“She had a very inconvenient heart. It always insisted on feeling things every so deeply.” John Mark Green
A Highly Sensitive Person is defined in psychology as someone with a high measure of sensory processing sensitivity, i.e. someone who feels things far deeper than the next person. It is considered a personality trait. It was defined by Elaine and Arthur Aron in the 1990’s and they based their work on Wolfgang Klage’s work in the 1970’s. It is estimated that 20% of the world’s population is HSP.
Empathy is defined as being able to recognise the emotions or ideas within another. However, empath, though not a strictly scientific term, is defined as someone who feels the emotions of others (people, animals, plants, etc.) as if the emotion was their own. Since there is no particular research supporting the the reality of this ability we address it with support from anecdotal evidence. The evidence supporting subtle energy and the role of it in building and rebuilding our physical bodies is quite strong. Some are making the connection between the collective subtle energy of an empath and mirror neurons (neurons that fire when taking action and at the same time seeing someone else taking action). Empaths, whatever the scientific evidence, describe their sensitivity as very challenging and often feeling overwhelmed by unexplained emotions surfacing. However, with some training, this sensitivity can make empaths very powerful members of humanity. They are born with a heightened intuition and can therefore perceive what lies beyond our physical reality construct. Essentially, they can “see” energy around us. Empaths are not always clairsentient (clear feeling), but those who are clairsentient are most often empaths. It is this combination that allows trained empaths to “read” people simply by “tuning into” their energy.
There is no true test to establish if someone is an empath, it is something one comes to understand about oneself. Before reaching that point and being able to start their path of training, life if more challenging than for most with overwhelm and constantly feeling drained. Through developing boundaries, intuition and awareness and a sense of gratitude for one’s experience, empaths can become trained and pursue their true paths in life.
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