Elevate Your Empathy — What It Means To Be An Empath

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A few years ago, I was working for a top tech company doing law enforcement relations. Whenever something naughty would happen digitally on the app, law enforcement would contact my team to get evidence of the crime with the correct legal process. I dealt with dozens of tickets a day, some emergency calls, and reading about the darkest internet crimes all day every day. With my background in law, I felt like I had a pretty good understanding of the darker side of our human race. I went into that job feeling extremely emotionally capable to handle it all.

About a year into the job, as I started to work with heavier cases, I noticed myself changing — I was anxious, angry, depressed, using alcohol and drugs more, detaching emotionally from people in my life, I even dyed my hair darker. I saw the world with darker lenses, always expecting something bad to happen around me since I was reading about it for the majority of my days. Don’t get me wrong, it was my favorite job I’ve ever had, I felt like I was actually making an impact on the world, but it came at a cost to my mental health.

My therapist at the time asked me — are you an empath? I didn’t know it went beyond just feeling emotions for other people, and she told me to read The Empath Survival Guide by Judith Orloff and my whole world started to make sense. After reading about the terrible things that were constantly happening in the world, I was absorbing the emotions and energies of the stories I was reading about everyday. I was experiencing vicarious trauma, expecting the worst to happen at every turn in my own personal life. The heavy energy I absorbed constantly manifested as anxiety and depression, chronic physical pain, and loss of my sense of self. It was once I decided to rewrite my story, reclaim my energy, create tools in managing my own energy, and rediscover what I truly wanted for my life, I was able to come back to myself.

I created my empath coaching business to help other empaths see that they don’t need to take on the problems of the world, they can care but they don’t have to carry the weight of others on their shoulders, and can use their empathic gifts to support the world without draining their own energy.

What is an empath?

The word empath has been thrown around so much lately, especially in the spiritual world and it’s because we’re collectively working with energy now more than ever. So now more than ever it’s important to recognize that we are all empathic to some degree (and if you aren’t, you were at some point and became hardened to not be). We all pick up thoughts, opinions, and energies around us constantly especially at an early age when we are learning about the world.

We’ve picked up thoughts, opinions, and energies starting at conception — our parents/guardians, friends, religion, society, politics all instilled understandings within us that created our foundational beliefs. We often operate naturally with these understandings, but they may not be what we truly believe on a soul level. For example: I grew up believing that you had to get good grades, go to college, work a corporate job to be successful because of what my parents and society taught me. And as I shed deep rooted beliefs around this, I understand that can work for some people, but it doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. Now I’m operating from what my soul truly believes — success can come from anywhere.

My Definition:

An empath is someone or something that absorbs the energy, thoughts, opinions, emotions of other people and energies around them (sometimes without noticing) and experiences them as their own (the positive and negative).

Top Signs You Might Be an Empath

• You feel emotional for others often (maybe to an extreme)
• You’ve been labeled as overly sensitive, shy, introverted
• You tend to be sensitive to itchy clothes, loud noises, crowds, strong energies, physical pain
• You feel the need to recharge alone after spending time with others
• You get tired easily and quickly, especially after being around other energies
• You feel a wide range of emotions
• You pick up on others emotions and feeling them as if they’re your own
• You sense energetic shifts in the room
• You often want to help people in your work or life
• You want to take others’ pain or struggle away
• You have a deep understanding of subtle energetic and emotional shifts in people
• You feel drained after watching heavy tv shows or movies
• You feel called to something greater beyond you

Common Misconceptions About Empaths

Because the term has been thrown around so much lately, it’s also important to understand common misconceptions about what an empath really is.

The number one misconception is that empaths are very outwardly emotional and are always crying or showing their emotions. Empaths can often internalize emotions, especially since they’re internalizing them as their own. Also an empath may be a physical or spiritual empath and not an emotional empath so they absorb the physical pain of others instead of their emotions.

Another misconception about empaths is that we HAVE to hold the weight of others and the world on our shoulders. This is something that comes up so often with my clients. We tend to be people pleasers and want to heal the world with our empathy. We often want to absorb the pain and struggle of others to make things easier for them. Once we recognize that it’s not our responsibility to heal everything around us, the work of an empath is more manageable. When we heal from within, we are able to show up fully to the world, heal the community around us, and take action from an aligned place without draining our own energy.

Another is that we are completely aware of the energies and emotions we are absorbing. Nope, we are often unaware of the many energies we absorb throughout our day. Even I have been doing this work for a while and I still have to sometimes think back and ask myself what energy made me weirdly anxious just now? Your energy could shift because of an external factor without you knowing why.

Another misconception is that empaths / sensitive people need to toughen up. Nope! It’s actually a superpower and with the right tools, we can help others without draining our own energy and heal the world from a magnetic place.

What types of empaths are there?

There are endless versions of empaths — physical, emotional, animal, plant, sexual, social media, love, intuitive, mediumship, telepathic the list goes on. Typically if you identify as an empath, you will have a connection with one or more of these types. I feel that I experience most of them. It can help you evaluate which you find most triggering for your body, and help you heal your main trigger points.

• Physical — we feel physical issues for others in our physical body
• Emotional — we feel the emotions for others as if our own emotion
• Animal — feel deeply for animals
• Plant — feel connected to plants
• Sexual — feel energetically shifted before, during, and after sex
• Earth — we feel deeply for the earth shifts
• Space — we feel energy shifts from the other planets and galaxy
• Social media — absorbing the energies of each video or image or story you see
• Love & Partnership — we feel energy shifts in dating, relationships, love
• Intuitive, spiritual, telepathic, mediumship — our intuitive gifts allow us to feel deeply on a spiritual level

What is the science behind empathy?

So this is all great, but how do we know this is real? Well there are many studies that prove empathy is a real thing and not all made up in our heads. So if you’re a skeptic, I have scientific explanations for our empathy to tell you about.

• We have brain cells that are responsible for compassion to share another person’s pain, fear, happiness, etc. called mirror neurons. Empaths have hyperactive mirror neurons. Psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists tend to have hypoactive mirror neurons.
• Empaths have a higher sensitivity to hormone or chemical imbalances in the body — any hormone fluctuations, using alcohol or drugs, or even painkillers like Tylenol and Motrin can have a larger impact on the empath. We tend to need less to have it be effective.
• On that note, painkillers cause less empathy — studies showed that when participants took Tylenol, they had less empathy for others. It’s because we process pain for others and pain for ourselves in the same way, so when we take something to numb or block that, we are unable to connect with that empathy.
• We all have electromagnetic fields in the brain and heart. If we are sensitive to energy or vibrations, we pick up on these electromagnetic fields of others. We are all made up of energy — heartmath.org states that the electromagnetic fields transmit information about people’s thoughts and emotions.
• Empaths have a higher dopamine sensitivity. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that is associated with pleasure response. This means that empaths need less dopamine to be happy, which means they are content with alone time, quiet time, reading, and meditation.
• Empaths can have what’s called mirror touch synesthesia, which is how we feel emotions and sensations of others in our own bodies. Synesthesia is when two senses are paired in the brain — like seeing colors when you hear music. Mirror touch synesthesia explains that people feel the emotions of others in their own bodies as if they’re their own.

What is empath overload?

Empath overload is when an empath has exclusively absorbed the thoughts, emotions, and energies of the life forces around them without releasing, cleansing, or managing at all. There’s only so much our container can hold, so if we overdo it, it can lead to burnout. Some symptoms of empath overload are exhaustion, pain, anxiety, stress, depression, anger, loss of interest in things, straying away from your sense of self.

What causes overload?

Pushing yourself beyond your limits, lack of sleep or eating, illness, traffic, loud environments, toxic people, low blood sugar, arguing, chemical imbalances, too much socializing, unfulfilling career or relationships, yelling/fights, drama kings/queens, energy vampires, narcissists, unfulfiling sex, presenting to a group, alcohol/drugs all cause overload.

Triggers are going to be specific for each person. For me, it was reading a specific type of story at my job that triggered a memory from high school that still needed healing. We tend to be triggered by certain situations and want to heal others’ pain in the areas that we need to heal within ourselves. For example, if you had an issue with abusing drugs and you see a similar situation in a movie or TV and feel completely energetically drained, it could be a sign there’s something about your past with drugs that still needs healing. We tend to want to heal others’ pain because everyone is our mirror so if we heal someone else, we feel like we are healing ourselves. The true work is actually healing yourself, because we can’t heal other people unless we have healed from within.

Through coaching with me, we discuss ways that we can remove these energies that are not ours to carry and restore our own energy. We utilize the tools that helped me come back to myself after working in that job and created my whole business in helping other empaths. I have plenty of resources on my website and in my shop.

I work with you to dig in on your deep rooted beliefs, rewrite the stories and limiting beliefs that are holding you back from your truest potential, clear external energies you no longer need, and help you call in what your soul wants in that area of your life — not what other people think you should be doing. We dig in on the inner child — what beliefs and energies did I pick up from parents, past lives, ancestry, society, media, religion that might not be the beliefs I want to hold true anymore? We unveil the shadow and shine with our shadow instead of allowing it to dictate our fears. We get to the roots of your empathy and help you rediscover your authentic soul energy and how to operate consistently from that place, which then naturally manifests the life you desire — not the one everyone else wants you to live.

If you’re interested in 1:1 coaching with me, you can fill out this form where I can learn more about you and what you’re looking to work on with me. I have many flexible coaching packages to choose from to fit your needs in 1:1 coaching with me.

You are not ever alone in your empath or spiritual process. I found working with a coach was the greatest gift I was able to give myself and my whole life transformed since I invested in a coach.

Find me on TikTok and Instagram at @theelevatedempath and go check out my offerings and website at lisabtag.com to learn more about 1:1 empath coaching, Akashic Records readings, and Animal Communication readings.

Don’t forget to like, follow, share, subscribe, write a review, and I hope you feel elevated. See you next time.