An Empath is a person who is highly sensitive to other people’s feelings, thoughts, and emotions. These other feelings, thoughts, and emotions are felt through intuitive abilities, and the Empath is able to know things that the non-Empath does not.
I like to think of it more like “reading”, which is what it feels like to me. I feel like I recognize a certain vibrational energy, and I get downloads of emotions. My brain then tries to “read” those emotions to determine information I can voice to the other person.
For example, a student is sitting at her desk. I am in my own world as I start to get the class ready. The student stands up, and she comes over to me. I can feel her sadness before she even speaks, but as she asks me to go to the nurse, her despair becomes palpable. I need to choke back my own tears. I ask her if she is okay. She answers that she is. She leaves for the nurse. End of story.
“I always thought there was so much more to it than that,” a friend said to me once when I explained how it felt to “read” another person. “In the movies they always create this whole storyline and then something bad happens and the person needs to solve a crime.”
“Yeah, it’s not really like that. There is a lot less drama. It’s like anything else. The movies make it seem like a much bigger deal than it is,” I answered.
For me, other people’s emotions are always like a television playing in the background of a room. I can see little flickers on the screen, and sometimes I get soundbites and snippets. There are also times when I stand and watch the screen for a little bit because something has caught my attention, but for the most part, it is a pretty minor part of my day.
Many people doubt this type of ability can happen at all, but research is starting to say otherwise. Apparently, scientists have found cells in the human brain called “mirror neurons”. These cells may help individuals “mirror” other people’s emotions. The craziest part…in people who are labeled Empaths, they are finding hyperactive mirror neurons, so science is starting to take notice.
Whatever you believe or whatever you are capable of, just enjoy it. This is a gift.
Love and Light, all!
The Wandering Empath 