Could you tell me a time you felt empathy?

Empathetic pain is categorized within the 27 human emotions. But Empathy is by definition categorized as being able to feel the pain and emotions of others. Empathy allows us to step into the shoes of others which can be a tool for loving others well, but it can also be a weapon in slowly wearing down our own hearts. Empaths furthermore are people who can literally take on the emotions and moods of others as their own. They come into the world with heightened senses, which are increased further by challenges or traumas they’ve experienced in their lives. 

I find it so hard to pinpoint just one time that I felt intense empathy. I did not come across the term empath until I was an adult. I think my earliest memory of feeling the emotions of others was when I was in third grade. I remember our teacher Ms.McDougal sitting us all down before we opened our reading time book and telling us one of our classmate's dad had been diagnosed with brain cancer and only had a few more years to live so that was why he had been out of class for a few days. It was a very heavy emotion for a 9-year-old to feel and I don't know that the gravity of it hit most of my friends when we went to recess after but I remember sitting in our class every day for months and feeling so sad for this classmate that I barely knew. I felt this same emotion for years after every time I would see his mom pick him up from school with their dad in the car, and then one year the dad was not in the car and the boy did not come to school for a few days. He returned with bags under his eyes and although he smiled at everyone I knew he was not ok. This uncontrollable and unintentional adoption of others' emotions typically pain continued for much of my childhood without me realizing what it truly was. Empathy. 

As a grown woman, the understanding of being an empath has allowed me to feel the emotions of others but also allowed me to learn how to set boundaries surrounding my emotions. I have come to learn being an empath means learning to set clear boundaries for myself, making it clear when I can incapable of taking on the emotions of others or feel drained by it. 

At the age of 23, I still feel that same very deep sadness I felt as a child when I see someone on the side of the road with a sign that says “lost everything help” I feel the pain they feel regardless of how they got there. I still feel every emotion someone feels when they explain a break-up to me or a family tragedy, and I even still feel a twinge of pain and hurt if I see crying at a coffee shop or airport. I don’t think I will ever stop feeling intense empathy. But boundaries have allowed me to not blindly feel the emotions but instead push further into my own emotions so feeling empathy for the people I love can actually help me have more meaningful conversations and heal people around me by being able to truly understand them. This growth in the last year of my life has made me a better girlfriend, a better daughter, and a better friend. 

If you relate to this and you too are an empath you are truly a gift to the world, and everyone could really use more empathy inlacing you toward yourself. 

Emotions have power and they make us all human.