Thin-skinned, hyper-sensitive, wimpy, spineless, wussy, feeble, weak, fragile, melodramatic, temperamental ...

What does it mean to be an empath? Well, it is related and frequently misused with the meaning of empathy. Empathy is defined as being able to “feel into” other’s feelings. However, for empaths, this sensitivity of “feeling” exists accordingly amplified to that of a typical individual. Empaths are more tuned in, more empathetic, and more sensitive than the average person.

Have you ever questioned which feelings you experience are yours and which of them belong to somebody else? Have you ever felt so intensely as you were with someone else that you could not distinguish your emotions from theirs? Are you so engrossed in your relationship with your partner that you donate a preponderance volume of your vigor towards their happiness and not your own?

If your answers are yes—it is favorably probable that you are an empath.

Being this tuned in, empathic, and sensitive is an advantage, but it comes at a hindrance as well.

Empaths are remarkably susceptible to emotional contagion, to “catching” others’ emotions in comparison with the way someone may catch a cold or flu. But it doesn’t stop there: empaths become physically ill and suffer from anxiety, depression, chronic stress, professional burnout, and pain syndromes more often than their less empathic counterparts. Empaths often need copious down time after social engagements, “recovery periods” at the end of a workday, or extended interims of being alone.

"You need to grow some thicker skin! Stop being so overly sensitive."

I wish I could tell you how many times I heard that in my childhood! Growing up as an empath, you may have experienced similar insults from your parents, friends or peers, and perhaps even worse.

It's not at all trendy or popular to be sensitive or feeling in our society that values efficiency, cold calculation and industrial resilience. Therefore, you may have experienced and still experience, a lot of antagonism towards your behavior as an Empath.

Myth #1 - Empaths are self-absorbed.
Truth: We often focus more on others than on ourselves.

It's true that Empaths are often unexpainably moody and quiet on the outside. However, this isn't because they're excessively absorbed thinking too much about themselves and their feelings. Rather, the Empath is often deeply affected by the exterior emotions of others that he experiences as his own. The Empath's ability to intuitively feel the feelings of others is what weighs them down so much.

Myth #2 - Empaths are mentally ill.
Truth: We are magnets of negative energy. This often creates psychological misbalance within us.

Empaths are excellent listeners, confidants and counselors. For this reason, it's common for people to be drawn towards their sincere and caring natures, almost like magnets. Therefore, Empaths often experience a lot of "emotional baggage dumping" from other people, and have difficult releasing themselves from the negative energy that remains in their minds and bodies afterwards. Unfortunately, this can lead to a lot of lingering depressive emotions that the Empath is left with. Thus, the Empath can appear to be mentally ill and depressed, and in some cases legitimately is. However, in most cases the Empath is congested with remnants of harmful emotional energy, like sinuses are congested with mucus during a flu virus.

The root of the problem doesn't lie with the Empath, it's a result of their outer emotional climate.

I have discovered that I AM AN EMPATH. But, commencing today I am working towards exploiting it in a manner that is beneficial to me.

Are you an empath? Here are five signs that you might be—

THE EMPATH CHECKLIST:

• You struggle with boundaries.
• You are often not in your body, which causes disassociation.
• You are vulnerable to emotional contagion.
• You are prone to nervous system overdrive. It doesn’t take much—sometimes just a draining conversation or a party that’s ostentatious and over-populated—to impel your nervous system into anxiety mode.
• You have trouble with intimacy.

Even when we’re aware of them, these patterns are hard to change. They’re wired into us profoundly; at levels the conscious mind does not have the capability reach. For that reason, to be a healthy empath requires daily practice.

Here are the vital topics and therapeutic practices that shape the heart of the journey. The challenge is that much of the healing needs to happen through the body. And for empaths, the body can be a wilderness of sorts, a long-abandoned battleground.

Empaths have an astonishing capacity for union. They are great in a calamity. They style gifted, intuitive healers. They perceive others profoundly, well beyond the surface. And they have a magnetic quality that draws people to them.

Yet, flanking these positive aspects are several shadow sides.

I have encountered numerous ways to help diminish the negative properties of being an empath by practicing yoga, meditation and mindfulness.

Here’s what you’ll want to focus on to help you live in a state of physical and emotional equilibrium.

• Develop Boundaries.As an empath, you give too much space to others’ emotional lives. You solve their problems with ease and help them restore equilibrium, often at the expense of your own energy. Constructing boundaries isn’t a matter of mental discipline, of “just say no.” When you are an empath, limits must to be integrated into your physicality. The core body is your seat of power.

What helps is a yoga practice that brings your focus into your deep, intrinsic core where you can develop “prana in the belly.” This four-pronged core body program includes awareness, strength, flexibility, and the capacity to release. Working with the core in this holistic way helps you ground back into your body and replenish your energy stores. Mindfulness tools can also help you monitor where—or on whom—you’re focused and notice when you’ve migrated into someone else’s direct experience.

• Bring Awareness into Your Body.Imagine that you’ve left to visit a friend in another city and overlooked to lock your house. And that’s not all: You’ve left all the doors and windows wide open, so any burglar could get in. This analogy is what it is like to be an empath. You can abandon your own home, your direct experience, in errand of someone else’s. The more you do this, the more difficult it is to return. What makes matters worse is that not inhabiting your body (and the moment) keeps the benefits of yoga and other mindfulness-based practices just beyond your reach.

You need to offset this tendency toward dissociation with slow, mindful vinyasa yoga sequences that link movement with breath. Empaths can spend a whole yoga class or practice on auto-pilot: adding anchors for awareness will help bring you back to your body and to the present.

• Balance Your Nervous System.An empath’s environment is like an “emotional satellite radio” with surround sound and hundreds of channels. Your nervous system surfs the dial constantly, flipping from station to station to listen to others’ emotional broadcasts. These information-processing demands can catapult your nervous system into overdrive, which reinforces anxiety, depression, and chronic stress. Instead learn to notice the signs of nervous system overdrive, such as that inner sense of something always “humming” beneath the surface, an elevated heart rate, and increased emotional reactivity.

Practice simple breath-work techniques such as nasal breath to slow your heart and bring your nervous system back to baseline. I have found regular breaks from social media to also help.

• Learn to Regulate Intimacy. For empaths, intimacy comes down to matters of space and reciprocity. Sometimes you crave intense emotional, physical, and spiritual bonding. At other times, you need so much space that having your own personal galaxy might feel too crowded. When you want to merge, you can threaten people who have a higher need for breathing room; when you need wide-open space, you can appear remote and withholding. And when it comes to reciprocity, you’re rarely comfortable on the receiving end. Your giving nature attracts narcissistic people who crave the mirroring and validation you offer. In the meantime, you’re able to create a fantasy in which the relationship lives up to its potential—and you inhabit that fantasy as though it were real. You learn to subsist on a diet of mere “emotional breadcrumbs,” and can suffer from malnourishment.

To build your ability to receive care from others, try bodywork or yoga therapy with someone you trust. You can also balance a personal yoga practice with group classes to strengthen your sense of community.

• Develop emotional immunity. Empaths pick up on other’s emotions and even their direct inner experience so rapidly that it is difficult to identify what’s happened. As a result, a large part of your anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and immune issues can belong not to you, but to someone else. And just like your nervous system and physical body, your emotional body and immune system struggle with boundaries. They have difficulty discerning what’s you and what’s not. This leaves you vulnerable to emotional issues like anxiety, depression, and chronic stress.

Practice interpersonal hygiene: using mindfulness, notice how you feel after spending time with others. You’ll soon learn which people are hazardous to your health, and you can limit your interactions with them. Also try lymph-stimulating asana sequences and Restorative Yoga to stimulate your capacity for constructive internal reflection.

ITS OKAY TO BE AN EMPATH.
We possess a quality that is both a blessing and a curse. It is imperative to look past the myths of the empath and focus on re-centering yourself. Personally I believe that being an Empath is advantageous because I can feel so deeply and understand so comprehensively. Yes, it has caused me tremendous pain and struggle, but inclusively I am grateful for who I am and my ability to feel and support people to a degree that a majority of people cannot.