Many people believe being an empath is a spiritual gift, but from my perspective, The Empath’s Superpower is a Trauma Response. If you are an empath and you’re constantly absorbing other people’s energy, it’s not ascension symptoms. It stems from a dysregulated nervous system that we can learn to change and master.
Prefer to watch? I’ve put my video below or if you’re a reader simply continue reading the post.
Is Being an Empath a Spiritual Gift?
Most people confuse a dysregulated nervous system with being a spiritual empath or being spiritually gifted. It’s not that you don’t have spiritual gifts, because being an empath allows you to deeply tune in and sense other people’s states of emotion.
You can use this ability very positively. It can help you connect with others, support them, and create a profound impact in their lives. You can also use it as a source of information for your intuition to make extremely accurate decisions with great levels of discernment.
Why The Empath’s Superpower is a Trauma Response
Throughout your life, you were most likely surrounded by people who were not in charge of their own emotions. Maybe you had emotionally unstable parents. As a child, you learned to accurately predict, absorb, and manage the emotional states of your caregivers. You gained the skillset to completely understand other people’s emotions, often before they do, so that you could act accordingly.
This is your nervous system protecting you by absorbing the energy from the people around you so that you can map their behavior before they know what it’s going to be, so that you can act accordingly and stay safe.
For many people, this learned behavior turns into what we would call being an empath. The disempowering side is that you end up absorbing everyone else’s emotions. It becomes challenging to be in social circles with lots of people because you feel like you’re absorbing all their energy. In reality, your nervous system is trying to predict the emotional states of everyone in the circle.
The Two Sides of the Empathic Coin
For many empaths, this can turn into a legitimate superpower. It helps them become masterful and amazing coaches, healers, or guides because they can tune into and discern other people’s emotional states. They can help others navigate through layers of their emotions that those people can’t yet see for themselves.
However, for most empaths, it also creates a debilitating side effect. It becomes very challenging to be in social settings. They get easily overwhelmed and feel like a sponge that just absorbs everyone else’s energy. While one side results in empowering skills, the other is very disempowering. If you’re experiencing that overwhelm, it’s because your nervous system is still running an old survival program.
When you’re in a situation with many people, your nervous system is actively trying to predict the emotional states of everyone in the room. This gets overwhelming because it is nearly impossible for your nervous system to keep track of that many different people’s individual emotional states and try to manage them.
The Cost of Empathy: Your Authenticity
This also has an implication on the chakra system. Instead of your chakras actively projecting your authenticity, they project a version of you that needs to fit with the emotional states of everyone else around you. This comes with some outright legitimate superpowers. You can place yourself in just about any situation and, like a chameleon, you can make it work. You can show up in whatever energy is needed for the environment.
But for the empath, this comes at a great cost. It’s the cost of your authenticity. If you stay here for too long, it may even cost you your ability to know who you actually are.
How to Reclaim Your Energetic Sovereignty
There is an important space of resolution. This happens when you master your chakra system to project the authentic version of who you actually are. When you decouple your nervous system from managing the emotional states of everyone else, you recognize that their emotions are their own to deal with.
Your emotions are your emotions. You need to deal with them. You do not need to be a sponge that feels everyone else’s emotions unless you consciously choose to use that skill in a space where it is beneficial for you and the other person. You don’t need to have that gift turned on 100% of the time.
You can shut it off, and it is safe to do so. If turning off that ability doesn’t feel safe, that’s a clear signal that your nervous system is still running protective programs from the past. It still feels that it needs to manage other people’s emotional states in order to keep you safe.
My Journey from Overwhelm to Mastery
I know this entire experience can be extremely challenging. As someone who personally used to absorb so much energy from everyone else, I found it difficult to do basic things like getting groceries because I would pick up on everyone’s emotions.
I also know the deep, powerful gifts that can come with it when I’m working with a client and I can deeply tune in and feel their emotional space. What I learned to master with my 13 chakra system was the difference between these two situations.
I do not need to be aware of, soak up, or be a sponge for the emotions of every random person I walk past. I do not need to be an emotional sponge for my family or my friends. But I can still use that empathic sensitivity to tune in with discernment, to see and understand people, without the need to soak up that energy. I recognize that I am not responsible for their emotional state, and I can free myself back into my authenticity, no longer needing to adapt who I am to fit others.
Embrace the Gift, Break the Curse
If you’re still here, there was probably a lot of trauma in your childhood or people in your life who were emotionally immature. You had to step up to the responsibility of managing their emotions, and this has left you with both a superpower and a bit of a curse.
If you’re ready to completely embrace the gift half of this, break free from the curse, and step fully into your authenticity, then you can show up as who you are without needing to be responsible for other people’s emotional states. We explore this deeply in our training events that focus on restructuring your chakra and nervous system. If you’re ready to embody the version of you that existed before you had to become responsible for everyone else, you can learn more about the Ignite Your 13 Chakra Blueprint event and check the schedule for the next available class.
