On the psi ability of an empath
Everyone is empathic, an empath has a psi or psychic ability to feel and manipulate other people’s emotions.
This basic article is on recognizing if you have the psi ability of an empath. I also have advanced articles on how to manage that ability and use it in art or music.
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
First off, everyone is empathic. Even psychopaths describe shutting off their empathy which means they are aware of it and had it switched on as a default. Like IQ distributions, all psi abilities exist on a spectrum, passing beyond normal human behaviors into abilities that are several standard deviations off-average.
So on one end of the spectrum, most people have the potential to intuit others emotions. The average human has mirror neurons which means that their brain fires a small burst of emotion when they observe emotion in other people and they use that feeling to determine how to act in social situations. We do see greater abilities in emotional intelligence in different cultures (i.e. Africa, indigenous populations, India), children, and animals. These groups communicate much more delicately and appropriately using emotions than do Westernized adults.
Some people are a couple standard deviations off — extra empathic, these are our bleeding hearts, social-worker, or non-profit leader types. We all know people who exhibit more open hearts, and greater compassion in their day to day. They are awesome, we love them, and we love to give them hugs.
Empaths are beyond that too…
The psi ability of an empath
I need to be really clear that to be an empath is to have a psychic ability which means way, way beyond the normal. Psi abilities go past gifted, into events that are outside of normal consensual reality and space-time.
You are an empath if you feel other people’s emotions as if they are your own. Furthermore empaths feel other people’s subconscious and conscious emotions, they know the emotion the other person is feeling even if that person doesn’t consciously know. In strong empaths, this can extend to any body sensation, such as pain and pleasure, not just emotion. Strong empaths can feel this independent of space-time. I can read emotions across the world, see them in the aura, and feel them from non-embodied beings.
Here are some classic tells of someone who is a empath, so psychic instead of just compassionate:
Some empaths are quite promiscuous, because when someone touches them with desire, they feel desire. It takes extreme skill to discern that the desire they are feeling isn’t theirs.
Empaths can transmit as well as receive emotions. Guardians of the Galaxy has a neat little clip where the empath character puts someone at ease enough that they fall asleep. Empaths can ‘push’ physiologic states and emotion as well as ‘pull’ them.
Empaths can learn nearly any manual skill by standing next to someone. The ability to feel extends to lateral acquisition of manual skills like dance, surfing, bricklaying, carpentry, etc. Anything that is physical or muscle memory.
People who are empaths from birth tend to be very controlling in groups, managing other people’s emotions by leading the conversation, being funny, or being talkative. This is simply to avoid discomfort, lead the tone and you control the emotions you have to sit in.
Empaths often partner with sociopaths, not intentionally but because the sociopaths appreciate and use their ability to read people, and the empaths love being around someone with minimal emotion.
Empaths tend to have shitty personal relationships, they often exhibit co-dependence, can adopt borderline personality coping mechanisms, and generally don’t know what they want in life. Despite this they are often sought out as partners and friends because other people love to dump their shitty emotions on empaths who are excellent listeners and always syncing up to whoever is around.
Empaths can usually talk to animals, most animals communicate in complex emotion with very rudimentary thoughts so empaths can usually always communicate with them consciously or unconsciously.
Empaths can almost always tell when someone else is lying, this is usually if the person has anxiety around lying (i.e. not a sociopath), and is consciously lying (i.e. not mistaken). If they are unaware they aren’t telling the truth the lie-detection functions from a different psychic sense (claircognizance).
Empaths tend to isolate with age. They usually like crowded places like rock concerts and bars when they are younger because they feed on the group energy. As they grow up, they tend to either get more sensitive, or fill up with other people’s negative emotions and get depressed and/or anxious. They usually get pretty grouchy and isolate, rejecting other people as a coping mechanism. Doesn’t really help, a strong empath is going to read people on the subway or walking down the street and pick up emotions from old cords.
Coping with the psi ability of an empath
Empaths are one ability where the only way out is through. If you are an empath you absolutely must learn and fully understand that you have the ability, and then you absolutely must use empath-specific coping mechanisms in order to function.
There is really no other way. The alternative is to become vastly overweight (putting on fat subconsciously to protect yourself), develop addictions (to block out the emotions), live alone in the woods with no human contact (doesn’t help if you don’t cut cords from previous relationships), or live with extreme depression and anxiety which will usually kill you one way or the other (suicide or cancer).
Does this sound scary? Good. This is a real problem. Like pre-diabetes you must diagnose it properly and manage it actively or you’re fucked.
But we got this, you’re not fucked.
The psi ability of an empath conclusion
The psi ability of an empath extends beyond normal human empathy, extended human compassion, and into the ability to feel other people’s emotions as if they are your own. Just like any psi ability there are pros and cons to this, and it must be actively managed — under the correct paradigm, for a healthy and productive life.
