Post by bluefedish on Jan 22, 2008 15:24:22 GMT -5
I was wondering if anyone else here was empathic. Here are some questions to see if you are empathic & what your thoughts are on this topic.
1. Are you extremely sensitive to the emotions and thoughts of others, often confusing the emotions of others with your own?
2. Are you an emotional sponge, soaking up the emotions of others, absorbing and dissipating the energy and problems of others, even at a distance?
3. Do you instinctively know when someone is lying or fibbing, almost always keeping your suspicions to yourself?
4. Do you tend to put others at ease, allowing them to share their inner most feelings? Do you find yourself helping others, even casual strangers, understand the world and themselves better?
5. Periodically, do you need to take time out, where you can be alone to meditate, recharge and experience your own mind without the interference of others?
6. Have you known about your unique sensitivity since childhood? Have you struggled with a burden-of-perceptions that others did not share?
7. Do you sometimes use food, sex, drugs or solitude as a means of coping with you empathic or telepathic nature?
8. Do you have to a use masked personality to protect yourself from others, only sharing your true perceptions with those you trust most, or not at all?
9. Do you have the ability to facilitate the process of rapid growth in those around you?
10. Are you easily hurt if you are misunderstood?
If you answered YES to most of the questions above, you are probably an empath.
Empaths can suffer and have all sorts of difficulties living their lives. Few people can understand what it’s like to be empathic. Most people have a certain sense of kindness and understanding but give consideration to themselves first which is probably the healthiest way to live.
Empaths do not put themselves first ever and suffer when their own needs conflict with the needs of others.
1. Do you feel you were born an empath or do you think it's something you acquired or can be acquired?
2. How does being empathic affect your every day life?
3. Do you use any techniques to keep yourself grounded?
4. If you had the option, would you give up your empathy?
5. Have you ever let your empathy get the best of you when making judgements about a situation?
Definition of Empathy
Commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and feel directly the emotion of another. Since the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another's mode of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.
Empathy is also a concept recognized as "reading" another person, completely translating each movement into understandable conversation.
The term empathy is also used by some people to signify their heightened or higher sensitivity to the emotions and state of others. This reportedly, can lead to both positive aspects such as a more skilled instinct for what is "behind the scenes" with people, but also to difficulties such as rapid over-stimulation, overwhelm or stress caused by an inability to protect oneself from this so-called 'pick-up'. Such people may for example find crowds stressful simply due to picking up what is often described as "white noise" or multiple emotions as they pass through it, a phenomenon not to be confused with agoraphobia and sometimes informally known as crowd-sickness.
Empathy in this sense is ascribed by such people to various mechanisms. These include simply more sophisticated subconscious processing of sensory cues or stronger emotional feedback than the norm, (i.e. the normal human experience but more so), and therefore fit within present models. Some people, perhaps due to synesthesia, believe it instead to be a direct emotional sense or a feel for others' "energy". The New Age religion(s) have constructed belief systems around anecdotal evidence of persons who claim to be "empaths" in this sense. This aspect of empathy is not clinically recognized, and someone calling themselves an "empath" usually does not intend to imply that they are gifted with any psychic ability.
A recurrent theme of discussion on such websites relates to the impact upon individuals, and therefore also methods (including mental practices, emotional processes and ritual) which anecdotally can help reduce the intensity of empathic reactions to others' feelings to a more bearable level (informally called 'shielding' or emotional detachment).
Selected Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathic
maryt.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/the-empath-part-i/
1. Are you extremely sensitive to the emotions and thoughts of others, often confusing the emotions of others with your own?
2. Are you an emotional sponge, soaking up the emotions of others, absorbing and dissipating the energy and problems of others, even at a distance?
3. Do you instinctively know when someone is lying or fibbing, almost always keeping your suspicions to yourself?
4. Do you tend to put others at ease, allowing them to share their inner most feelings? Do you find yourself helping others, even casual strangers, understand the world and themselves better?
5. Periodically, do you need to take time out, where you can be alone to meditate, recharge and experience your own mind without the interference of others?
6. Have you known about your unique sensitivity since childhood? Have you struggled with a burden-of-perceptions that others did not share?
7. Do you sometimes use food, sex, drugs or solitude as a means of coping with you empathic or telepathic nature?
8. Do you have to a use masked personality to protect yourself from others, only sharing your true perceptions with those you trust most, or not at all?
9. Do you have the ability to facilitate the process of rapid growth in those around you?
10. Are you easily hurt if you are misunderstood?
If you answered YES to most of the questions above, you are probably an empath.
Empaths can suffer and have all sorts of difficulties living their lives. Few people can understand what it’s like to be empathic. Most people have a certain sense of kindness and understanding but give consideration to themselves first which is probably the healthiest way to live.
Empaths do not put themselves first ever and suffer when their own needs conflict with the needs of others.
1. Do you feel you were born an empath or do you think it's something you acquired or can be acquired?
2. How does being empathic affect your every day life?
3. Do you use any techniques to keep yourself grounded?
4. If you had the option, would you give up your empathy?
5. Have you ever let your empathy get the best of you when making judgements about a situation?
Definition of Empathy
Commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and feel directly the emotion of another. Since the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another's mode of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.
Empathy is also a concept recognized as "reading" another person, completely translating each movement into understandable conversation.
The term empathy is also used by some people to signify their heightened or higher sensitivity to the emotions and state of others. This reportedly, can lead to both positive aspects such as a more skilled instinct for what is "behind the scenes" with people, but also to difficulties such as rapid over-stimulation, overwhelm or stress caused by an inability to protect oneself from this so-called 'pick-up'. Such people may for example find crowds stressful simply due to picking up what is often described as "white noise" or multiple emotions as they pass through it, a phenomenon not to be confused with agoraphobia and sometimes informally known as crowd-sickness.
Empathy in this sense is ascribed by such people to various mechanisms. These include simply more sophisticated subconscious processing of sensory cues or stronger emotional feedback than the norm, (i.e. the normal human experience but more so), and therefore fit within present models. Some people, perhaps due to synesthesia, believe it instead to be a direct emotional sense or a feel for others' "energy". The New Age religion(s) have constructed belief systems around anecdotal evidence of persons who claim to be "empaths" in this sense. This aspect of empathy is not clinically recognized, and someone calling themselves an "empath" usually does not intend to imply that they are gifted with any psychic ability.
A recurrent theme of discussion on such websites relates to the impact upon individuals, and therefore also methods (including mental practices, emotional processes and ritual) which anecdotally can help reduce the intensity of empathic reactions to others' feelings to a more bearable level (informally called 'shielding' or emotional detachment).
Selected Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathic
maryt.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/the-empath-part-i/
