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Facing Life As An Empath

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I came across this is a very informative article about the empathic experience written by Na’avah Rich and believe it to be a good share...

In August 2013 I began losing my mind! At least that’s what I thought. The influx of emotions and energies around me seemed to be closing in at a rapid rate and I didn’t know if I was coming or going. It just wasn’t limited to my thoughts and feelings, either. My body began to do all kinds of crazy things. Headaches, body aches, nausea, missed menstrual cycles, the whole shebang! Being an analytical person, I didn’t want to fully accept that there was something Spiritual going on within me. I tried to justify these feelings of hopelessness and misery as being stress related and took to scolding myself for slacking off on my mediation and yoga. Self-promises of doing better were met only with further misery and loneliness and a continued inability to focus on my Spiritual wellness and health. I attempted to struggle on and try to move through now shifting the blame from my lack of self-discipline and care to the high energies pounding the Earth all at once. Yet, the harder I tried to overcome, the more difficult things became.

Finally in October of the same year, I lost it. I began spiraling out of control. I was seeing things in people that I had not seen before. I was feeling things that were unfamiliar and it scared me. I wasn’t able to sleep and when I did sleep, it wasn’t restful. My patience became short and my ability to just function on a daily basis was severely compromised. Always tired, I simply just wanted an escape from everything. I was ready to leave my marriage, my children, my entire life behind me and go somewhere where I couldn’t be found.

Being that I work from home, I have no friends locally (as I moved to a new city a few years ago) that I could talk to about how I was feeling, and those that I did communicate with seemed out of reach. I was terrified to go and tell them what was going on with me, as I was sure I would be judged. Whatever this thing was that I was feeling seemed very real to me, but I was doubtful that anyone would be able to relate or understand. I didn’t want to be told to pray about it, or that it was just a passing phase. I didn’t want to be treated like a mental patient especially since I was starting to question my own insanity, and I didn’t want someone to try and ‘fix’ whatever was going on. I needed desperately to understand the why and find a root cause so that I could put an end to the suffering before I destroyed my entire life.

I finally decided that I needed to talk to someone and took a chance on confiding in my husband. He and I have been married for 10 years and we transitioned through many of our Spiritual and religious belief systems together. He was going to be my best choice, as he has always made it a practice to listen and allow the person he’s talking with to come to their own conclusions by asking the right questions. As I sat with him talking about a few of the issues I was having, I felt myself feeling worse instead of better. I could not fully formulate my thoughts into words or ideas that I believed would make sense to him. I rambled on for several minutes before looking up at him. When I did, he saw the desperation in my eyes and moved to action immediately. He took me to the mediation room I have set up in my home. I reluctantly moved to my altar and lit some sage and incense, and then he instructed me to sit down on the floor. As the music played softly in the background, we started a meditation to see if I could clear my mind and set whatever was wrong back in place. As I sat there I began to cry. The meditation seemed to only increase my pain and suffering. I thought for sure that I had finally stepped off of the cliff of sanity and was plunging to my death in the world of the insane. Very gently, my husband laid me down on the floor and with the help of my Crystal child, my 7 year old daughter, began scanning and clearing my Chakras. As they moved through each Chakra I could feel the waves of energy. Some sensations were so great, it actually made me cringe or jump when their hands moved over a particular Chakra. The negativity and tension just seemed to keep coming. For 40 minutes I laid there as they did their energy clearing on me. The crying subsided, and I began to feel the immense amount of love they had for me surround us all.

An hour or so later, I decided to go to bed. My husband and daughter were sitting on my bed playing a game. I still felt a little ‘off’ but thought that maybe I just needed to try and get a good night’s sleep. I tucked my daughter into bed and then proceeded to lay down myself. My room was completely dark, and as I lay there, my mind began to race again. I took a deep breath and then began to speak. The words that followed seemed to just naturally flow without blocks or confusion. I told my husband how I had been feeling, using words that perfectly described what I was trying to convey to him. I spoke of seeing people beyond their perceived selves, down to the very essence of who they really were. I told him that I could sense the energies and that I wasn’t sure of what to do. I explained in great detail how everything was making me feel like I was losing my mind and that all I wanted to do was disappear. He listened, speaking only here or there, but was able to comfort me enough for sleep to finally take over.

The next day as I was driving him to work and I had the breakthrough; maybe I’m an Empath! When I arrived back home, I immediately got on my computer and began researching Empaths. I read through the information, and soon began to felt lighter and relieved. I was not crazy! There were other people out there describing exactly what I had been experiencing and they had a name for it. Pleased by my revelation, my husband purchased a book for me titled, Whose Stuff Is This? By Yvonne Perry. The information that book contained along with the information I found online began to set me free.

What is an Empath? A person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual. All things created have the ability to be empathetic, however, every 1 out of 5 people are what you would consider super sensitive to the energies around them. I was absorbing all the energies of each and every person, place or thing I encountered. As I moved through the resource material, it further confirmed what I was feeling and exactly what I was. I then began to wonder how many other people are suffering from this ‘gift’ unaware? I knew that I had to write down my experience to share with others so they would know that they are not alone.

It would take more than just this article to detail all the information available on Empaths, so I won’t try to do that, but I will share some of the information I’ve found with those that may be experiencing this beautiful gift and not knowing it.

Traits of an Empath

A sense of knowing: Empaths just know things without being told. We can never really explain how we know, we just do. I’ve had some experiences pleasant and unpleasant with my ability. Most recently (before the spiral), my husband was out with friends and I was at home. I became extremely agitated and felt absolutely terrible. I withdrew from my children and went into my room to try and get it together. I just ‘felt’ like something was wrong. I was led to look up something online. What I found was devastating, and due to privacy issues I will not disclose that information here. It wasn’t until later that I was able to confirm with my husband that he had been dishonest about a situation and once he told me, the anxiety and agitation subsided. In a way, Empaths are human lie detectors. An Empath will know 99.9% when someone is lying to them. This is one of the main reasons why it is important for us to recognize our ability and understand how to control it.

Mirroring emotions: If you find yourself empathizing with someone to the point of taking on their emotions as your own, you may be an Empath. We tend to not only relate to a person’s feelings, both physical and non-physical, but we actually, for better lack of a term, become one with them. This is due to our ability to dip in and out of the aura (energy field) of other people (and even plants and animals.) For example my 15-year-old son is an Empath. At times my son will be fine. He’ll be laughing and talking or doing something on the computer and he’ll be in a great mood. Five minutes later however, he shifts into something else and he’ll retreat to his room for minutes to hours before returning and being fine again. You can see how I would think it was just him being a teenager initially. However, I began noticing this behavior more regularly. By determining my gift and the fact that it is an inherited trait, I’ve begun helping him learn how to deal with his gift effectively.

Negative news, TV, music and radio broadcasts: As Empaths, because we are sensitive to all energies anything negative on TV or in the news can actually influence our mood without us even being aware of what’s taking place. Remember, everything has an energy field. Empaths are energy sponges, absorbing all the energies around us. (If we don’t know how to control them and protect ourselves).

Sensory overload in crowds: We Empaths do not do well with too many people in one place. When a large group of people are gathered together, large amounts of energy are emitted and all the energies are different. We can feel those energies and it feels almost overwhelming. I personally have always hated crowds, but I thought it was because I consider myself to be an introvert. In actuality, I am an introvert because of the crowds not the other way around. Granted, this is not all the time, as if I am with another familiar person, my focus is on them, making it easy to block out other energies.

Empaths are the go to guy/gal: People feel very comfortable unloading their problems on Empaths because we take over their emotional energy as our own. If you notice that everyone seems to call on you when there’s a problem or issue, you may want to take a look at why.

Empaths don’t know what NO means: We will say yes without thinking, because our deepest desire is to help another person. Doing this actually depletes the Empath’s energy and puts us in situations we don’t really want to be in but we’re unable/unwilling to say no because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Self-sacrifice: Empaths will put everyone else’s needs above their own even if it makes us miserable. Again, we are people that have a deep desire to help fix other people’s problems. This is not limited to our families and friends, but can even extend to world problems. We will go above and beyond to try and make things right for all of creation, all the time ignoring signs that we’ve overextended ourselves. You’ll find a lot of Empaths in caretaking roles.

Overemotional: Empaths can relate from to anyone/thing. From a character in a book to real people. This makes us appear overemotional.

There are quite a few more traits of Empaths. To get a full list, I strongly recommend doing an Internet search for more details.

If any of what I’ve said sounds like something you’re experiencing, know that you are not crazy. You are sensitive to energies and must be mindful of how you interact with the world around you. Once you’ve discovered your unique ability to connect with others, you can learn how to protect yourself from unwanted/negative energies and how to use your abilities in healing work, holistic therapies and metaphysical studies.

This is my experience thus far. As I move forward and learn more I will freely share with all my fellow Empaths out there so that we can begin to live a life full of joy and peace, while still doing what we love which is helping others, but in a healthy way.

Na’avah Rich

Source: http://www.inlightimes.com/facing-life-as-an-empath/

Na’avah Rich is a Non-Denominational Minister, Reiki Master/Teacher, Certified Hypnotherapist, life coach and spiritual coach, and owner of Ethereal Elements a holistic wellness practice. Visit: : www.EthrealElements.net.