What Is An Empath?

It is still a common thought that an empath is any person who is sensitive to the energies of the world. This is a common misconception that is born mostly through misunderstandings. Many people are born to be naturally sensitive to energies and emotions, which is a common trait of an empath, though they are not truly empaths, they are ESP's (energetically sensitive persons).

To an empath, these ESP's are often thought of as "seedlings", as they still have a ways to go before truly becoming empaths. Seedlings can and often are any person, as all humans have the seed inside them to become an empath, regardless of whether or not they ever show the ability. It can start at birth or come on strangely in adulthood, but there are no genetic predispositions to the empathic path.

An ESP has the traits of a clairsentient, which means "clear feeling". They can feel and often directly experience the emotions and physical pains of anyone around them or often those who are far away that they have a strong connection with. They usually have a decent gift of intuition as well, giving them various psychic traits. These are usually the qualifications of the misinformation spread - that if you have these abilities you are an empath.

An empath however, has learned to control their abilities as opposed to being controlled by their abilities. This is often where a person starts to view their abilities as gifts instead of curses.

What is an Empath really? Here are some definitions I would give to what an empath really is:

1. A person who has made the choice to become an Empath and follow the path

2. A person who embraces their empathic path and continues to study, practice and learn

3. A person who seeks to keep the balance of the energies of the universe

4. A person who guides others to heal themselves and the world around them (as opposed to a person who uses their own abilities to directly heal people).

I feel that these traits really make the difference between an ESP and an Empath. An ESP or Seedling. Someone who is an ESP, is usually very sensitive to the emotions and energies around other people and it often causes chaotic and uncontrolled events. An ESP does not usually see the reason behind helping others heal themselves vs. simply healing others. An ESP is also susceptible to vampyrism and often find themselves misusing their gifts and abilities through inexperience, convenience or the allure of power.

Many ESP's never become Empaths. They often find themselves drifting almost aimlessly through the world, even if they consider themselves to be empaths because of some misinformation they read, that led them to believe that being sensitive to energies or being able to heal - meant that they already were empaths.

Often an ESP will feel the call to follow the empathic path, but it is important to remember that no empath is forced to follow the path. It is voluntary, where being sensitive to energies is often a built in ability. So the way to become an empath, is to first choose to be an empath. This is important because it means that you no longer deny that you have gifts and abilities, and it means that you accept the path in front of you and that you are beginning to fully embrace that path.

The hard part, is that an empath must accept the role of being a neutral party. We are neither fully good nor fully bad. Just as the world is made up of a balance of negative and positive energies, so are we. This is where many get confused on their path. They often feel that simply calling themselves empaths is the choice and that by using their abilities they have embraced the empathic path.

To truly accept your path, to truly CHOOSE that path, you must choose the path of balance - the Path of an Empath. Yes we are healers. Yes we are energetically sensitive. Yes we can do some amazing things. But a true empath takes into account the consequences of the healing they do. They practice being aware of all energies and respectful of where they take energies from. They are vigilant not to get out of balance, either on the side of good or bad.

Make the choice to be a being of balance in this world and you make the choice to be an empath. It's not an easy path to embrace, but it can bring you the ultimate serenity in your world.