what can be controlled is two things: 1) in the first instance, you may be able to control your response, and 2) if you aren’t able to control your response, the second opportunity is to forgive yourself to reconcile the effect of the overwhelming experience.
YOU MAY STRUGGLE WITH BOUNDARIES
Many people who are empaths are targets for those who would manipulate them. Knowing you’re being manipulated, you may struggle to say no, and sometimes you may find it impossible to do so. In the core of you, you simply don’t understand how people can exploit people, because if you’re an empath you may find it unconscionable.
Part of the challenge is to get beyond the astonishment that manipulation, abuse, deflection, gaslighting, etc, are the domain of many. The other part of the challenge is to work on developing attitudes and behaviours to remain calm and in control — resisting anxiety and panic — when you’re confronted by controlling and coercive behaviour in others. Boundaries are one of the most empowering strategies for empaths.
YOU CAN FEEL OTHERS’ EMOTIONS
This is part of the superpower of being an empath, but it can work against you. Feeling others’ emotions helps us help and even heal others but it also makes us a target for others’ attention in what can end up as controlling and co-dependent relationships. Also, when you don’t feel you can turn off this superpower, it can easily exhaust you.
This is where boundaries for ourselves can help, especially where those boundaries involve self-care, which can be one of the hardest practices for empaths; easy in theory, harder in practise.
YOU CAN BE OVERWHELMED BY CROWDS
It’s the noise and the unpredictability of crowds, as well as the abject inability to connect to others, that proves frustrating to the primal functions of an empath.
Part of the strategy to maintain your poise in crowds is to keep saying, “This, too, shall pass.” It might be just for a few minutes or hours that you need to endure a noisy environment where listening seems impossible. It’s about telling ourselves to be patient and not expect too much of ourselves. Again, it’s about preparing ourselves for the discomfort of being in a crowd where we might feel diminished in power or significance.
YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SENSITIVE, ESPECIALLY AS A CHILD
If you haven’t heard of the term “highly sensitive person” you have now. HSPs are common in this world, and our world is a decidedly better place because of HSPs. If you’re an HSP, you have a heart that’s receptive to feel, but you may find yourself having been criticised by many because of your sensitivities.
Part of the challenge is accepting yourself as you are, as you’ve been designed by your Creator. Part of the challenge is also to harness the best parts of your sensitive nature, whilst also going on a journey with humility so the behaviours of others have less impact.
YOU RECEIVE ENERGY FROM OTHERS VERY EASILY
This corresponds with feeling others’ emotions. Receiving negative and positive energy from others can be both debilitating and uplifting, but it still taxes your resources.
Spending time away from sources of energy is the thing empaths need to do on a regular basis in order to reset.
YOU ARE A NATURAL HELPER OR HEALER
Again, in feeling others’ emotions, it draws them to you and you to them. It’s amazing to the see the powers of help and healing move in another person’s life because of you. You’re a channel of miracles. But it also makes you vulnerable.
It’s good to take stock regularly in how effective you’ve been in helping and healing others. Getting a good balance between helping and healing others and helping and healing yourself is essential.
PHYSICAL SPACES HAVE A STRONG EFFECT ON YOU
Little wonder you’re triggered by places that have traumatised you. It’s highly beneficial to desensitise from these experiences by weening yourself back into those environments that you find scary. This can be done with others and through a varying form of means to make these experiences safer.
YOU OFTEN FEEL ISOLATED
This one’s horrible. Feeling isolated you may feel stimuli that are or aren’t there. The fact is feeling isolated from time to time is normal, and it’s a hard reality to bear. What can be done about it is to determine whether you’re actually being isolated or not, and whether that’s fair or not. When it isn’t fair, we can still grow by finding room for patience with ourselves and others by, as the Serenity Prayer says, accepting what we cannot change.
YOU MAY NEED TIME TO RECHARGE BY YOURSELF
Against the assumption that all empaths are introverts (who need time by themselves to recharge) many empaths can be what’s termed “ambiverts” or a mix of, or at the mid-point of, introversion and extroversion.
On the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, for instance, I’m just over the midpoint into extraversion (basically midpoint) but some people who know me see me the other way around. I find it frustrating to be categorised in any way, but my dream job would be one where I never had to do any tasks except for connect with people. But when you’re an empath, the fact you draw so much energy from others and others from you means needing to recharge is normal.
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