Do you know if you are Empathic or an Empath? Why it Matters

What is the difference between empathic & being an empath?

Actually an incredible lot. Being empathic means being open and sensitive to how another feels. Being an Empath means that YOU actually FEEL another’s feelings, in your OWN BODY. This can happen without you even meaning to do it. Right now, with many people overly emotional for a variety of reasons, it makes sense to make sure you are not victim to someone else’s overwrought thoughts and pain.

Being an Empath makes me realize how much stuff other people are dealing with. It makes me think twice before I meet someone in anger or are aggressive as a defense. It also makes me realize that there are many people in the world that can feel other people’s pain, joy and sorrow. If you don’t understand what is happening to you, it is scary and disorientating.

I remember the day that I first heard the word empathic. I had already graduated from college, in fact I had already graduated from University of Arizona with my Masters. And was on a third interview for my first corporate job. This was in the 80’s, and the company was a subsidiary of BristolMyers. I was given a three hour personality test that was audio recorded.

The district manager asked the questions, and then I was supposed to give answers on the spot – while being recorded. I was told that they analyzed their ten best salesmen (Women only started in the industry 3 years before me, so none of them were the “Best” yet). Then they took the traits that all ten salesmen had and created a test to find those traits in the candidates that interviewed for the position.

We were at a hotel, sitting at a table in the lobby right outside of the restaurant. The questions required long oral answers – so long, that it reminded me of the four hours I spent defending my thesis. The questions were odd, like: “who were you closer to, your mother or your father?”. “What are your top five goals for the next year?”. I would try to figure out what they were determining with the questions, but I couldn’t because I had to answer quickly and move on to get the test done in the three hour allotted time.

Then came the question. “How empathetic are you?”. I immediately thought the word was apathetic – it was the only word that i knew that was close. I didn’t know the word empathic existed. I thought of the fact that I always cared, that i was the first to help or volunteer if I saw a need. Apathetic people were people who just don’t give a crap. That wasn’t me. So I said: “Not very.”

Then the next question came. “Give 5 examples of times that you were empathetic.” I was stunned. I knew that I didn’t have the right word, no one in their right mind would hire someone who had five examples of being apathetic, like they were proud of being someone who didn’t care about anyone. The manager asked me the same question again.

I had nothing. I had no fathomable idea what empathetic meant. I pantomimed that he had to turn off the recorder. He refused. He asked me the question a third time. I mouthed that I was going to walk out of the interview if he did not shut the recorder off and tell me what empathetic meant. So he did. He told me that it was feeling other people’s feelings, being sympathetic to another’s plight, compassionate. After he said that, I easily came up with 5 times I had been empathetic.

Later, when I asked how I had done on the “test”, I was informed it wasn’t a “test” it was a “profile” and that they didn’t base who they would hire on it. I found out that they were scared of getting sued for using it, so they were downplaying the fact that the company used it.

It wasn’t until twenty years later when I found out that there are actually people called Empaths. That I was a sensitive. When I was in Angel Therapy Practitioner school. I found out that not only could you BE empathetic with people, you could actually FEEL their feelings yourself. That I had actually felt other’s feelings. Worse yet, I didn’t know that I could feel other people’s feelings without realizing that those feelings weren’t mine. I have spent years understanding how I attract and express others feelings. I want to share with you how to tell where a feeling is coming from.

When you have an emotion that is troubling you, ask yourself or your guides this simple question: Is this feeling coming from inside of me, or outside of me? If you don’t get a hit on questions like this inside yourself, use a pendulum. Ask the pendulum the question, perhaps putting it in two yes or no questions. “Is this coming from outside of me?”. Then confirm with the question: “Is this coming from inside of me?” If those answers are consistent between the two questions you usually have an accurate answer.

If the answer is outside of you, then the next thing to do is to ground yourself and clear all energy that does not belong to you from your body. This method should also be used on body aches and pains. As a medium, I often feel how people died in MY BODY. In fact, that was much of the chronic pain I had that started me on my spiritual path.

Now when I feel how someone died from a car accident, I am in wonder at the fact I was feeling others feelings and accepting them as mine. That is one of the things that was going on – I was walking around hospitals everyday and feeling how earthbound spirits had died there. Luckily one of my habits was doing ceramics, working with clay. That is one of the best ways to ground negative energy out of your body. It wasn’t enough though, I had severe chronic pain during that time.

So if I feeling isn’t yours, ask it to leave. Clear your chakra’s, take a salt path to make sure that the energy is absorbed out of your body. Put up a boundary of light and energy that is supported by your angels. You should be able to clear your energy every day. and get rid of any debris in your body that isn’t yours.

If the pain comes from inside of you, ask what is the message it is here to tell you. As Emmanuel says, our bodies serve us faithfully, and are here to point out if there is an imbalance in our systems. After you have gotten information from the feeling or pain, then clear your chakra’s and aura of it, again putting up your boundary system.

In summary, more people are waking up to being empathic or actual empaths. As the vibration of the planet rises, this will become more & more common. Learning what it means to be empathic and how to handle the attribute can enrich your life.