Is Anyone Out There An "empath"?

[Philippa]

So, when one takes on other people's "energies" or "baggage" or whatever, how do you distinguish if it's yours or theirs? How do you know what's real?

One way is to ask as the feelings come up "Is this mine?" Or "does this belong to me?" and wait for an answer inside. This is how I started to differentiate what feelings are mine and what were theirs. There is a book I bought by Rose Rosetree which also helped called "Empowered by Empathy...25 ways to Fly in Spirit." It's full of helpful hints on creating strong boundaries between your emotional self and other peoples.

There is this great affirmation she has in the book which goes "I break the pattern of taking on other peoples stuff. I am an empath, not a garbage dump, and what doesn't belong to me can leave, immediately." There are many others just as great.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Valentino I really liked the video! Thank you for posting this.
I wish I knew HOW to drop my slobbery balls of sadness, fear, confusion, etc.! It is much easier said than done. I get the concept, but I don't know how to participate in the game. Just keep working on the mindfulness meditation, I guess. I am not a very effective buddhist.

The idea of identifying what's "mine" and what's "not mine" is helpful in terms of setting some boundaries so we don't fall in to other people's stuff. Even that's hard, though!

 

[Valentino]

I really like Karla McLaren's work, she really helped me to understand and translate the language and meaning behind emotions, so that I learned to work WITH emotions instead of resisting or limiting emotions. Later on I also discovered that emotions also have underlying intelligence and amazing insights, if I allowed them to be fully felt and heard.

Excerpt from her blog, this one talking about her book "The Language of Emotions":

http://karlamclaren.com/critical-thinking-skills-for-your-emotions/
Emotional skills make every other area of your life work better
No matter who you are or what your chosen skill set is, your life will work better if you understand emotions and how to work with them. When you understand that anger exists to help you set boundaries, you’ll be able to reframe your behavior when you feel angry so that you can act in honorable ways. You’ll also know how to behave when other people feel angry. When you know that fear exists to help you identify change and alert you to possible hazards, you’ll learn to listen to it rather than fight it. When you know that sadness exists to help you let go of things that aren’t working anyway, you’ll be able to let go and make room for things that do work...Every one of your emotions has evolved over millions of years to help you survive and thrive as a member of an intensely social species. Yes, emotions can be troublesome, but not any more so than any other aspect of cognition or humanity can be.

Excerpt from her most recent learning program titled "The Art of Empathy"; Karla breaks down six essential aspects of empathy:

http://karlamclaren.com/the-six-essential-aspects-of-empathy-part-1-emotion-contagion/

1. Emotion Contagion
2. Empathic Accuracy
3. Emotion Regulation
   
4. Perspective Taking
5. Concern for Others
   
6. Perceptive Engagement

<Moderator edit to remove excessive copy/paste. Follow the links for more in-depth information.>

 

[Hope4Now]

@Valentino, thank you for posting all this. I will need to read her stuff, I think. I like the six facets of empathy. It helps me to see where my own issues lie. I have real trouble at the intersection of emotional regulation and emotional contagion. I am regularly overtaken and knocked out of commission by them. I'm fully aware that it is happening, I just have not learned to manage it. I'm one of those people that has lived my life identifying, feeling, and responding to other people's needs without protecting myself from exhaustion. And I seem to be unable to empathize with myself. I am working on that now in therapy. Very difficult for me as I learned young that the pursuit of self-awareness was selfish and shameful, and that to be a good person I must always put others' needs ahead of my own. These developed into core beliefs that I am trying to reframe.

 

[Valentino]

Very difficult for me as I learned young that the pursuit of self-awareness was selfish and shameful, and that to be a good person I must always put others' needs ahead of my own.

You might want to consider questioning and challenging these beliefs.

They feel a bit like brainwashing tactics by parents looking to protect their own self interests, masking it with deceptive character attacks.

 

[Hope4Now]

I don't know if anyone is following this thread or is still interested in it. I am still really struggling with my over-empathic tendencies. It has gotten more intense (if that's possible) in the past month or so. Does anyone have any specific strategies for coping with it when you feel yourself starting to get sucked into other people's energies but you can't just leave the situation? I have realized that I have virtually no boundaries for incoming emotional energy. I pick up others' states, and then I can do nothing about it because it's not me. And most of the time, the people whose emotions I'm picking up aren't aware that it is happening, so I can't even talk about it with them.

@seedling you said

I'm learning how to live with others' pain and draw boundaries now. I have more and more of the feelings of peace and connectedness now and am choosing who I am around and who/what I let into my life.

How do you draw the boundaries? If you're willing to share, I would appreciate any specific strategies!

I've tried visualizing myself encased in a kind of shield: I've tried visualizing being protected by an impenetrable bat cape...sometimes these help a little, but mostly not.

 

[Valentino]

I think boundaries are more of an issue of recognition and awareness instead of creation of them. Everyone has natural boundaries, it's just that we've been programmed or self-programmed to become blind or oblivious to them. The two main emotions that help define boundaries are healthy anger and healthy shame. Without a recognition and flow of these emotions, it's really hard to sense your boundaries and limitations, and as the same time recognize other's.

Karla McLaren has suggestions for defining your boundaries in her book 'The Art of Empathy', some excerpts below:

...Learning to define your boundaries certainly involves communication skills, but I’ve found that you can’t start there. In fact, I’d say that boundary definition is more of a behavioral and developmental process, in which you actually have to retrain yourself and learn to identify yourself as a distinct individual with distinct emotions, ideas, preferences, and requirements. This, in turn, makes you more able to understand others as distinct individuals....In a hyperempath, the self is not distinct, whereas in a low-empathy person, the other is not distinct. In both cases, there is boundary impairment combined with an inability to skillfully balance the needs of the self with the needs of the other. In both cases, learning to identify and work with the already-existing peripersonal space helps people identify self and other tangibly: “My clearly defined boundaries tell me where I begin and end, and now I understand where you begin and end.” Clearly defined boundaries lead to clearer empathic awareness, no matter how empathically receptive you currently are.
---- excerpt from The Art of Empathy - Chapter 5 "Gathering Your Tools" - by Karla McLaren

HOW TO DEFINE YOUR BOUNDARIES
Please seat yourself comfortably and ground and focus yourself, if you can. (If not, it’s okay.) Now stand up and reach your arms straight out to either side of you (if you cannot use your arms in this way, please use your imagination). Imagine that your fingertips are touching the edges of a lighted oval-shaped bubble that encompasses your private, personal space. Reach your arms out in front of you and then raise them above your head...Your boundary should be an arm’s length away from you at all points—in front of you, behind you, on either side of you, above you, and even underneath you. When you can imagine this oval-shaped area all the way around you, drop your arms and let them relax. Close your eyes if you need to as you imagine that the outer edges of this oval...is now lit up in a bright neon color...As you sense your boundary around yourself...ask yourself: “Do I claim this much room in the world?”
Now, thank the emotions that help you create your personal boundaries...Anger helps you claim your voice, standpoint, and territory.. Shame—anger’s close friend and partner—helps you moderate your voice and standpoint so that you don’t unnecessarily hurt yourself or others.
---- excerpt from The Art of Empathy - Chapter 5 "Gathering Your Tools" - by Karla McLaren

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

I have been an empath all of my life.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Valentino, thank you. The excerpts from McLaren were really helpful. I'm going to try the boundary exercise and think a bit on the rest. Probably would be a good book for me to read.

 

[Recovery4Me]

Outside of shoving things in the box marked "crazy making" are some real purposes for gut instincts, feeling the energy wavelengths (example expression: the room was so thick/intense one could cut through it) and emotional sensory heightening. Processing input holistically alerts us to dangers (those tinglings can be real founded at times).

As well it is a bonding mechanism that can allow human to nature awareness, which in turn can mean survival attunement. Dog-master, horse-rider, food finding and not ruffling Mother Nature in the process. My people used medical healing as well by connecting as Albatross offered.

The importance taught to me as a child was to discern what you are connecting to, what those feelings or energy signatures mean and firmly ground one's own boundaries with appropriate understanding that 'reading another' without permission can be a form of violation to the other party. There is a natural dance and grace that is needed. Not everyone gets thrilled. :rolleyes:

 

[Hope4Now]

There is a natural dance and grace that is needed.

Intellectually, I understand and agree with EVERYTHING you said here, @Recovery4Me. I need to learn how to do the natural dance that you began learning as a child. I need a teacher (or at least some guidance as to where to find resources)...preferably one who understands feeling energy in the ways you describe. I have little control over whatever "power" this is I have, and the very last thing I would ever want to do is violate someone. I would rather die. If you have any suggestions for where/how/from whom to learn what you seem to know already, I would welcome your suggestions.

 

[xena21]

I never understood why I hated myself so much even as a young child but I would just start crying when I saw a another kid who looked sad. I would be in the grocery store or wherever, and see some kid who just looked upset for some reason I didn't know, and tears would well up in my eyes. During this time I was in turmoil in my own life. I was being abused on a weekly basis and hated my life and myself to the very core. I never understood why the tears just flowed for these kids.

I still am confused why all of a sudden I see people and tears well up in my eyes. I NEVER cry for myself. I HATE myself with all the passion you can imagine. It amazes me how to look at simple people cause me so much discomfort and emits so much emotion that never happens in my own life.