Are you an Empath?

In general, empaths are people who deeply understand and even feel in their bodies other people’s feelings and emotions. The word empath is shortened from empathy, or the psychological ability to identify with the feelings, thoughts, or emotions of others.

Empaths are highly sensitive to other’s emotions, needs, and have a deep desire to help others.

In the past few years, I have learned a lot about being an empath. I didn’t know much about it before and thought it might be a little woo woo. The more I learn, the more I understand the struggles I’ve encountered and how to overcome the difficulties of being an empath.

Until recently, I had my sensitive nature under lock and key. When I was young, I thought that sensitivity was a weakness. It was something to be ashamed of, you had to be tough. It’s challenging to explain how I felt. On one hand, I thought everyone was like me, knew what I knew, felt like I felt. On the other hand, I didn’t understand why they didn’t have the same desire to make others better or happy.

Living in this confusion and not wanting to feel the pain of rejection, I put up a wall to keep my feelings in. I hid my feelings deep under a smile or lashed out before someone could hurt me. If I denied those feelings and didn’t feel them, they weren’t there, right? Wrong.

I’m learning that it is safe to feel those feelings and release them. It is okay for others to have their struggles. I don’t have to make it better for them, I can support, and hold space for them while they work through struggles, without taking on their emotions.

What I know is that if you are an Empath, your sensitivity is meant to be your gift. I know it doesn’t always feel like that. That gift has taken me from people-pleasing, having poor boundaries and self-care, to appreciation and self-love, and as I’ve embodied that, service; the gift it was meant to be.

We all came here with gifts to share. Being an Empath is a gift. We understand others’ emotions and that makes them feel seen and heard. As people feel seen and heard, they feel safe to unite in oneness.

Empaths have the gift of understanding people.

As we understand others, we accept them for who they are, and in that, we can learn to accept ourselves for who we are.

We are here to connect and share.

We are here to support each other.

We are here to be one in our differences as well as our sameness.

When we change the world changes.