If You're Highly Sensitive To External Stimuli, You Might Be An Empath
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Do you ever feel like you’re slightly more in tune with others' emotions than the average person? Are you highly sensitive? Maybe you’re even the therapist friend always carrying the weight of other peoples' problems? If you answered yes to any or even all of these questions, there’s a chance you could be an empath…or maybe you’re just an extremely empathetic person. The two tend to have similar qualities—but make no mistake—being an empath and having empathy are not the same thing.
Either way, if you find yourself often concentrating on the people around you rather than yourself, you might need a self-gut-check. "Sometimes, it feels safer or easier to focus and think about what other people are experiencing than to look at our own issues or situations," says Dr. Chloe Carmichael, PhD, psychologist, Women's Health advisor, and author of Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety. "Even if you are a genuine empath or just high in empathy, sometimes it's good to ask yourself, 'Is that an escapist thing for me sometimes?'"
Meet the experts:
Dr. Chloe Carmichael, PhD, is a psychologist, Women's Health advisor, and the author of Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety.
Tamekis Williams, MSW, LCSW, is a licensed social worker and founder of Real Life Solutions.
A big Q to consider is whether your attention to others is self-sacrificing. "A lot of times, they [empaths] can feel other people’s emotions and have compassion for other people, but sometimes don't have the compassion for themselves," says Tamekis Williams, MSW, LCSW, a licensed social worker and founder of Real Life Solutions.
Ahead, experts explain everything you need to know about the distinctions between being an empath and having empathy, how to take care of yourself if you are an empath, and all the different types.
What is an empath, exactly?
Simply put, "an empath is somebody who has a very unique and profound ability to intuit or sense the feelings of others," says Carmichael. Empaths are naturally intuitive; whereas therapists and psychologists might have a great ability to read people, but they’ve been trained, she explains.
Sound great? Well, it’s not all peaches and cream. "Sometimes, it can almost be burdensome because it can be intrusive to feel like you're being bombarded—you can't turn that awareness of others off," she says.
What’s the difference between being an empath and having empathy for others?
If you’re talking to a friend going through a breakup, and you've experienced similar heartbreak in your life, you'll naturally want to show support and understanding—that's being empathetic. But if you're an empath listening to a friend explain the same situation, you will be able to feel "that ache, the emotional turmoil that their friend is actually going through," Williams says.
For an empath, another person's emotions take you to a place where you’re overwhelmed, says Williams. "It's almost like you've literally put their shoes on, and you're feeling and going through all of the emotions of that person," she explains.
The difference between empaths and people who are high on empathy is that the latter will most likely have shared the same experience as the person feeling the intense emotion; whereas if you're an empath, you won't need to have had that experience yourself in order to feel that person's emotions. In fact, a real empath would actually be able to pick up on the experience of somebody from a completely different culture who didn't even speak their language, says Carmichael.
Where does having sympathy fit in?
On the other hand, sympathy occurs more often when you haven't shared an experience with someone. It's "more along the lines of [feeling] compassion for another person, maybe feeling sorry for another person on some level," says Carmichael. "In order to sympathize, you have to be able to empathize a little bit."
Watch Oprah discuss the importance of compassion and empathy in today's world:
If you’re assessing your possible empathic abilities, make sure it's not your own grandiosity, a clinical psychology term for an overestimated or overinflated belief in your own ability and accuracy to read other people, causing you to think that you're an empath, cautions Carmichael. Nodding your head? It may be time to reevaluate by assessing whether the following characteristics resonate with you.
What are the typical traits of an empath?
According to experts, empaths:
Are incredibly intuitive
Take on the weight of others' problems as their own
Are easily overwhelmed
Can be overly emotional
Are highly sensitive (in a few senses—more on that below)
Highly sensitive people are sensitive to external stimuli, like light, sound, or large crowds, for instance. "If you take a trip over to another country, just that culture shock can be overly emotional or draining for them," says Williams.
Whether a person is highly sensitive in a social sense might depend on the degree to which someone is an empath and how much self-awareness they have, Carmichael explains. For example, if someone was making a joke about someone who is "highly sensitive," they might take offense. But "a true empath would be able to know if that person were telling a joke at their expense out of a sense of a malicious desire to hurt the person, or if the person were truly just meaning no harm," she explains.
How can you tell if you’re an empath?
If you feel that your traits align with those above, you could be an empath. Try to recall any specific memories where you were able to intuit something about someone, such as a feeling, thought, or action. Carmichael cites a telling example: Say you’re at a movie theatre, sitting next to a complete stranger, and you get the startling sense that they’re really uncomfortable. A few minutes into the movie, they get up and never return. Is this a familiar sensation for you? If yes, you may be an empath.
How can you take care of yourself if you’re an empath?
There are many ways you can combat the exhaustion that inevitably comes with being an empath, but here are a few expert-approved methods to try:
1. Practice mindfulness.
"In mindfulness, we are intentionally and consciously paying attention to our actions, our feelings, our emotions, and what we're doing," Williams says. "You can kind of have that balance and set those boundaries." She also suggests self-care, doing what you find relaxing, and meditating as part of a mindfulness practice because "our bodies really work hard to hold emotions." These techniques can help you let them go.
2. Try cocoon breathing.
Never heard of cocoon breathing? It's an easy activity to incorporate into your everyday. Breathe and focus on your exhalation first, closing your eyes if you can, advises Carmichael. On your next exhalation, imagine your eyelids dropping closed again, and on the following exhalation, imagine drawing a curtain down around yourself.
With every exhalation, keep pulling the curtain down. Imagine the words and energy of those around you bouncing off the curtain. Empaths sometimes have an ability to see things in their mind’s eye, so this exercise allows them to create that metaphorical boundary, Carmichael explains.
3. Create a mental short list.
Think of five issues in your own life that you wish you’d spend more time on (you can even write them down!), and whenever you feel that you’re concentrating on others’ problems too much, refer to your own list. "That works a lot better psychologically than saying 'Don't focus on the issues of others,'" Carmichael says. "When you are saying that to yourself, you're cognitively reminding yourself of the very topic that you're trying to forget."
What are the different types of empaths?
The true number of types of empaths is unknown ("Some people say it's seven, some say it's eleven," according to Williams), but there are several established categories. First, you have the physical empath, a.k.a. the person who literally feels others’ pain. Then there's the emotional empath, i.e. someone who feels other people's emotions.
Another type is the animal empath, which is just what it sounds like: an empath who can connect with animals and their emotions on a deeper level. (This also exists for the earth and nature…cool, right?) If you’re into the supernatural, however, spiritual empaths also exist (like that psychic you saw on the boardwalk at the beach when you were ten). "They can kind of communicate with another realm, so to speak—maybe go into past lives, maybe talk to others on the other side as well," Williams says. Last but not least, you have dream empaths, who can connect with dreams a bit deeper than the average Joe.
Is it rare to be an empath?
Extremely. "It's very rare to be someone that can actually sense and pick up on the feelings and experiences of others, when those people haven't even necessarily shared them," Carmichael says. "Sometimes, people that have suffered rather extreme abuse as children can develop that ability almost as a survival mechanism because they need to be able to not only sense when their abuser is likely to lash out, but they also are desperately trying to sense who could possibly be a protection or a refuge for them."
What is a dark empath?
Dark empaths, as the name implies, use their abilities to read others "in kind of a psychopathic way," according to Carmichael. Although empaths and psychopaths aren’t the same, "many psychopaths have almost a surgical ability to read other people," she says. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, Carmichael explains that dark empaths might be standing next to someone at the grocery store who’s feeling super alone, and they can use that person’s vulnerabilities to operate on them.
What is toxic empathy?
Toxic empathy can appear in many forms, and it can affect both parties. Carmichael notes a sort of passive-aggressive type of empathy, where just because the empath can intuit what you are thinking or feeling, they hold you responsible for their feeling drained. In that case, the empath should put boundaries in between that person and themselves.
But if you choose to focus on other peoples' problems rather than your own issues as an empath, you might also be toxic: "It causes them to feel dominance or a sense of control or superiority," Carmichael says. If taken too far, the relationship can become imbalanced, allowing the empath to become over-involved, and eventually an enabler, Williams adds. "They're trying to do everything for that person versus allowing the person to do it for themselves and [the empath just] be of support and guidance," says Williams. "For the empath, it can become a codependency there, but it can also be mentally and physically draining."
Can empaths be narcissistic?
The two may have some parallels, although they aren't directly the same thing, Williams says. The main disconnect is that while most empaths are trying to help someone through understanding their feelings, narcissists can use that understanding to their advantage in a selfish way or disregard their feelings completely.
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