Hi all! I am always fishing my mind and surroundings to come up with posts that will be useful and helpful to readers. I thought and often think to myself about the time way back when I was trying to figure out if I was an empath. For years and years I thought I was but didn’t even have a clue how to figure it out mainly because of not understanding at the time what an empath really was. Even after reading definitions of what an empath was I would still sit there and say to myself “Well, that still doesn’t help me figure out if I am in fact an empath.”streaming film The Circle 2017
In this post I will say what I honestly think and feel about trying to figure out if your an empath.
First, if you have come to this blog and are doing some reading it is no big surprise…it’s hard to figure it out. Knowing what and empath is and what an empath does will not help you figure it out. Being told by someone that you are in fact an empath will not help you either if you are like me and need some almost solid proof. To figure it out for yourself is to really know yourself. Lets face it, we all want to know ourselves…not be told about ourselves. Right? Then there are all the empath designated sites like this one that lists the traits of an empath. I also have a Traits of an Empath post on this blog and honestly I would like to remove it. It won’t really help you figure it out. Ya know, I will humbly admit that looking back at when I wrote that post I was just repeating what I had learned and the truth is we sometimes learn things along the way and realize that some info was just not as good or useful or accurate as we had thought. For example, some list a trait of an empath as “Empaths often have multiple pets.” That is not a really good trait to list of course. And the one that says empaths don’t like loud noise. Well, I know there are many empaths that are not bothered at all by loud noise.
Now, there is a reason though why the traits list doesn’t work to figure out whether you are an empath. Because at the time you go searching for answers it is because you are exhibiting some (but not all) signs that you may be an empath. Possibly you are noticing that sad or violent movies are affecting you more than in the past. Or maybe suddenly you are feeling more in tune with what is going on with other people as though you are reading then. And maybe you notice that you have this interesting affect on people. So, enough is going on with you to begin to question whether you are an empath but here is the problem. If you have not open and cleared all your chakras, especially your heart chakra, then you are not fully open to your empath self. Like your empath self may only be 25% open…not enough to know without a doubt whether you are an empath or not though.
And that is the problem. The reality is that to really discover who you are you hve to open up fully to who you are. I know it is kind of like me saying if you want to know if your an empath for yourself then you have to go through the process of opening and clearning all your charkas just to really be able to see for yourself.
So think about it…if the empath in you is only open 25% then you may not be able to relate to most of traits on the “Traits of an Empath” list. Honestly, before I fully awakened my empath self I didn’t match up with even half of the list.
I really don’t want to leave anyone hanging and feeling like there is no answer for them out there. I am going to work on a list that hopefully will be more helpful for those of you looking for answers. In the meantime feel free to ask for help and I will be happy to assist any way I can.
Here is where you can find my list of traits —> http://myjourney11.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/the-real-traits-of-an-empath-the-list/
Sherry,
Good read! I can certainly understand where you are coming from. Yes, I suppose it can be hard to know, though I did not have that problem so it's actually harder for me to relate to what you're saying.
May I suggest you check out my blog? http://lodestarre.blogspot.com/ Some of Katherine's musings might help, I don't know. She speaks to feelings rather than facts.
Just a thought…
Submitted by Pamela Glasner April 7, 2009 11:37pm:
Thanks for posting to my site, Sherry – always happy to hear other points of view – and I agree with a lot of what you say. However, I must respectfully disagree with one thing you said:
Empathy is NOT necessarily inherited – no “Empathy” gene has ever been empirically identified. More likely, if it shows up in families it’s because, from one generation to the next, it has been accepted and understood, so it is not treated as some sort of aberration. It is therefore, under those circumstances, easier and safer for the Empath to be open about his or her ability – something which is difficult to be in the beginning when you do not understand what is happening to you.
Nurture vs. Nature – in this case, nurture winning out.
If you are surrounded by people who do not accept this as a natural phenomenon and treat you as though there is something wrong with you, you are more likely to hide it and never know if there were others in your family who ‘had’ what you ‘have’. So how would you know?
There are many Empaths who are from families where there never was one before.
I believe it is within us when we are born, just not passed from generation to generation like blue eyes or brown hair.
I told my story on psychic-experiences.com and people responded with that I am empath psychic. Here is the website address. I couldn't tell all my story cause short on the space.
http://www.psychic-experiences.com/real-psychic-story.php?story=2505
All this time I thought I was sensitive. Cause other peoples emotion would effect me for example my bestfriend was going through a rough divorce. I was always there I would feel all her pain and then get all her anger. Then I would just leave the room and break down and cry. Well now we are not that good of friends cause, I feel the reason is that she started talking to a new guy and I could feel all her excitement. fast heartbeat butterflies in my stomach the more excited she go the more I could feel it to the point where I would have to get up and move. Well now for me now for me being excited for her and out of the blue one day she must have been thinking about him or something for me to all of a sudden ask her have you heard from bob. She thinks I am after people she dates.. I could not help myself at the time to get excited. I could careless about so called bob. I was feeling her emotion and couldn't control it. It might be nothing ..
but now after researching more I feel deep down that I must be empath. The traits fit me to the T. I want to develop my empath self and I would like to know how. Could you please tell me where or how I can work on this. You can email me. melissakayetx1@aol.com
Melissa,
One of the first steps is knowing what's not yours. The next step is in understanding that you are not meant to have to feel everything and anything throughout the day. For example, the reason you continued feeling your friends emotions was because the connection was still there and still in need of being broken. Also it is more than just feeling anothers emotions…that is the part of the connection that you experienced but what you may not have experienced was the energy exchange. Often empaths pick up connection(s) and as the days pass more and more of their energy is drained because the energy exchange is not equal. This can lead to fatigue, feeling ill, and even becoming violently ill. Or it is also possible that the energy exchange could have gone the other way…that you were getting the most energy in the exchange. So the next step would be to learn to break connections and learn basic methods of protection which I have post on this blog that explain how to do those things. After you feel you have some control of breaking connections and preventing them you can begin the process of practicing feeling (picking up emotions) purposely, reading them and then practice breaking the connection. As you will see as you read more many things you learn are a matter of visualization. The more you practice the better at it you will get. http://myjourney11.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/developing-your-empathy-part-ii-protection/, http://myjourney11.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/developing-your-empathy-part-i/
Let me know if there are any other questions you have.
Sherry