The Plight Of The Empath
How many times have you had an unexplainable emotion or thought only to learn later in the day that one of your loved ones was having a similar experience? Perhaps that person was going through something emotionally difficult but you experienced the symptoms? What about experiencing pain that just comes and goes all of a sudden or lingers for a while? Again, later you find out that a loved one was having some physical pain, but yet you experienced the symptoms. Strange or is it? What did you do once you discovered that your loved one was going through changes? Did you dismiss your experience as an odd phenomenon?
What if I were to tell you that these odd experiences have a name to them and that YOU are also defined within this name? The truth of the matter is that none of the above is as odd or strange as you may believe. If you have ever experienced other persons’ emotions or physical symptoms then you are considered what is called an EMPATH.
Empathy is defined as: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. However, an EMPATH is someone who energetically absorbs the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of others. The empath does NOT have to be in the physical presence of a person to undergo these experiences. The majority of people that are empaths cannot determine their own feelings, thoughts, or attitudes from others. They mistakenly taken on these emotions and beliefs as their own and can carry it throughout their life unknowingly.
So what’s the big deal about all of this? Well, let us look at this a couple of different ways and then let us see how you feel by the time you reach the end of this article.
You’re a child that gets teased over silly things by the children in your school. As a result, you really don’t like school and have a low self esteem. The experience in school affects you so much that a belief is created as a result. This belief is created by you as a form of coping and emotional protection. The belief may be something to the extent of “others do not accept” “I am not worthy of friendship”, “I do not deserve to have friends,” or “I do not love myself”. This one belief creates many offspring that reproduces itself. This myriad of beliefs is now lodged in your subconscious mind and you now carry this throughout your adulthood life. What you are also carrying are the emotional expressions, thoughts, and feelings of all the children from back then that made them do and say what they did to you. You have basically merged with them emotionally and mentally.
You constantly have negative thoughts. You’re critical, judgmental, and skeptical. The thing is that you know this is not the real you but no matter what you do, you can’t really seem to change things. No matter what you do, nothing works. People are telling you that you are very pessimistic and you don’t like it, but you can’t figure out why you are this way. In this instance, a number of things are more than likely going on. First thing is that you may have empathetically merged with some life situations that have made you react negatively. Also as a result of the situation, negative beliefs have formed and are also lodged into your subconscious. What I find to be most popular is the person who is the empath has been exposed to someone else that is very negative or they have even “inherited” the negativity from someone in the family. This is usually just empathic or energetic passing down of negative thinking and can be removed in an instant.
It is natural for us to connect with each and be able to relate with each other in life. What is not healthy or balanced, is taking on the actual symptoms of the challenges of others. It is a human characteristic to be compassionate during the time of difficulty. Often times in being this way, we want to help the other person by easing the pain and guess what? You may have actually done that before. Ever have a conversation with someone who is going through rough times and then when the conversation is over, they say “whew! Glad I got that off my chest. I feel so much better!” but then you notice as they walk away that you feel like crap? Yeah, you just absorbed everything like you were an emotional sponge to that person. You haven’t in fact taken away the pain, just the heaviness of their load. Later when they come back to you to talk about their problem again, you realize that it is becoming more and more challenging for you to talk with them about what they are going through. This is happening because the negative emotions of the person are like a weight that suppresses the flow of positive energy.
There are many degrees of empaths. Some people can’t even leave their home because just the mixture of emotions in the atmosphere, makes them nauseas, sick, or nervous. Others can leave their home but notice that when they touch people, they actually absorb the negative symptoms into their body and then they have to find a way to release it.
Regardless of how minute or severe a person’s empathic abilities, it is important that everyone get it under control. I once met a lady that said she gets the physical symptoms of her children’s pregnancies. I was taken aback and couldn’t believe what I heard. Another person caught me off guard and asked me if I was drinking water with lime juice in it and said she could taste it. Well, I was drinking lime water and I specifically remember stopping and saying, wow, that is pretty deep!
You have many people that believe being an empath is cool while some believe it is a curse. Regardless of what you think you do not have to go through the physical symptoms of the other person. You can consciously choose to get the information ONLY so that you know how to assist the other person. If this simple awareness is not working then you may need to remove certain beliefs and emotions on the subconscious level which will make all the difference in your life.