What is an Empath?

An empath is a person with the psychic ability to feel another person’s emotional state. Empaths are very sensitive to their surroundings and in touch with the emotions of those they carry a strong connection with. This is like a mother sensing her child is in danger from another country. This article will cover what being an empath really means, how their gifts appear in our day to day life, the challenges they face and practical tips for empath psychic protection. This content is part of our guide to psychic awakening, development and protection. 

The Empaths Psychic Abilities

What does it mean to be an Empath?

An empath absorbs the emotions of other people, often mistaking them for their own feelings. As a teen when I would get into a street fight, I would feel the fear of the other person and mistake it as my own, often leaving me confused to as why I was suddenly anxious for no reason. I find as a writer, if I speak with people before writing, I lose clarity and my thoughts become foggy, the less I communicate, the more seamless my thinking becomes. Similar to the idea in deep work, when we multitask we fire neuron’s and they don’t stop when you switch task. This works the same for me with mental clarity and connecting with others. The less I communicate with others the more clarity I have. An empath can even take on physical symptoms or illness of those around them. I have miraculously healed people just from being in the same room as them, taking on their illness for split seconds before returning to normality.

Is empathy something you’re born with?

You can be born with the ability to feel the emotions of others, it can be developed. It may even awaken suddenly at certain periods of your life, you can foresee when this may happen by observing planets transiting your 8th and 12th houses. The 8th house represents the unseen, whereas the 12th represents the collective. So during an 8th house transit you may develop psychic abilities and start to notice energy around others, and in the 12th house transit these senses could become overwhelming as you start tapping into the energy of the collective as a whole. People also develop empathy through traumatic experiences, such as a chaotic living environment. A child may need to become vigilant of their environment for their own safety, gaining the ability to detect subtle shifts in an abusive parents mood.

Are Empaths Psychic?

Yes an empath is a psychic, their most active sixth sense is clairsentience which is the ability to feel the emotions of others. This typically consists of sensing energy, feeling another persons intentions and unspoken emotions. Learn more about psychic abilities and symptoms in our guide to the sixth senses. 

Can Empaths feel when someone is thinking about them?

Empaths can develop strong energetic cords linking to those they care about, this can often lead to telekinesis like abilities. Occasionally picking up on the thoughts and more importantly the feelings of those they create a strong connection with. A friend may pop into their mind the moment the friend decides to call the empath, as if there was a psychic knock on the mind before the call was ever made. This is why all psychics must learn mind control. 

Can empaths Sense Spirits?

Empaths can sense presence, emotion and energy from the non-physical. If they enter a haunted house with a malicious spirit, their spidey-senses will trigger there may be a threat present. The empath may describe the feeling of the house as dark or evil which is picking up on the energetic state and intentions of the unseen. Whereas a typical psychic may hear voices, and see images within the mind, the empathy will usually feel the emotions and intent more than any other psychic sense.

Can Empaths Heal Others?

Yes empaths can become powerful healers, however due to their empathetic nature their boundaries are more open leading to a greater unintentional energy transfer which can cause them to take on another persons pain. Just like a virus they can take on the aches, pains, and fatigue of those around them. If a sick person walks into the room, the empath may unconsciously draw in 50% of the sick persons energy, easing the sick person’s symptoms while burdening the empath. This is why they must learn to set boundaries and start utilising energetic protection on a daily basis to keep them grounded and protected.

Are Empaths And Compassionate People The Same Thing?

The distinction between an empath and someone with compassion is the empath will feel the emotions the other person is feeling as well as their own emotions, whereas someone with compassion will only feel their own emotions. If someone is hurt a compassionate person may feel sorry for them and want to help. An empath may feel pain similar to the person, if they scraped their knee, the empath may develop sudden pain in the same location. Whereas the compassionate desire to help, an empath may be too overwhelmed to help physically, but by sharing the pain they help to transmute that energy by allowing it to pass through them.

The Empaths Shadow Side

Are Empaths People Pleasers?

Empaths can easily let others walk all over them, once you have helped and healed people day after day for free, these people can start to develop a sense of entitlement and expect you to be the shoulder to cry on every time they need it. This is usually a trigger which leads the empath to develop stricter boundaries, I tell my friends I’m not here to fix their problems, do not vent and expect a solution, I typically read the messages and delete the chat. Eventually they will take the hint that we are no longer agony aunts.

Do Empaths Attract Narcissists?

Yes, empaths do attract narcissists, this is due to their kind, caring, nature, which fuels the narcissists ego, they crave adoration and an empath will politely listen to them. Empaths usually fit the wounded healer or mother archetype and being around a broken narcissist triggers their desire to heal. The narcissist will use this against the empath, choosing to gaslight them when they set boundaries, turning it round and making the empath sound like the evil one. “You don’t even care about my problems, you have no heart”.

An empath may seem to develop narcissistic traits or even a lack of empathy when they are overcoming this problem in their life. When I was overwhelmed with everyone dumping their problems on me every day of the week, I simply started to tell them to take their issues elsewhere or I’d simply delete and ignore all messages with any form of expectations from me. This is spiritual growth disguised as rebellion.

Can Empaths Hate People?

An empath doesn’t usually hate others as they have too much love in their heart for real hate. Whats often disguised as hate is a resentment towards those who need too much from us. Empaths struggle with burnout and must withdraw socially to protect their energy. In extreme cases an empath may not want to leave home due to absorbing the energy of everyone around them. As they establish boundaries and better self care their empathetic nature will return, but they will often disappear if they need more self healing.

Empath Protection, Energy, and Boundaries

How Do Empaths Protect Their Energy?

Empath protection starts with boundaries, putting themselves first so they can spend time in solitude recovering. If they absorb everything from other people, the obvious things to do is avoid others, but thats not ideal in the long term or people in a 9-5 job if they can’t ‘avoid’ others.

A magician will use visualisation and affirmation to protect them against negative energy, an empowered empath must become the magician to give them back their true power. This can come in the form of visualisation, doing cord cutting rituals, visualising an energy shield, using crystals, colour, sound or smoke to control their energetic environment.

I would recommend daily banishing spells, copy this somewhere safe so you can use it twice a day. Repeat after me “I release and remove all energy that is not mine, seen and unseen, known and unknown, from all realms, dimensions, people, places and timelines. Any attachments, projections, cords or interference are now dissolved and cleared completely”

How Can Empaths Protect Themselves

The first step of empath protection is to start tracking the triggers, the source of negative energy, stress, low moods. For the next 24 hours write down every single moment, thing or person that creates a negative emotion within. If by the end of the day your main sources of stress are ; the squeaky floorboard, the friend always having panic attacks, the other friend who expresses his distaste and anger for people. The quick fixes become, repair the floor board and reduce exposure to the emotional triggers.

It’s all about identifying the sources of your stress, the actual trigger that sends you into a negative emotional state. Success is often more about subtraction than it is addition, if you want the hot air balloon to take off you can either pump more heated air into the balloon, or you can let go of the weight holding you to the ground.

How Do Empaths Recharge?

Solitude becomes a necessity for the sensitive. When you are picking up on everyone’s hidden trauma and emotional baggage at every conversation, the best protection is some alone time or sensory reduction. Rest and rejuvenation must become part of the empaths daily rituals, this can be in any form they wish, but usually its energy based work, sound, smoke, crystals, cord cutting or a couple hours of solitude.

The issue they face is sensory overload, so 30 minutes of sensory reduction can work a miracle. If I need a quick recharge I sometimes will get in bed, shut the blinds, pull the quilt over my head and stare into darkness. This gives all my senses a break while simultaneously shifting the brain into a more relaxed state akin to meditation.This is incredible for a quick recharge, it’s  like if you need more sleep, shutting your eyes for 30 mins and not sleeping can be just as restorative as a nap.

How Do Empaths Control Their Emotions?

The first step to controlling emotions is choosing what you want to identify with, most thoughts and feelings you have aren’t yours in the first place. If you randomly feel anxious, it doesn’t make that feeling yours, you don’t have to claim it. If I feel a negative emotion my first response is “Well thats not mine, so where’s it coming from?” I’m not saying I don’t have negative emotions, it’s just obvious if I created that emotion or it just popped up randomly.

If a negative emotion arises you can refuse to identify with it “This is not mine” and observe it pass by. You can go to the next level and use the banishing ritual I mentioned above. Or you can consciously change your emotional state. You can only think or feel one thing at a time, if your full of love and gratitude a negative state cannot work its way in.

How Can Empaths Fight Back Against Negative Entities?

An empath may have to deal with the source of negativity around a person which may be an entity thats feeding on their negativity as its own sustenance and source of power. If I feel a demonic presence is trying to work its way in to my space, typically this happens when I meet a new client who has a parasitic entity feeding off them and they come to me for help, the demon see’s me as a threat and part of its conscious will fragment over to me to try and prevent me from helping. I will create so much love, gratitude and joy before I threaten the demonic presence, I tell it exactly who I am if it doesn’t leave I will consume it. Consume? Thats right, lessor demons have a fetish like desire to become part of something more powerful than them, I tell it I will transmute its energy into my own power.

Empaths In Work & Leadership Roles

Should Empaths Work In Therapy Or Care?

Empaths are drawn to healing professions, they are fixers and want to fix whats wrong with the world. The problem is they often deal with everyone else’s problems while letting their own issues pile up. The risk with an empath working in care comes from burnout and trauma, its extremely energetically fatiguing to heal one person unconsciously. Working in a hospital, around the sick, or helping the elderly will cause you to pick up on 50-100+ peoples energy every day.

If you do work in care and want to make it sustainable, be protective of your boundaries, rest when you need to & work with support or supervision so someone else can help you when you need to take a minute. The energy we take on from others can be intense and overwhelming, even just from touching objects.

I mention often a story of my dad cutting his finger with a circular saw, the next day I moved the worktop he was cutting at the time, I drained all the trauma and emotions from the worktop and needed to sleep randomly for 3-4 hours. When my first girlfriend would do psychic work such as channeling, she would sleep for most of the rest of the day like she’d not slept in weeks. Learn more about channeling in my article on mediumship. 

Why is Empathy Important in Leadership?

Without empathy in leadership we get a world run by sociopaths and psychopaths. The increase in empathy in the world is part of a bigger mission to usher in a new earth where the sensitive caring crystal children have come to the earth to create new standards around love, compassion, and to help heal the planet, save its animals and fix issues around pollution. Empathetic leaders easily build trust, loyalty and create a sense of safety within their people, however they risk being exploited, dealing with indecision and over identifying with the world’s problems as their own.

Conclusion – Embracing Your Empathetic Nature

The empaths journey starts with confusion, over giving and energetic fatigue. It ends when they learn to set strict boundaries and incorporate energy work into their daily protection practices. At the beginning it can feel like a curse, with the right information and tools, empathy becomes a gift that can’t be bought. If you’re a struggling empath I invite you to read into psychic protection on my website, I’m currently working on everything a developing psychic needs for free. If you loved this article, check out the energetics of self sabotage.