1. What is an Empath?
2. How does it work?
3. Are you an Empath? Take the quiz!
4. What kind of Empath are you?
5. The Empath Survival Program FREE!
6. Free Resources for Empaths

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What is an Empath?

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Hi, my name is Elise Lebeau and I'm an Empath.
An Empath is someone who can feel other people's emotions as their own:
you litterally feel what other people feel.

Notice that this definition does not assume that you are aware of it nor that you know what to do with it. It simply describes that can experience someone else's emotion, even if they are not in your physical presence.

Empaths find themselves in the tricky situation of being overwhelmed by the quantity of emotional information they receive. I can sense the emotions of everyone around me, even my next door neighbors. It comes to me like a scrambled radio station where I get bits and pieces from all those people. In its raw form, this emotional information is incoherent and even painful as we feel all the negative emotions from everyone around us.

The most problematic aspect of being an Empath is that most of us have no idea how to manage it. We don't know how to turn it off. We don't know how to use it effectively to accomplish something productive. Some of us don't even know that we have it. We just think we're weird and have random mood swings and tired spells.

Emotional Intelligence is defined as "the ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups" (Salovey and Mayer). Developing your Emotional Intelligence means that you know what to do with the emotional information you receive and it's not just a burden you must bear anymore.

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How does it work?

The anatomy of Empaths

Although you probably have an intuitive understanding of your Empath skills, it's also important to have intellectual knowledge as well. It's easier for the brain to accept something that it can explain.

As a rule, I don't like to make statements that I can't prove or substantiate with evidence. I have enough background in research to know that scientific studies are usually inaccurately reported or misinterpreted. But in this case, the tools available in research are not sensitive enough to provide the factual evidence we need to build a strong intellectual explanations for Empath skills.

So everything you will read here is my "work hypothesis", meaning this is how I think it works but I am not claiming I have scientific proof to support this claim.

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Physiology of a Thought

Everyone is born an Empath. We all have the physical equipment necessary to pick up on what other people are feeling. But, for most of us, this ability will slowly fade away from lack of use. To see how this works, let's briefly look into the physiological processes involved.

When you think about something, it triggers electrical activity in your brain. Neurons (special cells that relay information in the body) get activated through a very mild electric current. These neurons then activate other neurons, creating a chain reaction.

Each thought follows a unique "pathway" in the brain, called a neuron pathway. Scientists already know that the neuron pathway varies, depending on the type of intellectual activity you're doing. For example, when language is involved, Broca's area (located behind your left temple) will get electrically stimulated.

All this electrical activity generates a magnetic field (which is true for all electrical currents). As Empaths, we are able to read and interpret this magnetic information. Our own brain translates these magnetic patterns into an emotion that we personally experience.

Think of it like having a portable MRI machine (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) in your brain. You can "take pictures" of magnetic waves and translate them into something meaningful. Doctors use MRI scans to differentiate between sick and healthy cells. We use it to differentiate between emotional states.

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Reading Magnetic Information

Let's take an example to make this more concrete: When someone is angry, there's all kind of electrical and chemical reactions happening in their body (sweating, getting flustered, faster heart beat). All these changes trigger mild electrical currents that create a magnetic field around their physical body.

As an Empath, you are able to scan this magnetic information to "read" their state of mind: this person is angry. Although the pattern changes from one person to the next, Empaths are able to interpret it and translate it. Interpreting the magnetic patterns associated with strong emotions is the most basic form of Empathy. With professional training, you can start to interpret more complex magnetic patterns (such as memories or conscious thoughts).

A few notes about human magnetic waves

• They can go through solids (such as bones and walls) with very little loss. Which means that you can read people even if they are far away.
  
  
• They are very very very weak and are often called "Subtle Energies". They cannot harm you in anyway.
  
  

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Processing Emotional Information

Although we are all born Empaths, most of us learn to ignore the information we pick up from other people through their magnetic field. And there's a very good reason for that...imagine for a moment: every thought, every emotion, from every one on earth is currently generating magnetic information.
As an Empath, you can pick up on all of this! The sheer volume of information is staggering.

Early on, adaptive mechanisms are created so you can deal with this deluge of information. But without some basic education (and I'm pretty sure your mom did NOT have a talk with you when you were little about being an Empath!), most Empath will resort to destructive or energy consuming mechanisms to deal with the situation. That can lead to depression, mood altering addictions (drugs, alcohol) or anything else that can drown other people's emotions.

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What kind of Empath are you?

This is a basic categorization of Empaths:

• Non Empaths have completely shut down their Empath skills and use other cues to get emotional information (such as verbal and non-verbal indicators). Over time, they completely lose their Empath abilities.
  
  
• Impaired Empaths might have some basic filters but can easily get overwhelmed, especially in a crowded venue or during emotional turmoil. They tend to experience emotional distress (i.e. feeling the weight of the world) and physical symptoms (i.e. exhaustion, headaches, depression)
  
  
• Functional Empaths are able to control the flow of information so that it is comfortable and under their control.
  
  
• Trained (or Professional) Empaths are able to interpret complex emotional information accurately and use it for specific purposes (such as healing work).
  
  

In The Empath Survival Program©, you will learn 7 techniques you can use to become a Functional Empath.
I am also working on a program for people who want to become Professional Empaths. Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when it launches!

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Are you an Empath? Take the Quiz!

These are common Empath skills:

• Can you feel what other people are feeling, even if they're not in your physical presence?


• Do you spontaneously know what people need to hear/do to feel better?


• Do people find it easy to confide in you?

These are common Empath side effects if you cannot control (yet!) your Empath skills:

• Feeling emotionally or physically overwhelmed in crowds


• Feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders


• Having random mood swing (angry, sad, scared, etc) that have nothing to do with your life


• Have a hard time falling asleep before midnight or procrastinate going to bed


• Have physical symptoms that related to hearing (ringing, popping, itching in the ear canal)


• Feel emotionally uncomfortable when having sex (anxious, no sex drive, angry)

Disclaimer: This checklist is not a diagnostic or treatment tool. I am not a doctor nor a mental health professional. Some of the characteristics of Empaths can be diagnosed as ADD, agoraphobia or clinical depression. Contact your health care professional if you have any questions, need diagnostic or treatment for a mental health issue.

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The Empath Survival Program©

Do you feel overrun by your Empath skills (also known as being an Impaired Empath)? Now that you understand what you are and what is going on, it's time to do something about it!

Learn 7 life changing techniques that I personally used to reclaim my emotional sanity!

As an Empath, I've tried a lot of different tools.
I finally narrowed it down to some basic techniques that get the job done quickly and efficiently.

Are you ready? Let's get started!

• Day 1: The Anatomy of Empaths
• Day 2: Being an Empath in a crowd
• Day 3: Being an Empath with family and friends
• Day 4: Being an Empath in a romantic relationship
• Day 5: Raising Empath children
• Day 6: Being an Empath at work
• Day 7: Why are you an Empath?
• Bonus!: Empath Ethics
• Bonus!: Grounding Techniques for Empaths

...and most importantly: Get Support! Join our Empath Community and post your questions!

What's next? Once I got my Empath skills under control, I moved on to start using them. That's how my intuitive training programs where born! back to top
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FREE Resources for Empaths

• The Empath Community web site
  I have created a free web site dedicated to Empaths.
  Join our lively community and start posting on your own blog or talk in the forum about your experiences!
  
  
  Visit Empath Community
  
  
  
• Online articles on Empaths
  I have compiled an ever growing list of articles on being an Empath.
  You'll find them on my Empath web site here:
  Articles on being an Empath
  
  

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Growing up as Empath

I grew up as an Empath, not knowing what that was. At the time, the signs were hidden as normal aches and pains, so no one noticed. Not that they would have known what to do. I want to share this with you today in hopes that if you or your child are an Empath, you'll recognize the signs and be inspired to do something about it.

Being an Empath, I can constantly sense the emotions of anyone within a 50 miles radius of me. I can also sense the emotions of someone specific by paying attention to them, no matter how far they are.

Now, I know how to lower the volume or turn this off completely. But it was not always the case.

When I was growing up, my parents thought I was an unusually quiet child. But I was constantly trying to sort out what I was feeling/thinking (as opposed to everybody else's stuff) and this left me very little energy to talk. It just seemed like even more noise. I was also paralyzed by what I was picking up from other people. If they were depressed, angry or confused, that's all I could focus on. So it was hard to say anything socially acceptable.

I also had some extremely weird habits, such as falling into a trance-like state while putting on my socks. I would just drift away, as if I was day dreaming. My mom would have to prompt me several times with "Elise, finish getting dressed" before I would snap out of it.

I also went practically deaf, when I was around 5 or 6. But I was so quiet that it took a while for anyone to notice. Even my teachers figured I just wasn't paying attention when in fact I couldn't hear them speak. My mom realized what was going on when I did not turn to her even though she was calling me from a few feet away. I had surgery and my hearing reluctantly returned.

Then there was the vividly realistic nightmares where people were trying to talk to me in my sleep. The setting for these dreams was always the room I was sleeping in, making it even spookier. The people in my dreams always spoke so softly that I could never quite hear them properly. I would wake up scared, still trying to hear their voices more clearly.

And, of course, the debilitating migraines. I started having them when I was 5. It seems that you don't hear anything when you're in excruciating pain. Pain is louder than anything else... So it's a quick fix when all else fails.

I never told anyone that I could feel what they felt simply because I had no idea this was unusual. I thought everyone felt like this. But the confusion it generated in me was quite overwhelming. I became socially withdrawn. Not interested in parties or any kind of group activities since it was impossible for me to focus on my own thoughts. It came across as shyness (and still does to this day).

Then came the teenage years where I started to attempt to "do something" with all this emotional information. I can't describe to you the powerlessness that it generated. Being an Empath doesn't mean you know what to do with what you feel. It just means you feel it. So I kept trying to use what I felt in very ineffective ways. I was mildly suicidal from my late teens to my mid-twenties.

Then I finally found a way to start using my skills: psychology. I started studying in this field in college and was unusually good at it, even though I did not know why. But I felt more empowered, having learned how to inspire and support change through the counseling process.

It's only in my 30s that I struck gold and discovered Intuition. Intuition uses the emotional information I perceive to build a productive plan of action. So instead of constantly receiving information that left me overwhelmed and powerless, I was now able to talk about the emotions and link them to specific ways to make changes and improve the situation. Phew!

Along the way, I developed all kinds of techniques to manage the emotional information I receive as an Empath. And I use this every day. I can now turn it off completely or lower the volume, so that my own feeling and thoughts are always the loudest. It's made a world of difference for me. I can walk through a mall without feeling like I just ran a marathon!

There are situations that still get the better of me. I sometimes get overwhelmed in big family parties. Or when my son is so ecstatically happy that his joy runs me over like a bus! But that's becoming the exception, as opposed to the rule. And as soon as it starts to happen, I know what's going on and I have a plan to manage it! No more migraines ;)

I also noticed that my son has a very different reaction to his sensitivity as an Empath. He becomes totally wired, as if he'd just had a bowl of sugar (which he rarely eats). He's a very mellow child at home, but he'll burst out with energy when he starts to feel emotionally charged by those around him. Either way, through silence or verbo-motor activity, Empath children easily suffer from not knowing how to stay grounded when exposed to external emotional activity. So they try to quiet the noise by being quiet or beating the noise by screaming at it.

The most critical moment in my life was when I realized that I could control my Empath skills, instead of being a victim to them. I invite you to make this discovery about yourself as well. We're all heading in that direction anyway. You're just running ahead of the crowd...

I want you to know that you are not alone out there.
But until you reach out, you won't know that for yourself...

In love,

Elise

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