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Am I an Empath? How to Know, and What to Do With It

You may be an empath if you pick up other people's moods, tension or sadness as if they were your own, often before anyone says a word. Empath is a way to describe strong intuitive feeling, and every one of us has some of it; it isn't a medical diagnosis. The real work is learning to ask "is it mine, or is that somebody else's?" so you keep the gift and stop carrying everyone else's energy.

If you've ever walked into a room and known within seconds that something was off, or felt heavy all afternoon and realized later that the heaviness belonged to someone else, you already know what this feels like. Most of the women I work with have been told at some point that they're too sensitive, and many of them have spent years trying to turn that sensitivity down.

Signs you might be an empath

Read these slowly and notice which ones land. There's no score here, only what you recognize in yourself.

• You walk into a room and can feel whether the energy is high or low before anyone speaks.
• You want to leave a place right away, and you can't explain why.
• You feel sad out of nowhere, and later realize it wasn't yours.
• You "just know" things about people, sometimes before they've said anything.
• Certain people leave you exhausted, even when the time together was pleasant.
• You've been told, more than once, that you're too sensitive.

If you nodded through that list, you're reading energy all day long, whether you've ever called it that or not.

Is it mine, or is that somebody else's?

This is the question I come back to with every empath I work with: is it mine, or is that somebody else's? And I mean literally everything in your life, a thought, a feeling, a reaction.

Here's what that looks like in real life. You're at home, perfectly fine, and all of a sudden you feel sad. Nothing happened and nobody called, so you start searching your own life for the reason. Then you notice that someone just walked past the house, and the sadness arrived with them.

The work you get to do is to create a strong line between your feelings and somebody else's feelings. You'll still feel everything; you'll simply know which of it belongs to you, and you can stop trying to fix what doesn't.

Why being an empath feels so draining

Two things drain an empath, and only one of them is the one you'd expect.

The first is carrying energy that isn't yours. If you take on the mood of every person you're near, by the end of the day you've lived ten people's days on top of your own, and of course you're tired.

The second one surprises people. You think you're tired because of other people's energy, and a lot of the time you're tired because of the judgment underneath it, the quiet sense that they should be different: calmer, kinder, more together. You feel their energy, and then you spend your own resisting it or trying to change it. That's the draining point of it, and it's also the part you get to put down.

How to stop absorbing other people's energy

Pause and ask the question

The moment a feeling shows up that seems bigger than the moment you're in, stop and ask: is this mine? You don't need a perfect answer. The asking puts a little space between you and the feeling, and in that space you get to choose what you do with it.

Read the energy: high or low, expanded or contracted

When you're around a group of people, get curious about the room. Is the energy high or low? Is it expanded, or is it contracted? Reading a room this way keeps you the observer, and an observer doesn't have to carry everything she sees.

Come back to your own energy every day

The more familiar you are with how your own energy feels, the faster you'll notice when something else has slipped in. A few quiet minutes a day does that. Days 6 to 13 of my free 20-day meditation series are all about your energy, and they're a lovely place to start.

Empath, intuitive or psychic?

These words get used in a lot of different ways, so here's how I think about them. We are all intuitive; there's not one person out there who isn't. Some of us have simply been trained to listen. Being an empath is one way intuition shows up, through feeling. Psychic is the word for when that knowing gets specific, like knowing something before it happens.

I was one of those people who said, I'm not psychic, I'm not intuitive. Now I'm highly trained, because I trained myself. So if you've been calling yourself "just sensitive," you may be far more intuitive than anyone has ever told you, and that's something you can build on.

Related: Spiritual awakening symptoms: how do you know you're having one?

Common questions

This article is about energy and intuition; it isn't medical or mental health advice. If you're struggling with your mood or your relationships, please talk with a licensed professional. Keep reading: all answers · the free meditation series · about Tamara Rose