Have you ever even thought of it? For me, I realized at a very young age that I could feel what others were feeling. I could feel even the feelings of a room full of people, all at once, I began to notice. There are variations to this depending on the person, of course.
Medical Gifted Empath
Back then it was really confusing and often overwhelming to me because it felt a lot like what I was feeling somehow all belonged to me. That was before I realized most of it just wasn’t my stuff. After a while, I began to get it into perspective and now I use my ability to help others with the gift that I have as a Medical Gifted Empath.
Now that’s a type of Empath that’s a bit more layered with a few more abilities than being a simple Empath so as not to be confounding. I’ll write more about being a Medical Gifted Empath in another blog.
For now, though, I just wanted to say I think many people have a refined sensitivity but they might not be able to identify it as being empathic.
Sometimes I wonder if some of the reason certain people you might know get aggravated and start to feel out of control and overwhelmed is because they possess a bit of ability to feel the emotional, mental or physical state of another person.
They might not even realize it, let alone know how to make sense of it. But in any case, it could be some of the explanation for behaviors like that, who knows?
Qualities of an Empath
These are a few qualities of an Empath, being highly sensitive and feeling. In fact, new research is suggesting that 1 to 2 percent of the population might have this ability. Another term that is floating around and is somewhat becoming associated with empaths is that of being an HSP. This means a Highly Sensitive Person. This is another trait I personally identify with. How about you? Do you think you are highly sensitive?
Dr. Elaine Aron, PhD clinical psychologist, has put a simple test online. I thought it might be insightful to take it and see how close I came to scoring as a Highly Sensitive Person.
According to her test, I passed, and it was on the high end! Certainly, this won’t be the case for many though. I just looked it up online, ‘highly sensitive person test’ and it appeared as the first hit. Try it yourself if it interests you too.
There can be a lot more to the topic of being an Empath. But, for now, I just wanted to bring it up and invite you to see if you resonate with it or not.
Thanks for reading my blog on a few traits of being an Empath. I plan to write more detail about the topic over time.
For now, let’s get the conversation started….
- Describe a time you thought you experienced a trait of empathic ability.
- Are you open to others being able to tune in to people and their feelings even if you might not be able to do it?
- If you took the test on being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), how did you score? Where you surprised?
- Do you know of anyone who fits the description of being an Empath? What qualities do you observe in them?
I’d love you to leave a comment or two, it would be great to hear from you!
Thanks!
Until the next time,
xo Sharon