Last week I posted an article on some of the differences between empaths and Highly Sensitive People (HSP) which went viral in our little community.
Many people responded with comments like “It’s about time someone talked about this!” While others were a bit confused: “Wait. I was told I’m empathic, but now after reading this, I’m not so sure.”
In this audio I wanted to clear up any confusion, and expand again on some of the points I was attempting to make in the article.
Feel free to comment, like, question, or offer any feedback you have. Let’s keep the conversation going!
To dive deeper into your empathic abilities, check-out my “How to Heal and Thrive as an Empath” online class!
Happy Monday!
Chakra Center 
I am still not clear if I am an empath. I know I am an HSP but I am still trying to figure out if I am an empath so I can learn how to manage it. Alot of what you describe can also describe an unskilled empath. I would rather not be either. I would be relieved not be an empath but I am at the point in my life that I know I need to face it, accept it and embrace it. I think I may be an emotional empath. I would like to know more about how to know if you are projecting or actually picking up on something. I can relate to projecting, and being defensive. That usually happens when I pick up on other peoples underlying hostility or when what they are saying doesn’t match with how they really feel. I just don’t know what the next step would be. I am trying to learn to shield that energy so that it doesn’t make me want to run away.
The truth is, labels limit us. Period. I think having something to help contexualize experiences is helpful, and if information/understanding like this helps you do that, great. I think that’s more important. Take what resonates/works, leave the rest.
Jennifer, learn to trace the mental and emotional pathways that you take to arrive at a particular emotional state. Do so from an objective position. Study, internally, all the ways in which you arrive to certain emotional states. Try to do this from a third-person point of view, stoically. Emotions can be blinding, altering to your mind’s ability to objectively and accurately perceive the world (balance is key, though.). I believe once you are able to trace your own emotional and mental pathways, you will know when you are projecting, because you will know the true nature of yourself in the moment of your expressed emotional state.
Hearing this makes me think an HSP is actually someone who has experienced much childhood trauma and a dysregulated or over stimulated nervous system or at least one that was never soothed properly and so remains endlessly reactive, their emotional boundaries could not develop properly and with out therapy or healing they would project and be in much fear all the time, hyper vigilant to attack…etc. I have often wondered about whether its nature or nurture but a combination of a finely tuned nature that is not recognised or helped to develop mediatin, regulation or filters would result.
THANK YOU!!! 🙂 You unknowingly gave me a puzzle piece that I have been missing in my life. This puzzle piece connects what I know to the unknown (what I need to work on). You literally gave me something that will help me for the rest of my life!