“The empath will read your intentions more than your words.”
“It is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so deeply.”
“I don’t just listen to your words. I listen to your use of words, your tone, your body movements, your eyes, your subtle facial expressions. I interpret your silences – I can hear everything you don’t say in words.”
As I was growing up, I learned pretty quickly how cruel kids can be to one another. I kept to myself most of the time…at least until my small group of friends found me. Instantly friends! When not around them, though, I still pretty much kept to myself. Other cliques seemed to take that as a weirdo trait and weren’t very nice about it. They decided to nit-pick. Come up with things to be cruel about. Some were downright awful! I tried my best to not respond and just ignored it. I was pretty good at watching without being noticed.
That was quite a normal thing for me. Watching and listening. Learning without engaging. I found it’s actually one of the best ways to learn about people. I also seemed to be able to read people. Not all that well but it was new for me at that time. I found out who I could and couldn’t trust – quite slowly, but I learned. And after watching for a couple of years, I learned that I was definitely different from most of my peers.
It wasn’t until I’d been on my own for about 2 or 3 years that I realized why I felt so different from everyone I knew. The first thing that actually got me to thinking about it was something my uncle said to me. We were talking about how I always felt the need to help people – even those that didn’t deserve it. If I didn’t help someone when I knew I could, I seemed to feel so guilty. His exact words to me were, “that’s because you have a heart of gold. People take advantage of that.”
CLICK!
I never forgot those words. I wondered what that could really mean for me and why it seemed like a curse in my life at the time. I never really looked any further into it until I came across this personality quiz. I didn’t take it right away. I wanted to find out if these ‘personalities’ were actually legit. So, I decided to research the different personality types that it mentioned. I found quite a lot on them. I believe it’s called something like ‘the Myers Briggs personality type quiz.’ (In case you’re interested.)
So, I took the quiz and learned more about myself than I realized before. It was quite thorough. So much of the final results felt like me. Like I was learning much more about myself than I thought I already knew. This led to even more research. Kind of like finding myself. An awakening of sorts. (Personality quiz results – The Mediator or INFP-T)
Strange how that works sometimes, right?
It wasn’t long after the quiz that I came across a post on Facebook. It was a post on the definition of an empath. I normally just scroll past such posts but something about it caught my eye. It was quite intriguing, and I found myself wanting to learn more.
Research mode!
I dug deeper. I found that there were many types of empaths. One of which I felt the strongest pull toward. It’s the most common of all of them – Emotional Empath. This means I can feel what others feel, even before I realize what’s going on. Their emotions seem to become my own. I’ve always noticed I get overwhelmed when I’m in a room full of people and I usually have to leave. Apparently, it’s because I end up absorbing more than I can handle. Another one I felt a pull toward, not quite as strongly, is Intuitive Empath. This means I can sense when something is off. When someone isn’t telling the truth. Yes, even the good liars. Also, those who just seem super nice, I can feel the bad vibes even they tend to put off. In stronger empaths, this is like a human lie detector. I know I’m not that good! I would need to focus pretty hard to be able to do that. Anyway, I believe it’s only when I’m not distracted that I can really feel when something isn’t right about a person or situation. When I’m just watching people is when it seems to be the strongest. People watching – got to love it!
Now, they say you can tap into your empathic abilities and make them stronger. I’ve never actually tried. I wouldn’t even know how to go about it. Another research opportunity, I guess. But just knowing that everything I went through was for a reason and everything I felt actually had a name, even a purpose…it’s all quite interesting.
And…relieving?
I guess what I mean is, it feels good to know why I’ve always been so sensitive growing up. With such strong emotions. This just makes so much sense to me.
Any of you ladies notice any interesting abilities or quirks? You should do a little research and find out more about yourself. It’s very interesting to read about. I’m going to put the website where I took the personality quiz below. The information on empathology can be found in pretty much any web search. And please, let me know what you find out!
http://www.16personalities.com
This post is from my old blog site. Originally posted: June 10, 2022.
