Thin-skinned, hyper-sensitive, wimpy, spineless, wussy, feeble, weak, fragile, melodramatic, temperamental …
If you can relate to, or have been called a combination of any of these words, chances are you’re part of a unique group of people: the Empaths.
Occurring in an estimated 5% of the population, Empaths are known for their highly developed ability to sense the emotions and thoughts of the people around them. As author and Empath Christel Broederlow put it “empaths often possess the ability to sense others on many different levels”, this includes the abilities to intimately understand what a person desires, yearns for, and is currently feeling, suffering or thinking, as well as the ability to feel other people’s bodily illnesses. These occurances manifest themselves as energy vibrations that the finely tuned Empath can pick up on, or “tune into”.
Commonly identifying as clairsentients and HSPs, Empaths possess an ability that is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, the Empath is an excellent listener and counselor, knowing the best way to comfort and assist those around them. On the other, being an Empath can be painful and tiring. It’s common for the Empath to be weighed down and constantly congested with the negative emotional energy of others, often creating physical and psychological disharmony.
Although the Empath has a wonderful gift, and is often greatly cherished by those around them, they are often challenged and confronted by a variety of misguided perceptions towards their innate gift.
Myths & Misunderstandings
“You need to grow some thicker skin! Stop being so overly sensitive.” I wish I could tell you how many times I heard that in my childhood! Growing up as an Empath, you may have experienced similar insults from your parents, friends or peers, and perhaps even worse.
It’s not at all trendy or popular to be sensitive or feeling in our society that values efficiency, cold calculation, and industrial resilience. Therefore, you may have experienced and still experience, a lot of antagonism towards your behavior as an Empath. I will explore four of these main misperceptions below.
Myth #1 – Empaths are navel-gazing and self-absorbed.
Truth – We often focus more on others than on ourselves.
It’s true that Empaths are often unexplainably moody and quiet on the outside. However, this isn’t because they’re excessively absorbed thinking too much about themselves and their feelings. Rather, the Empath is often deeply affected by the exterior emotions of others that he experiences as his own. The Empath’s ability to intuitively feel the feelings of others is what weighs him down so much. In fact, it’s characteristic of the Empath to pay more attention to others needs than his own.
Myth #2 – Empaths are mentally ill.
Truth – We are magnets of negative energy. This often creates psychological disbalance within us.
Empaths are excellent listeners, confidants, and counselors. For this reason, it’s common for people to be drawn towards their sincere and caring natures, almost like magnets. Therefore, Empaths often experience a lot of “emotional baggage dumping” from other people, and have difficult releasing themselves from the negative energy that remains in their minds and bodies afterwards.
Unfortunately, this can lead to a lot of lingering depressive emotions that the Empath is left with. Thus, the Empath can appear to be mentally ill and depressed, and in some cases legitimately is. However, in most cases the Empath is congested with remnants of harmful emotional energy, like sinuses are congested with mucus during a flu virus.
The root of the problem doesn’t lie with the Empath, it’s a result of their outer emotional climate.
Myth #3 – Empaths are psychologically frail.
Truth – We are biologically programmed to be more sensitive and in tune with our surrounding environment.
As Empath Nicole Lawler wrote, Empaths are essentially “walking around in this world with all the accumulated karma, emotions, and energy from others”. Understandably, this results in a lot of inner emotional tension for the Empath who is more prone to crying and exhibiting other signs of “weakness”.
Additionally, the Empath finds it extremely difficult to partake in many “normal” activities. For instance, watching a movie about Nazi concentration camps is extremely emotionally upsetting for the Empath, and getting a job in an office is overwhelming and tiring for the Empath who is bombarded with other people’s emotions constantly. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the Empath is often perceived as “wussy”, “frail” or “weak minded” to the person who fails to comprehend the constant pressure the Empath lives under.
The fact that most Empaths aren’t driven clinically insane by the constant emotional flux they experience is testimony enough to their mental strength.
Myth #4 – Empaths are lazy.
Truth – We often lack mental, emotional and physical energy due to our intense empathetic ability to understand others.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) amongst other physical issues like headaches, insomnia and Fibromyalgia, have all been commonly attributed to Empaths.
If our minds are constantly overloaded with stress, tension and pressure, it therefore translates that our bodies are as well. This often results in sicknesses such as the ones mentioned above. Thus Empaths often lack the energy and therefore desire to do many things, preferring to relax (including taking naps) instead.
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If you’ve experienced any of these misperceptions in your life, please feel free to share your experiences below. Also, feel free to take our Empath Test or read our empath book to get more in-depth guidance. Being an Empath can certainly be riddled with setbacks, however, it’s invaluable to remember how much of an asset you are to the world. Our planet needs a balance of both hard and industrious people, and soft and empathetic people. You form an important part in this great Universal Balance.
If you would you some more free resources, check out our extensive collection of empath articles!
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I, too am an empath. Like Kim, I scored a 93%. I never really knew much about myself and I still don’t. I focus more on my friends than the algebra homework I am supposed to be doing right now. To help keep me going, I write down some of my problems (in other words, my friend’s problems) in a little notebook. My friends say that I am loyal, but my dad calls me “a high-maintenance kid” a lot, and any experience with him usually results in a half an hour’s weeping. My poor old guy is constantly working his ass off. He is always stressed out, is forty-eight, and is almost bald. He looks like he might be sixty or sixty-five. I guess that is what comes from being an engineer (not the train kind) and having high expectations, but still, he is always super stressed out. I am more claircognizant than clairvoyant or clairaudient. I just KNOW things. I think I might get it from my maternal grandmother. Although she is retired, she used to be a counselor. I get more vibe from around people and inanimate objects than much else and that is why I have to… Read more »
Hi there,
I’ve always felt that I was an empath from a young age. My friends and sisters would always vent to me or come to me for advice(though they don’t always take it because I’m so much younger than my sisters). I go through long bouts of depression, and some days I just feel nauseous for no reason, or I’ll have back aches (always in the same spot at the base of my spine). But lately (within the past year or two) I’ve noticed that I personally feel emotionally detached about some things. I could be watching a movie/show or reading and feel all warm and fuzzy when the characters finally get together and proclaim their love, but in my everyday life I feel that I don’t really experience emotions completely. Is it common for an empath to feel like this sometimes? Like, if they get so emotionally drained from everyday life and everyone else’s feeling, can they then feel emotionally detached?
Thanks in advance if you are able to answer this,
Abby
Hello, taking this test has lifted a weight off my shoulders – I scored 94%. I have been called most of those things listed above to the point where I think of my self in those terms. Hopefully I will be able to change my self perception now. I am a high school teacher and struggle a lot with the being “thin skinned” side of things, I also probably give too much of myself to the kids. My term breaks are spent recovering from illnesses that hit me at the end of term. Thank you for this information :-)
As an empath I had childhood experience that while in my adolescence I actively started making choices to ignore my emotions as a defense mechanism. Now I am hugely unmotivated, stressed and having learning issues to where as before, I had no sense fear or worry. Nothing was ever to hard in school, if something stumped me I was quick and eager to understand where I went wrong. The way things “made sense” in learning, life and my own self worth was never in question. Then the brainwashing commenced. I just want to go back to being the emotional animal I was before. I feel like a robot. I read somewhere due to Male culture expectations like suppressing your emotions that some will go the polar opposite and establish mental blocks to not feel to the degree they did before, but I also heard that those typically experience a burst of emotions spontaneously through out their 20-30yr old mark depending on when the mental blocks were established. What can I do to fix me. I have a sense that I should return to my mindset as a child. That no degree of self worth is gathered from my exterior surroundings.… Read more »
I’m a male empath and after decades of brutally intense research and contemplation I have come to the conclusion that the whole world is upside down. Emotional empaths don’t actually possess something special, something unique, on the contrary, they are the few normal, mentally healthy people left on the planet. Originally everyone was an emotional empath, and people as groups naturally existed in emotional fields, and this can still be observed in other species. But since humans developed the ego a few ten thousand years ago, gradually more and more of us collapsed into semi-psychopathy and today this pathological state is seen as the normal one. Not quite full blown sociopathy or psychopathy, but a lot closer to it than the emotional empath. (This is the real reason why psychopathy isn’t understood at all either, most people have it partially and they aren’t aware it so they can’t make any sense of it.) As long as most people are semi-psychopaths, this world is necessarily going to hell, and that’s why historically all attempts have failed to really make a difference (I hope we can somehow change the world in the future anyway, where the newer generations will mostly be emotional… Read more »
I have always felt emotionally bombarded by other people’s emotions. I can instantly tell if someone is lying to me and too many times I sense others pain, guilt, dispair. I am a very introverted person as I cannot handue large crowds, a lot of people talking at one time, or people talking about how they want to change things in their life. Most of the time they refuse to do anything about it and try to use me as a sounding board. Feeling their dispair, guilt and sadness is sometimes more than I can bare. I have a friend online that I have known for over 17 years now. We have never met in person. We instantly seemed to have a spiritual type connection upon meeting in a chat room for parents of special needs children. He has two special needs children and I have one. Through the years we were a great support to one another going through things being there emotionally for one another concerning things most people would never dream about dealing with. Over the years we slacked off talking so much. Still though as connected as we are occasionally one would write the other to… Read more »
38yrs old no kids never had any luck been through things you would never believe lost things you can never understand and I wonder what’s the point?
I scored an 87/100. I often thought that my constant fatigue was just another strange illness in my long list of such. I’ve always known I was WAY more sensitive then most, but the more I read the site, the more I think….’this is ME’
I can relate on so many levels to this. What an epiphany. I’ve been called literally all of those things, and felt all of those feelings. I scored a 94/100 so it comes as so surprise. It sometimes truly can feel like a real life superpower, but an equal personal curse..
o.o Huh….this explains a LOT…
….especially the emotional freak-out I had a couple months ago while I was an intern at Old Oak Ranch in Sonora, CA…>_> Record-breaking camp of 510 kids….yup. Not fun…
And then I have low pain tolerance and poor posture (I refuse to sit straight. So….back and neck pain are regular, and probably not always related to the whole empathy thing. =^=), so the physical pain is frustrating.
But I don’t think I’ve picked up things from items or food…so…do ALL empaths pick up on that, or just some?