It’s a relatively new phenomenon for people to casually refer to themselves as ’empaths.’ But I’m not sure everyone is on the same page as to what an empath is exactly. So I, like many people, share in a good dose of skepticism behind the rising wave of #empathslander. Let’s discuss what empathy is and isn’t.

Intuitive empathy is the most common form of intuitive ability that most of us experience and recognize, and the form of intuitive experience that most people can relate to, since it is very similar to emotional empathy. Tread carefully, though, because they’re not the same. Emotional empathy is the willingness to enter into the lived experience of another person, to imagine (but never assume) and identify with what someone else is going through.

But intuitive empathy is different in that it is simultaneous to the present moment. There is no cognitive decision or effort required. It just happens.

Intuitive empathy is different than just being able to relate to another person or feel compassion for them. An intuitive empath can experience exactly what it feels to be in another person’s shoes, because we experience someone’s emotional and intellectual lives as our own feelings and thoughts (this is why it’s very important to only work with intuitives who understand this phenomenon and have enough experience to identify what they are feeling from what you are feeling during a session).

While I do think emotional empathy can happen automatically, it is mostly born out of decency. We can also learn it and choose it because we value it as important. But intuitive empaths have access to a more literal understanding of another person’s reality automatically.

Intuitive empaths are helpers. We do not use our ability to prey on others~that’s what sociopaths and psychopaths do. In order to do our work well, empaths must have pure motives and a big heart, but that’s the easy part. We also have to learn ways to decompress. It isn’t healthy or practical to carry others’ emotions for them.

Our deep compassion becomes the gateway through which we can help the most, but a real empath must be prepared to do the protective and ethical work required to manage their gift.

Next week’s post will be a deeper dive into the ways we must and can learn how to release what we pick up from others, even if we don’t always realize we’re carry more than we are responsible for.

For now though, say you were in a crowd of people last Saturday? Doing your part to stand up for compassion, inclusion, science, and civil society? Make sure you give yourself lots of unstructured time on the back end. Drink water. Take an epsom salt bath. Go for long walks in your favorite quiet place.

Remember that love is an action, and every time you take that action on behalf of someone who cannot, you embody empathy. It doesn’t really matter which type of empathy you express, it’s just helpful to know so you don’t slander yourself :).

Be well and I’ll chat to you next week.