Now that people are beginning to look into psychology in order to find themselves, many terms are being misused. One trend I have noticed going on around me, especially on social media, is that many people are coming forth and stating that they are empaths, loosely. For some of them, this may be true, however for a lot of them – they simply aren’t empaths. If anything, they may be a highly sensitive person (HSP’s), sharing similar characteristics of an empath. It’s easy to get these two character traits confused, so let’s take a deeper dive into this subject.
First of all, what are empaths?
An empath is a highly sensitive individual that has the ability to take on the emotions or feelings of people around them. Sometimes this is a subconscious ability, and many times it is hard for them to distinguish the difference between their own feelings, versus another’s feelings. They can feel so strongly that they even take on the pain at their own expense. The untrained empath has gotten a bad reputation for being ungrounded and only absorbing unfortunate circumstances.
What are Highly Sensitive People (HSP’s)?
Highly Sensitive People, like empaths, have high emotional intelligence. They can be sensitive to light, and inadvertently stay away from large groups. They also have the ability to feel higher levels of empathy than most people, however they are not on the same spectrum of empathy as an empath.
What are their main differences?
Empaths can absorb energies from even nature, plants, and even weather. They take it one step further than HSP’s and only about 2-3 percent are true empaths.For example: One day while sitting in the passenger’s seat, I began to pick up on energies from the sky. I said to the person driving, “Something bad is about to happen.” Immediately less than 30 seconds after, it started hailing extremely hard, to the point where we had to pull over! The driver was freaked out and asked me how I knew this. Empaths become one with what they are feeling! So imagine a tower that was created to absorb lightning. The empath is that tower. They are so high in the sky, that most likely they are the first to get hit. HSP’s can understand feelings, and are high on the spectrum too, but they don’t conduct the energy like empaths do. HSP’s can RECOGNIZE when someone is feeling sad upset or sad, but an empath will begin to feel this emotion as if it’s their own.
Here’s a good list of circumstances to see if you identify with the traits that empaths share:
1. People just come up to you with their problems and open up to you with extremely personal things. You make a great dumping ground for others to throw their emotions on. This might suck to hear, but you’re like a really comfy pillow that people want to lay on. For example: One day on a bus in Hawaii, a homeless man hops on, and starts scanning the room. Out of everyone, he chooses me to sit next to, and starts learning on me! I asked him to stop, but all he did was ignore me. Luckily a by passer saw it and asked him assertively to get off of me, and he finally snapped out of it. Weird situations such as these seem to always happen to you, because your aura is simply attracts others.
2. You are an energy source. People thrive and feel better specifically around you. Good things start happening to them. This is why you have to have time alone and recharge more than the average person. It’s very draining, and you’d look silly if you became angry at them for it. To them, they are doing nothing wrong, because they don’t understand how your energy is actually benefiting them. In some situations, especially with narcissists, they DO know what is happening on an energetic level, but they could care less that about how you feel about it.
3. It’s extremely hard for you distinguish the difference between your feelings and another person’s feelings that you are picking up on. You might be happy one minute, and suddenly get hit with a wave of heavy energy the next minute. For example: You start pacing back and forth, which is totally out of character for you. Turns out there is a stressed woman nearby having a discussion with a friend, and her husband didn’t come home last night. It takes serious discipline for an empath to come to the realization of what is theirs, and what isn’t. Because you’re so high on the spectrum, it’s normal to be unable to differentiate experiences when you feel them all just as deeply as your own.
4. You have dreams of other people problems, revealing more about themselves. For example, I came across a man that was suicidal. After talking with him in person, the following night I had a dream about him at a park. He was a child on a swing, crying with rage. Eventually after meeting up with him again, he revealed to me that he was molested as a young child and was not happy with his mother that enabled the situation. I already figured this from my dream, and him sharing that information with me was a confirmation of what I already knew.
Does any of that ring a bell to you? Whether you’re an empath, HSP, or neither one – don’t get caught up in labels. Neither trait is better than one another, but knowing the difference equips you for a better understanding of it all!
