When you see someone in distress do you feel emotional? Do you feel as if you're experiencing their pain? If your answer is yes, you could be an empath, or at least partly an empath. People experience empathy to varying degrees.
Backed by three scientific studies, Greater Good Magazine's online empath test offers perhaps the most accurate empath scale. Like Psychologia, it uses experiential questions. The answers can range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. There are a total of 29 questions.
An empath is an individual who feels more empathy than an average human. Empaths are exceptionally sensitive to the emotions and frame of mind of nearby individuals.
Over time, empaths can become programmed to avoid external stimulation or need very little of it to feel happy. Whether or not a person is introverted, some common side effects of hyper-sensitivity can include exhaustion, overload, depression, and anxiety.
One of the most significant challenges of being an empath is the emotional overload that often accompanies the ability to feel deeply. Empaths are particularly sensitive to the emotions of others, and it can be challenging to distinguish between their own feelings and those of the people around them.
1 Being an empath comes with a lot of positive traits. For one, Brown says, empaths are "highly intuitive and emotionally intelligent," so they can read the room, pick up on other people's energy, and be very aware of their own emotions, too. The catch? Taking on everyone's feelings can be a lot.
Heyoka empath
“Heyoka” means “sacred clown” or “spiritual fool” in the Lakota and Dakota Native American dialects. Heyoka empaths are said to be the rarest and most powerful variety, acting as a spiritual mirror to those around them to assist their growth.
Empaths are excellent perceivers of their environment. They look around and see what is happening. They listen well and show up for people in need. When they want to, they can be very connected to others and sense when they need help.
Empaths need to be around people who accept their beautifully in-tune nature instead of trying to change them. Those people see how giving, open, and caring empaths are. They recognize that empaths can be amazing friends, partners, and confidants, and they don't take that for granted.
Empaths and intimate relationships
While empaths can make wonderful caring friends, in a romantic relationship they can often find it difficult. Empaths tend to love hard and intensely, experiencing deep feelings of connection.
The empath concept is controversial. Opinion is divided on whether empaths actually exist. There is also debate around some abilities associated with empaths. For instance, empaths are thought to have special skills in reading others, detecting lying, and healing.
Intellectuals can make good partners for certain empaths because their sense of logic compliments and grounds an empath's emotional intensity. Ask for help. Intellectuals love to solve problems. Be very specific about ways they can assist you with a problem or task.
In rare cases, being an empath may refer to intensely heightened perceptions. Roughly 1% to 2% of people can feel sensations on their skin while watching someone else be touched, a phenomenon linked to empathy and known as mirror-touch synesthesia.
Being an empath is not something you can control; it is something that you are born with. It is a wonderful gift to be so in tune with your and other people's emotions, but it can become difficult. You are not alone.
Compared to someone who is highly sensitive (empathetic vs. empathic), an empath has a greater sensory awareness and feels extremely emotional about others, their surroundings, and the visual images or media they're exposed to. (You'll often hear empaths say even TV commercials can elicit spontaneous crying).
Despite the great many people who refer to themselves as this type of person, in actuality, empaths make up a very small part of the population. In fact, according to a 2007 study on empathy, published in Nature Neuroscience, only 1 to 2 percent of the population consists of true empaths.
As an empath in a tense moment, your heart rate may quicken even more than normal. Your anger may feel heightened, your sadness more intense. It's harder to control your own emotions because you have your emotions and your partner's emotions running through your body.
“Empaths not only feel for others, but absorb those feelings in their own system,” says Orloff, whose private practice is in Santa Monica, California. Additionally, empaths are often able to pick up on unspoken feelings as well, drawing on subtle energy fields that emanate around other people's bodies.
Empaths tend to desire validation and love from a narcissist, potentially due to their childhood experience of not having their emotional needs met by a caregiver or parent. Likely, an empath had a narcissistic parent, or experienced some kind of emotional neglect in which they learned that love is conditional.
You don't always know which emotions are yours. This is probably the biggest ongoing challenge empaths face. When you're constantly absorbing emotional information from other people, it can be hard to know what you're feeling from others vs. your own thoughts and emotions.
But empathy can have a dark side. Some people, known as dark empaths, understand the feelings of others but don't feel these feelings themselves. They might act like they care, but deep down, they don't feel sympathy for you or have a desire to help. They use their understanding of your feelings to manipulate you.
Because empaths quite literally feel what their friends are going through, they can become overwhelmed by painful emotions, such as anxiety or anger.