Empath

What is an Empath?

To describe an Empath: A person who is very highly sensitive to other peoples feelings and emotions.

Empaths are highly sensitive people that have a keen sense of the people around them. They can easily pick up on the feelings of others and sometimes even their thoughts. Empaths have a great deal of empathy for people and animals. However this can sometimes, if not alot of times be a bad thing for the Empath because they can literally feel others pain and suffering. Yes Empaths can literally feel others pain and suffering and can take on others pain and problems as their own – emotional and physical. So they suffer too.

Don’t confuse having empathy and being an empath

Don’t get empathy and being an empath mixed up though, most people have empathy for others – that means having an understanding and care for others pain or suffering. But being an Empath, you take it a step further and can literally take on others pain, suffering and problems as their own. An Empath can feel others emotions whether positive or negative.

Are you an Empath?

Have you ever noticed how you can pick up or sense the energy in a room of people? Or you can literally feel what some one else is feeling? Do you feel drained around others? Do crowds make you feel anxious? Can you easily tell when some one isn’t telling the truth?

Ask yourself..

• Have I been labeled too sensitive or too emotional?
• Am I easily hurt?( feelings
• Do I feel drained or anxious in crowds?
• If a person is feeling angry, hurt, in pain, afraid etc..do I feel it too?
• Do my nerves get frayed by too loud a noise?, strong smells, too much talking or being around others for long periods?
• Am I frightened of feeling engulfed or overwelmed by intimate relationships?
• Do I prefer to make my own way to places or take my own car so that I leave when I feel I want to?
• Does the news deeply unsettle me?
• Do horror movies or violent movies/programs upset or disturb me?
• Do I have great intuition?
• Take comfort in nature?
• Have a hard time NOT caring?
• People tend to come to me with their problems?
• Highly sensitive to sounds, smells, bright lights, tastes
• Need a lot of alone time to re-charge?
• Dread any type of conflict?
• Have a hard time setting healthy boundaries?
• Feel I don’t fit in?
• Tend to isolate
• Find it tough to cope with emotional and sensory overload?
• Too much people (ing) is overwhelming?

Okay so if you are an Empath and you know you can feel others feelings/emotions. Mostly this isn’t great especially if negative emotions or pain are involved. So how can an empath care for others without getting burned out or suffering?

Here are some ideas and techniques to help

• Create a shield: for the situations you can’t avoid. Imagine a bubble of light in your mind, now completely surround yourself with this bubble of protection. When ever you feel you need it. You could try practicing to create this bubble when your home alone so that when ever you need it, you’ll be able to create it quickly and easily when you do need it.
• Grounding: get outside as much as possible, walk bare foot on the grass, sit under a tree or on the earth, walk by the sea or by a river, do some gardening, go into a forest or walk in the countryside. If its not possible to go out into nature, you could meditate – there are some good grounding meditations on Youtube. Bring some nature indoors, get some house plants or flowers.
• Watch your thoughts: being more mindful and aware of your day to day thoughts, try to think as positive as you can. Try and keep a positive mind-set, and remember, sometimes you can pick up on others thoughts too so again be careful what you think about, ” what you think, you will feel”. Learn to know the difference between yours and others thoughts.
• Forgiveness: holding onto anger, yours or others will only hurt you. Let it go…( yep I sang that in my mind as I typed ha ) express it in a healthy safe way. Then forgive and move on. * Tip – you could write a letter to the person/people that have hurt or let you down ( don’t sensor it ) write everything you need to and express how you feel, then shred or burn the letter….releasing all the anger and other negative emotions.
• Create a safe place: create a safe and comfortable place for yourself, like a little retreat where you practice selfcare, it could be a room at home, your house, garden – somewhere for you to enjoy some ” you time ” to re-charge, re-balance, cleanse and heal. You are going to need this a lot.
• Nutrition: eat a healthy balanced diet why? because you’ll need it to stay healthy and well. Some highly sensitive people ( like me ) are very sensitive to chemicals, artificial stuff, sugar, caffeine and junk food, it makes you feel crappy ” you are what you eat “.
• Exercise: Walking in nature, swimming, tai chi, yoga, dance, or any type of exercise that you really enjoy to get that energy moving – don’t let your energy stagnate. You need to keep your body fit and strong too.
• Rest: rest and re-charge, get a good nights sleep every night, take naps if you need to, or even just some quiet time to your self now an then will help to re-charge your energy.
• Identify what drains or lifts your energy: Learn to pay attention to what or who drains you and to what or who lifts your energy. Be more aware of when your energy drains and lifts up – clue! you’ll feel it.
• Gratitude: be thankful for all your gifts and talents, use them wisely. Even though yes sometimes you feel they’re a curse and it’s hard cope with. You were given these for a reason, its up to you to find out what that reason is. Gratitude will lift your vibration, so think about all the things and people you are grateful for often.
• Cleanse your chakra’s: chakras are your energy centers. Its important to cleanse them regularly – aromatherapy and smudging with lavender and sage also some certain crystals help to cleanse, there are lots of info online about this and meditations to look up.
• Set boundaries: set some healthy boundaries to the things you will put up with and what you won’t. That’s up to you to know what’s right or wrong for you. Its about respect! respect yourself and your energy enough to not let others cross your boundaries and know that they should respect yours, just like you respect theirs. Having healthy boundaries does wonders for you self-esteem and well-being.
• Responsibility: take responsibility for your feelings/emotions, your energy, your life and for you. Its your own responsibility to find joy, to create a life you love, for your own well-being – you are worth it!
• Creativity: We are creative beings, we need to create, so don’t think of it as something you don’t need to be doing, you do! Being creative is a wonderful way to express all your feelings/emotions and yourself, it eases stress and it gets you in to the flow…. Its like you go in to a meditative state and relax, sometimes finding solutions to your problems. Fantastic for your well-being. Do what you really enjoy and do it regularly. Any arts, crafts, DIY, cooking, baking, sewing, knitting, gardening, music, dance, singing, writing..what ever brings you peace and joy. See how how necessary it is for your well-being. Its helped me so much in my healing and helps me move forward in my life. I found that I really enjoy crafting and have created a gift shop on Etsy here’s the link www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Littlewildfcreations and I love blogging too.

Empaths feel everything extremely

So as you can see being an Empath isn’t easy. We feel everything extremely, both positive and negatively. Why? why is there even such thing? We are healers! We are here to help others heal, its in our nature. That’s why we feel so much and have a huge amount of empathy. We have to go through pain to learn about healing, first we learn to heal ourselves, then show others. We need to understand about feelings/emotions, energy, how to cleanse, re-balance and then heal. In this process of learning, you’ll also gain much wisdom and strength, you’ll discover your real authentic self, what you really want in life and what you don’t. What matters to you most and what doesn’t.

You learn to trust your own judgement and do what is right for you and live the life you really want, not what others expect of you.

Learning to love yourself unconditionally is the aim

Also realize a huge thing, you don’t actually heal anyone else, you show/inspire or live by example to others how they can heal themselves just like you are or have.

These are my views and experiences, yours may be different, we are all different and unique.

Healers are spiritual warriors who have found their courage to defeat the darkness of their souls. Awakening and rising from the depths of their deepest fears , like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Reborn with wisdom and strength that creates light enough to help, encourage and inspire others out of their darkness

I hope you enjoyed my post or found it useful, let me know.

Love LittleWildflower x