Empaths are not made. We are born into this.
Each has his or her own unique experience, their own unique way of how they interact with the energy around them. How we receive, interpret, and ultimately cope with that energy varies greatly between empaths. But there is one common thread between us all: we each are human conduits.
To begin, you must know that every physical thing on this planet - living or not - emits energy. Actual events - on all scales - emit energy. Spiritual forces - emit energy. And the earth - the earth and all its growth and death - emits energy. Empaths have the ability - which is totally involuntary - to actually FEEL this energy. Beyond feeling the energy, I can actually feel the emotions involved. The best friend who found out her husband is cheating. The mother who lost a child. The animal suffering at the hands of humans. Mother Earth being poisoned and suffocated by her own children. Regardless if I never experienced anything close to what I am witnessing - I am awash in all of the emotions and the energy attached to those emotions. So yes, I can tell you what it feels like to find out your husband is cheating and what it feels like to lose a child. My connection to the suffering of animals is especially deep and I have felt their broken bodies and shattered spirits. I feel the deep anguish and grief of the masses when a catastrophe - natural, like a hurricane, or man made, like a mass shooting - occurs on this planet. To live like this is like living with every nerve raw and exposed.
Needless to say, being an empath is terrifying. First, because I didn’t know that is what I was. The constant influx of energy means an empath lives their life in a perpetual state of intensity. Think of colors being too bright with no ability to shield your eyes. Growing up, empaths know they are different. Most are TOLD that they are, I was told constantly - even though I assumed that what I was experiencing was natural. I initially believed that everyone was as perceptive as I was - but that it was my own short-comings and failures that prevented me from living as “light” as others. I - with no ability to protect myself- and unbeknownst to me - absorbed it all. That is the crux of this curse. Empaths absorb energy - and I didn’t even know that is what was happening. Worse yet, I didn’t know how to stop it nor shield myself from it. The constant influx permeated me, infused into me -and I would then be intertwined with that energy. And I would feel their pain, their sadness, their grief, their broken-ness. I would feel it as my own. This energy shift is not just one way, though. As they infused me with their energy, I infused them with mine. The life force that pulsates off of an empath is powerful and bright, even if they don’t know or believe that. And like moths to a flame, people are drawn to us, seeking our light and desperate for it’s healing ability. When this interaction was finished, I would be left not only heavily laden with the pain of the other, but depleted from what was taken from me.
Now the good.
Just as an empath can experience all of the above with the darkness of the world, we can experience it with the light. All of the joy, excitement, pride, happiness that I came in contact with would also be absorbed. There is definitely the addicting side of being able to absorb someone’s sheer joy. I can feel what it’s like to go skydiving or to get a big promotion or win the lottery - even though I never had those experiences happen. But being able to feel all these warm and fuzzy feelings isn’t what makes being empathic a blessing.
The blessing came when I finally understood. When I finally realized WHO and WHAT I was. It came when I realized that it wasn’t because of any short coming or failure that left me feeling like I couldn’t function “normally” in the real world, it was from a lack of healthy boundaries. It was from a lack of the skills needed to not only build those healthy boundaries, but to be able to defend and maintain them at all cost. I needed to learn the critical skill to be able to feel the energy without letting it absorb into me. To learn to be a light for others without allowing them to greedily deplete me. The process of getting from Point A to Point B was long and it was painful. It is a road of pure self-discovery and that meant tearing away - bit by bit - each piece of my psyche that didn’t serve me any longer. Each one of those pieces were dysfunctional coping skills that I learned to depend on with every cell of my being to block out the overwhelming incoming energy that never let up. But to allow my TRUTH, my healing life force to fully shine, all those things that I used to keep it hidden had to be torn down. I had to have nothing left standing to block my light from shining out.
However, no matter how hard I tried, I could not raise my hand to strike at my dysfunctional walls that loomed too thick and too solid. I was unable to break them down. So I prayed and prayed. I begged God to do for me what I could not do, to do what I knew needed to be done but that I was too weak to do. And so He did. Into a million billion trillion pieces, He broke me - leaving a portion of my heart cratered with indescribable grief. It was- and is - a pain unlike any other, because that bond of love is so deep and so eternal. It is a love that I came to depend on for my very existence. It is a love that, in order for me to grow and evolve on the path that God had for me, had to leave this earthly plane. It is a love that could do more for me in Heaven then it could here on earth. In a final breath, I was decimated - leaving a void to which God then said “Shall we begin?”. It was in that moment of agony came the dawning realization that something amazing was going to happen. That in my crippling pain - I was being given the blessing that I begged for. It was here - in this new, fragile, vulnerable state - with none of my old defensive weapons - that I began to learn the beauty of my divine gift. It was also when I felt what true, pure gratitude was.
It has been almost 2 years since that moment. I have cried tears that could fill an ocean a million times over. But now that I know my truth - now that I know who and what I am, and what my purpose is, I also know a joy and peace that is unlike any other. Part of that purpose - like a true empath - is to reach out and connect with others. Empaths need to nurture not only themselves, but uplift, empower, encourage, and restore each other. My hope is that this page will serve as a source of support, enlightenment, growth, and restoration for all those that need it during their Life Path. Let us all journey together. Namaste
