I have had clients before that come to me as self identified “empaths”.
In my experience navigating the online communities and talking to women on subjects such as relationships, self love and boundaries: this word is frequently used.
In this blog post I dive a bit deeper into the problem with identifying as an empath and how you can start to identify with your power instead of feeling powerless and emotionally drained.
So what is an “empath”?
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an empath is a person that experiences the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
Therefore, as an empath you frequently find yourself basing your state on the perceived feelings and moods of others.
Healthy empathy means that you can see where someone else is coming from and are mindful of the state that they are in.
It also means that you are careful not to project to quickly onto others, being more understanding of others experience.
Yet, in the relationship sphere I have noticed a toxic trend
I started to come across many women who heavily identify as an empath in a toxic way.
These women seemed tell me that being an empath is “good”; all while talking extensively about how their empathy is used against them.
When talking to the types of women, I pick up subconscious cues that they feel powerless and that there is nothing that they can do to stop this.
How often I have heard the phrase “As an empath, I cannot help but to feel emotional about others feelings“.
This type of phrase I have understood is a clever way of shifting responsibility of your emotional state on the other.
My question to the empath reading this is:
If you feel being an empath makes it possible for others to misuse of your “goodness”, why identify with it?
I have worked closely with women, who have this heavy identification with being “caring” and “overgiving“.
When we look deeper into the reasons why they are overgiving, we will start to find the core of their issues.
Many empaths base their feeling on what others are feeling, because they are afraid to honor their truth
In this case, it almost like you take away the responsibility of your happiness by placing it in the hands of others.
You do this because you are afraid to own your truth.
If this rings true to you: ask yourself; am I truly listening and acting on my intuition?
Or am I focusing on others in an attempt to not focus on myself?
Many empaths base their worth on external validation
THe danger in this, is that you are developing a fragile sense of self worth.
Even more dangerous is that, with this need for external validation; you can fall prey to those who will misuse of this habit to control and manipulate you.
In fact, many of the women that came to me as self identified empaths have some sort of past experience with those that they claim to be narcissists.
In my 6 week Glamifest mental bootcamp I dedicate an entire bonus module on handling narcissists and bullies.
Here I explain that the so called narc can only feed upon your self image.
In fact, with a strong self image; independent of the validation of another – you will find yourself stepping into your true power.
As an empowered former empath, I can tell you that the journey can only start when you decide to want to own your power.
When we create awareness surrounding our weaknesses, we can turn them into our superpower
The problem that I see with my clients, is that; if a woman has too many negative experiences as a self identified empath – it might trigger her to become someone who she is not.
I have seen it happen so often: a self proclaimed empath that had enough and turned into a narcissist herself.
We have to be careful with identifying with our hurts and past experiences, as this casts a shadow on who we truly are.
You do not have to go at extreme ends of each spectrum.
Your true self lies in the middle, behind all of the accumulated gunk of your negative past experiences, limiting beliefs and emotional turmoil.
And this longing that you feel, this void – can be overcome by filling yourself with all that love and validation that you are missing.
You can give it all to yourself!
If you want to get there faster, fill in this form to see if we can work together.
Light and love,
Alexis Glam
PS: If you struggle with keeping a positive mindset, I have set up a FREE 7 day training that will help you detox your mind from negativity.
What do you think?