Learn Your Type:
The Six Empathic Styles
Our bodies have five senses: touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing. But not to be overlooked are the senses of our souls: intuition, peace, foresight, trust, empathy. The differences between people lie in their use of these senses; most people don’t know anything about the inner senses while a few people rely on them just as they rely on their physical senses, and in fact probably even more.
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The first key to developing your empathic gifts is to know which ones you have. As I said at the outset, many of us believe there is but one empathic gift—called empathy—but this isn’t true. There is an array of empathic gifts, and each one is as beautiful and rich as a great Impressionist painting.
The following story of two clients will help illustrate the diversity of the empathic world.
Like Father, Like Daughter?
Empathic Styles Collide
Connor, the father, and Jessica, age twelve, sat before me in my office. This father-daughter duo had made an appointment because they were struggling. The most important person in their combined world, Isabelle, had died a couple of years earlier: Connor’s wife and Jessica’s mother. Their common bond of grief was causing a ripple in their relationship, and in a most extraordinary way.
Since her mother had died, Jessica had started feeling spirits. She called them “wisps,” as that’s how they felt when they slid across her skin. She insisted that while most of the wisps were “from the house and the olden days,” one of them was her mother.
The family lived in a stately old mansion in the South that had been around since before the Civil War. Having been occupied by many ancestors, it had seen considerable loss and death. Perhaps a dozen generations had passed through the house, leaving behind energetic representatives of the various families.
Jessica couldn’t intuitively see these spirits, which would have marked her as clairvoyant. Nor could she hear them, which is a clairaudient trait. Rather, she felt what they felt and sensed what the most painful parts of their lives had entailed. She described a man with a stump leg who was in pain from a gunshot wound and the loss of his limb. In her own body, Jessica felt both his physical pain and his emotional reactions to his trauma. She also described a child who walked around the house, mournfully looking for his mother. The child-ghost believed that his mother had died when the opposite was actually true: the child had died and now could not find his mother, who had remained on the earthly plane.
Jessica also relayed stories of her mother, whom she believed showed up whenever a particularly songful robin perched in a bush outside her bedroom window. As soon as the bird started to sing, Jessica sensed the comforting presence of her mother, providing reassurance that she was still watching over both her and her father.
Connor was as empathic as his daughter but exhibited different forms of empathy. A medical doctor, he sensed others’ physical distress in his own body. He almost always knew exactly where a patient hurt, although he seldom let on—he didn’t want his patients to think he was weird. On one occasion he had found himself inwardly protesting a session with a patient who came in complaining of low-back pain. Because Connor actually began to feel an acute pain in his chest, however, he ordered an angiogram and determined that his patient was days away from a heart attack.
While Connor’s sensitivity clearly assisted him on the job and benefited his clients, it also caused a rift between him and Jessica. Quite simply, Connor was so empathic that he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving a patient in distress. He put in long hours, and in his limited free time he took shifts in the emergency room. He had vowed to be a doctor and saw no time clock associated with that promise. As long as people were in pain, he wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing.
Whereas Jessica was highly attuned to the supernatural world, including the physical and emotional concerns of those in the afterlife, Connor was sensitive to the physical sensations of the living. One would imagine that the two would be able to relate. After all, weren’t they both empathic? But that wasn’t the case.
They were fighting because Jessica insisted that her father spend more time with her. From Connor’s perspective, Jessica should stop “daydreaming” and start paying more attention to her school life. In fact, he was scared that she was actually emotionally immature. Connor believed that if Jessica would stop telling stories and simply make more friends, she would be less dependent on him.
Some of their problems certainly weren’t unique. Connor was losing himself in his job, and Jessica wanted to hang on to her mother rather than venture into the world and potentially be hurt by life. I encouraged the two of them to work with a therapist in relation to these life issues, although we also discussed them to some extent. The extrasensory problems, however, were such that I felt competent to address them.
I pointed out to Connor that grief might have blasted open an innate empathic gift in his daughter, one that I call shamanic empathy. While she exhibited both emotional and physical empathy, which I’ll describe in this chapter, she was clearly sensitive to mystical phenomena as well—the mark of a good shaman. Maybe, I told Connor, Isabelle—and other spirits—really were visiting Jessica, in which case he might want to both believe her and help her strategize a plan so she wouldn’t be so vulnerable to their whims.
Connor was shocked (and not altogether pleased) when I suggested that he might be able to relate to Jessica as he, too, displayed a spiritual or intuitive gift.
“You mean I’m psychic?” he cried out, as if using a bad word.
I said, “Yes, although I prefer to use the word empathic.”
Connor had never considered his ability to sense another’s physical discomfort as an intuitive gift. He was both pleased by this and afraid that his ability might be tainted with an otherworldly scent.
After I explained that his physical empathic gift was actually that—an innate way of being empathic, a kind of visceral intuition—he felt better. Although his ability was a great spiritual gift, I further explained, and one supportive of his spiritual mission and purpose, he didn’t need to let it get the better of him. He could use it at work, but he didn’t need to let it make him work all the time.
“Your daughter needs you,” I said. “A spiritual gift makes room for all aspects of our life, not only the professional arena.”
Over a couple of sessions, I taught Jessica how to modulate her gift (techniques you will also learn in part II) so she could be a “regular kid” and not always vulnerable to missives from the deceased. I also showed Connor ways he could stop the flow of information that caused him to pick up on everyone else’s physical distress so that he, too, could lead a normal life—one that provided him ample time for fathering. And I invited both of them to embrace the spirit of Isabelle in such a way that she could continue her journey into the afterlife.
I have shared this particular story to showcase two of the many types of empathy. As you can see, both father and daughter were naturally gifted, but neither of them knew they were empathic. As a result, they hadn’t developed their gifts appropriately.
As you read through the following outline and explanation of the basic empathic gifts, pay attention to which ones best describe you and your empathic experiences. After exploring these gifts, you’ll be able to take a quiz that can further help you identify and define your empathic style.
The Six Empathic Styles
Nearly anyone can cultivate empathy. If you want to truly expand your empathic abilities to their compassionate best, you must first figure out which style is your strongest and begin there.
Of course, you don’t need to concentrate solely on your strengths. You can always develop a weaker empathic style or even work on one that has yet to spring forth from your inner jack-in-the-box. It will be easier, however, to magnify those you are already partial to.
The following short descriptions will help you begin to get acquainted with the six empathic styles.
Physical
A physical empath absorbs physical energies present in the external environment. They can feel in their body the illness and pain in another’s body. They might also be able to sense the physical energy held in an object. For instance, a physical empath can hold a piece of jewelry someone else has worn frequently and, in doing so, sense the physical aches, pains, and pleasures of that other person inside themselves. Physical empaths might also embody one or more of the clair gifts associated with empathy I mentioned earlier, including clairgustance (clear tasting), clairscent (clear smelling), and clairtangency (clear touching). How might these various subaspects of physical empathy weave together? As an example, a full-blown physical empath with access to all these gifts might sense another’s bodily aches and pains, the taste in the other’s mouth, the smell of their perfume or aftershave, and the feeling of clothing on their skin.
Emotional
An emotional empath feels another’s feelings as if they are their own. This also is called clairempathy (clear feeling) by some psychics and clairsentience (clear sensing) by others, terms presented in the introduction. As I mentioned there, I usually avoid these terms, finding “emotional empathy” more straightforward.
Mental
The mental empath receives information and data from the outside world and seems to simply “know” what someone else knows. This style may involve clairsentience and claircognizance (clear knowing) as well as clairaudience (clear hearing) and clairvoyance (clear seeing).
Natural
The natural empath relates to nature-based forces and creatures. Through this capacity the empath can tap into far-flung environmental sources of information, including such wonders as planetary shifts and weather patterns, the emotions and needs of animals, and ways in which an herb can be used for healing purposes. A wide array of psychic gifts can factor into natural empathy: clairgustance, clairscent, clairtangency, clairempathy (clear feeling), clairsentience, and claircognizance.
Spiritual
Spiritual empaths sense the heart of the Divine and often are able to determine what “God wants” (or does not want) for themselves or others. They’re also especially adept at intuitively feeling another person’s level of honesty or dishonesty. Here, the gifts of clairsentience and claircognizance are key.
Shamanic
I use the term shamanic to describe the sixth empathic type because I have observed that there are certain extradimensional empathic abilities as well. I experience these myself, and this is the category of empath I fit into. In terms of the clairs, all of the empathic gifts are available to the shamanic empath to one degree or another.
The ancient practice of shamanism has appeared in a variety of forms around the world and through time, but a connecting thread is that the shaman perceives spirit everywhere and in everything. Another common element is that shamans are able to tune in to extra dimensions: otherworldly beings as well as other times, places, and spaces. With this capacity and the ability to work with all the other forms of empathy I have just briefly described, the shamanic empath possesses a multidimensional awareness that can include an awareness of others’ past lives, the sense of spiritual presences, or knowledge about what might have occurred in a house or on a specific piece of land. This awareness can involve psychic navigation, or drawing on a variety of signals offered by the other empathic gifts, and it is marked by a knowing of what someone needs in order to make an effective life decision or invite healing. As we will see with the other styles of empathy, the shamanic empath is also a frequent conveyor of what might occur in the future through a process I call radiant empathy, which we will discuss a little further on. Basically, the shaman empath can do it all—which, I can attest, can feel like both a great gift and an overwhelming curse.
As we now explore these six basic types of empathic spiritual gifts more completely, give yourself permission to wander the annals of your memory banks. Have you had any of the experiences noted for each category? Do you know others who have shared—or complained of—these abilities? Empathy becomes real when we see it demonstrated by others or ourselves; it makes a difference in our own or others’ lives when we ignore the temptation to be merely sympathetic, such as to only pity another or be artificially optimistic, and retain our own identity even while sensing another’s reality.
Physical Empathy:
Two Bodies as One
Have you ever stood next to a person with a physical malady, pain, or illness, only to find yourself mimicking their discomfort, down to feeling each and every ache and pain? Or maybe you’ve been near someone who is in tip-top condition and you, consequently, feel as healthy as Atlas, the Greek Titan who is strong enough to hold up the world. This is the basic indication of physical empathy: the capacity for sensing another’s physicality in your own body. Added to the ability to mirror others’ physical sensations is the capacity to attune to physical objects such as those near and dear to a living being.
For example, I have a friend who is so physically empathic that she can’t buy jewelry or clothing from a consignment store. She has only to touch or put on the item and she senses what the previous owner used to feel like physically. She once bought an old-fashioned cameo necklace but couldn’t wear it because she felt like she had arthritis in her joints when she had it on. Another time she purchased a pair of pants and sensed bruising all over her legs.
In these two cases, she eventually asked the storekeeper about the items’ previous owners. The storekeeper refused to name names but did confirm that the cameo owner was an older woman with arthritis and that the pants had been consigned by a woman undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia. One of the side effects of leukemia is bruising.
On the plus side, imagine the benefits of being a physical empath if you are a doctor, nurse, or other type of healer who can attune to a patient and run the correct tests. Physical empathy gives moms and dads an advantage, too, as they are able to sense when something might be amiss with their children. The compassionate physical empath can creatively assist individuals with refraining from deleterious behaviors or actions, or recovering from physical maladies that have already cropped up. And they can readily figure out what kinds of activities or situations are healthy and supportive for them.
As well, many physical empaths develop their gifts so they can actually program or shift physical matter. They might hold a crystal in their hands and send healing energy into it, which can then infuse the ill with assistance. They might sense a pain in a friend and then feel or conjure what relief would like, thereby “wishing” this into their friend. I explore these types of empathic behaviors in the section “Empathy By Transmission: Radiant Empathy and the Six Empathic Styles” later in this chapter.
On the other hand, physical empaths might find themselves stricken with the very same pains, diseases, and irksome problems as the people around them. This is a sure sign of being physically sympathetic instead of empathetic. Sure, they might sense another’s head cold, but do they really want to end up suffering from it? Along these same lines, some physical empaths are so sensitive to others’ objects that, like my friend, they refrain from touching things other people have owned.
Physical empaths must make sure they know the difference between their own material sensations and those of others. As well, they might need to figure out if they hold unconscious beliefs that cause them to take a backseat to another’s predicament. Questions to ask include “Do I believe my physical well-being is less important than another’s? Do I think my ultimate value is to serve others, even to my own detriment?”
It can then be helpful to cultivate an response to physical sympathy. For instance, when I sense another’s physical distress, I ask the Divine, “How am I to be with this?” I ask my own essential self to return energy not suitable for me or to give me insight or a sign of how I’m to help another without cost to myself. Be reinstating myself into the picture, I shift from a sympathetic to an empathetic state.
Emotional Empathy:
An Abundance of Feelings
To emotional empaths, the world is like a Crayola kaleidoscope of feelings. They may find themselves oohing and aahing at the treasure trove of feelings emanating from others, which are almost too numerous to count.
Actually, there are only five basic families of feelings: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. To these, many experts are now adding the category of pain, and others add contempt and surprise, while yet other experts substitute joy and surprise for happiness. Within these several areas, however, are thousands of secondary feelings, all of which every human being (and maybe even other life forms) cycle through on a regular, if not sometimes moment-to-moment, basis. Aspects of happiness include contentment, gratitude, bliss, calm, and satisfaction. Open the box of anger and you will find frustration, irritation, rage, and more.
The most gifted emotional empaths are often described as being “highly sensitive,” a trait that can be overwhelming but also beneficial. According to several observers—including John D. Mayer of the University of New Hampshire, who, along with Peter Salovey from Yale University, wrote a breakthrough paper in 1990 titled Emotional Intelligence—people with emotional intelligence, or EI, are able to reason about emotions and use feelings to enhance higher thinking. For instance, people who can relate to others’ sadness show higher analytical skills than people who cannot. People with emotional intelligence can better manage their own and others’ emotions and connect their own broad array of sensitivities to recognize them in others.37 They are more likely to have a better social support system and fewer problematic interactions with others, such as fights and interpersonal violence. They are also less likely to use drugs and alcohol.38
There is a dark side to emotional empathy. An abusive environment can warp a person’s innate emotional empathy. In order to “self-protect” or survive, the emotional empath might end up tuning in to others’ emotions in order to manipulate them. They can learn to use their tone of voice to silence or scare others, use their own words against them, or convince them of lies. A distorted emotional empath will tend to tell someone what they want to hear in order to get their own needs met.
Emotional empaths are also famous for being personally sensitive and having their own feelings easily hurt. As a consequence, they can become threatening as another way to self-protect. Their defensiveness is an avoidance of further pain, which can potentially make them bitter, cynical, and verbally abusive. They can also lay excellent guilt trips but turn around and apologize when it serves them—another form of manipulation if the apology is not heart-centered.39
Yet another challenge for many emotional empaths is the difficulty in separating their own emotions from those of others. I have had thousands of clients call me to ask, “Is this my emotion or someone else’s? Do I like this job or am I feeling others’ attraction to this job? Do I love my partner or am I simply feeling their feelings for me?”
This form of emotional sympathy can lead to illness. I once worked with a woman who was overly bonded to her mother when she was growing up. By the time the daughter was thirty years old, the mother had several autoimmune diseases, including diverticulitis and chronic fatigue syndrome. Her daughter displayed many of the same maladies, although there isn’t a direct genetic correlation in health issues like chronic fatigue. These physical diseases, however, are often linked to emotional problems, which is one of the reasons I was certain that the daughter had spent her life absorbing her mother’s emotions, sacrificing herself in the process. After helping the daughter decide that she didn’t need to take in her mother’s emotions—that a greater force or God could help her mother instead—her autoimmune symptoms all but disappeared. The mother hit bottom and went into therapy, where she began dealing with her own emotional challenges.
Mental Empathy:
Data, Data Everywhere
There are some people who simply seem to know everything and anything, even though they swear they haven’t swallowed the Encyclopedia Britannica. In modern parlance, these are our walking and talking Wikipedias. If you are one of these individuals, you might very well be a mental empath, someone who relates to information and data from the outside world.
One of my best friends is a mental empath. I seldom research a project without first running my ideas by him. I might present my theories to him, such as, “I think that cancer is always caused by a virus,” and he might say, “My sense is that you need to investigate morphing or transforming microbes.”
Has he ever read a medical textbook? Nope.
Certain mental empaths specialize in different areas of expertise. One might access information about other people’s personal lives, such as insights about their beliefs, fears, or deep desires. Other empaths might understand financial numbers, agricultural anomalies, or the best way to manage a project. Still others focus on data about anything from coins to angels. At the core of all mental empathic abilities, however, is access to information and perceptions.
Mental empathy can be a challenging gift. It raises the question of “how do I know what I know?” Essentially, empathy is a body-based intuitive process and one that only can be proven by its effectiveness. The only way to substantiate the empathic awareness of information is to wait and see if it’s accurate. This cause-and-effect gap can leave empaths questioning their abilities. It can also leave them feeling defensive or ill-prepared when others ask to prove or substantiate their claims.
I once worked with a youngster who had an excellent sense of mental empathy, so much so that she aced almost every exam she ever took, except, for some odd reason, in social studies. Her teachers accused her of cheating and so did her parents, because she hardly ever cracked a book and she nodded off during many classes. Her mental empathy resulted in scholastic brilliance. Based on my advice, she learned to at least pretend to listen and study, just to get people off her back while she was going through school.
There are many other facets of mental empathy, two of which we can see through the eyes of Daniel Goleman, well-known author of Emotional Intelligence. According to Goleman, cognitive empathy encompasses the following activities:
- understanding how others think about things
- the ability to take another’s perspective40
When we relate to another’s thoughts, we can better understand how they see the world and, therefore, why they do what they do. Sometimes we might feel the need to intervene—to provide additional data so the person can make a better choice. For instance, I once worked with a client who refused to leave her alcoholic husband. My own mental empathy style helped me understand that she thought of herself as worthless. After I helped her correct this misperception, she was eventually able to leave her husband because she was able to change her belief system from a self-
negating one to a self-loving one. And in the process of working with her, I was able to “upgrade” my mental empathy to the stage of compassion, which enabled me to actually make a difference.
At the core, mental empathy invites us to step into someone else’s perspective, and not only in present-day time. I once worked with a mental empath who was a historical scholar. He could literally sense the thought structures and perspectives of long-dead figures in history. He was able to interweave his intuitive perspectives into the textbooks he wrote, garnering kudos from critics, who found his insights eerily observant.
The upside of mental empathy, when utilized with compassion, is as I shared earlier: if you can enter another’s mental world, you can understand them and, if necessary, help them shift from a negative perception to a more life-affirming one. You can provide motivation and education and promote transformational change. On the downside, mental empaths might also be tempted to apply their perceptions to manipulating or controlling others. To know can be a great thing if the knowledge is lovingly offered.
Natural Empathy:
From the Sinewy Serpents
to the Sparkling Stars
Have you ever heard of a horse whisperer? These special individuals practice something called “natural horsemanship.” They relate so well to the horse that they don’t need to use violent or pain-inducing means of training. And there are a number of other kinds of whisperers, including people who naturally relate with dogs, birds, sharks, wolves, lions, and even bears.41 These individuals are all part of the empathic group I call the natural empaths.
Many professional whisperers attribute their ability to an innate understanding of the animals they work with, as well as strong observational and disciplinary skills. But some people who are sensitive to animals come right out and say it: they are psychically empathic, able to attune to and communicate with beings in the natural world. When empathy extends to beings and forces in nature, it is called natural empathy.
A natural empath is able to attune to aspects of nature, both animate and inanimate. Some natural empaths are sensitive to almost anything in nature, including animals, reptiles, birds, plants, trees, and rocks. They may also be tuned in to the moon, planets, stars, and elements, such as water, earth, fire, and air. Basically, a natural empath could conceivably sense what is occurring in any part of the natural world.
Some natural empaths are more attuned to one form of nature than any other. For example, a natural empath might relate primarily to animals and, within this group, only dogs. In fact, they might be somewhat of a niche empath, only empathizing with dachshunds or golden retrievers. The same works for all other categories of nature, from serpents to stars. Natural sensitives might perform any of the other five forms of empathy (or a combination of them) but would consider themselves natural empaths if the gift is applied solely to beings, objects, or forces of nature.
Some people can attune to human beings and beings of nature, however, in which case they might acquire a long list of empathic types after their names. For instance, I once worked with a man who could sense everyone else’s feelings—and I mean everyone’s. It didn’t matter if the subject was nearby or on the other side of the world; he always knew what the object of his focus felt. He could also sense what animals were feeling emotionally. He was especially attuned to dogs, probably because he was raised with them as a child and loved them. I would label this client both an emotional and natural empath.
Still other natural empaths are inclusive of or exclusive to other aspects of nature, such as plants or lakes, stars or the wind. I once worked with a shaman from Peru who could attune to all the area’s healing plants. He grew them in his garden. When I was in his presence, I could touch one of these plants and figure out what healing properties it bestowed. I cannot perform this task in America, which makes me wonder if I “borrowed” this shaman’s natural empathy through my own shamanic empathy, which we will explore later in this chapter.
I have met individuals with as many different forms of natural empathy as could be conceived of. I once taught a class on empathy for which close to fifty people showed up. One woman was an astrologer who could mentally “read” both her clients and what the planets were up to. She was, therefore, both a mental and natural empath. Another woman related to whales. She could sense what very particular whales were going through thousands of miles away. She was a clear natural empath. Yet another man made his living as a jeweler, but his real gift wasn’t as commonplace as his job title lets on. He could actually sense information and feelings in rocks. And another class attendant used rocks for healing purposes. She was able to hold a rock and figure out what it could do for a person’s physical ailment or life issue.
Many natural empaths draw on the same information as do emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual empaths, especially when working with nature’s creatures, such as fish, fowl, animals, or birds. They can sense a dog’s physical aches and pains, feel its feelings, relate to its perceptions, and figure out what the Divine would like (or not) for this very important being.
When natural empathy is used wisely and appropriately, the empath is able to relate to beings and forces that are seldom represented on this planet. They can assist others in taking care of their pets, tending their gardens, or connecting to nature in general. Other natural empaths can access the natural world to assist people or animals that need healing or tending to. Still others, such as those who are able to read the stars and natural forces, can help people navigate decision making or prepare for a storm.
The compassionate natural empath makes sure that there is no harm done to either nature or people and that the human and natural world are allowed to live in balance and harmony.
Some natural empaths are so influenced by energetic information that they can become overwhelmed by the pain, suffering, or needs of nature. I once worked with a client who couldn’t drive along most major highways because she could sense the grief of standing trees that had lost their neighboring trees to logging or pruning. I have another client who can’t hike in the mountains if there has been strip mining nearby because she can feel the cutting of the rocks in her own bones.
Of course, there are also those natural empaths who misuse their gift. The proverbial story is of the mentally imbalanced teenager who tortures or kills animals. The pain and suffering inflicted on an animal most likely mirrors their own, and by projecting it onto an animal, they can somehow gain a sense of mastery over their own victimization issues. By and large, however, I have found that natural empaths are sweet and sensitive souls, here to create harmony between nature and humanity. One of my friends is such a high natural empath that she has adopted three dogs and ten cats from the Animal Humane Society and teaches others how to rescue animals.
Everything in nature gives off a vibration, and it is to this that a natural empath attunes. All is alive with vibration and voice, scent and sight, as John Muir captured so beautifully:
A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves.42
To the natural empath, the entirety of the world is alive—not only shimmering with life, but also breathing life into us.
Spiritual Empathy:
Living in the Light
Every one of us is a spirit. We are an immortal and unique spark birthed from the flame of the Divine. Certain people, those whom I call spiritual empaths, are able to attune to others’ spirits and also to the Greater Spirit’s intentions and dreams.
To the spiritual empath, all of life is a prayer. It is an expression of divine blessing. A spiritual empath inherently knows that the purpose of life is to live as the blessings we are, primarily through service to others. If we could only live in this way, as the spiritual empath knows, there would be no war or violence, only peace and caring.
The spiritual empath is highly attuned to these higher and more universal goals as well as to individuals’ personal goals. I’m not talking about career or relational goals—rather, the primary objectives that each of our spirits establishes for a lifetime. These aims are expansive and include the development of virtues, spiritual qualities, and ways of being that lead to what I call practical enlightenment, or the ability to express divinely through human endeavors.
A spiritual empath can sometimes feel or sound judgmental because they are able to discern the difference between how someone is currently living or expressing their purpose and how they are supposed to be acting. A spiritual empath often reads these differences in their own body or through an inexplicable but overwhelming awareness.
Here are a couple of scenarios that will better explain spiritual empathy.
Imagine that a spiritual empath is attending church and listening to a pastor. As the pastor preaches, the spiritual empath starts to feel uncomfortable, maybe a little hot under the collar or sick to his stomach. He looks around to see if anyone notices that he is alternatively sweating and getting chills. He has the vague sense that something is really off with the pastor’s sermon, but no one else seems to notice. Instead, the audience is staring straight ahead, enraptured—except, of course, for that kid who is kicking the pew in front of him, bored to death.
The twisted feeling in the spiritual empath’s stomach grows—and then he knows. The preacher isn’t walking his own talk. Though he has no apparent way to prove this observation, the empath’s body relaxes. At some level, he knows, the man behind the pulpit is out of integrity.
Here is another scenario.
Meet the female spiritual empath who is a therapist. She is sitting in her office, facing a couple. The husband is obviously struggling. His clothes are mismatched and rumpled and his beard is straggly. He looks like he’s hardly able to function. In contrast, the woman is straitlaced and meticulously put together. The buttons on her suit coat gleam as if they were actually polished.
The wife is relaying that her husband is an alcoholic. The man’s head hangs in shame as she discusses his exploits. The entire time the wife is talking, the spiritual empath feels dirty, like something is wrong or discolored with this woman.
The husband admits to his problem and says he wants to get help. The empathic therapist feels a warm and loving feeling toward the husband despite his life issues. No matter how hard she tries, however, the therapist can’t feel good about the wife, even though the woman presents as near perfect.
Spiritual empaths don’t read appearances alone; they are able to sense how genuine and honest someone is. An alcoholic who owns his issues is far more authentic and trustworthy than a well-mannered and accomplished person who doesn’t own any of their dark, or shadow, side.
As you can imagine, the gift of being able to sense someone’s spiritual integrity can be confusing, at least until you learn to recognize the internal signs that indicate who is straightforward, or “on-path,” and who is not. Once a spiritual empath has learned to trust their internal recognition of honesty and ethics, they can help others recognize their own areas of spiritual weakness, as well as figure out what to do about them. Many spiritual empaths enter a form of ministry, life coaching, spiritual directing, or even business leadership—all paths that assist others in becoming all they can become.
The challenges are complex, however. No one likes to think poorly of others. A spiritual empath recognizes others’ true potential but also understands the differences between potential and reality. It isn’t easy, fun, or popular to acknowledge or point out the glaring discrepancies. Many spiritual empaths prefer to ignore their own gifts rather than face facts about other people, particularly family members or loved ones.
In the end, I believe the following passage from Michael Cobley’s book Seeds of Earth best describes the compassionate outreach of a spiritual empath toward others:
“Dreams persist,” the Pathmaster sighed. “The stronger the dreamer, the more resilient the dream. Some dream outward dreams, seeking unity with the external; others dream inwardly, dreams of hunger and conquest, of pain and the escape from pain. Some do not dream at all.” 43
The spiritual empath can intuitively read or sense another’s dreams. Are they focused only on repeating the patterns and programs that have led to selfishness, spiritual starvation, or emptiness? Have they lost the ability to dream or to believe in anything at all or are they dreaming of the goodness implied in every atom, breath, and moment? The calling of the spiritual empath is to help everyone dream bigger and grander dreams for themselves and for all.
Shamanic Empathy:
Every Facet of the Gem
Shamans are the priest-healers of their clans. Since the beginning of time, no matter whether a village was located in a desert, mountain, jungle, or even in the middle of a city, the shaman has been the appointed keeper of all things mystical, especially those things that return us to wholeness in body, mind, and soul.
While most people have one, two, or maybe even three empathic gifts, the shaman empath displays every empathic gift. A typical shamanic empathic interaction would be to sense what is occurring in another’s body, feel their feelings, know what they are thinking, sense what is occurring in the natural world around them, figure out whether they are in spiritual accord with their actions or not, and—as if that’s not enough—tune in to otherworldly phenomena as well.
A shaman might not access all of the other five types of empathy at the same time but is able to use any style when necessary. As I mentioned, I am a shaman empath, and because of this I have had to work on filtering out empathic data so that I’m not overloaded. For instance, I frequently attend my son’s baseball games and often struggle with all kinds of sensations in that setting. I feel my son’s joy when he gets on base, but also the disappointment of the other team’s pitcher. I can tell which fellow parent is hungry and whether they have money for popcorn or not. (If not, I often pass my own bucket around.) I can tell if it’s going to rain—or if we’ll have snow, a tornado, or a sudden rise in temperature—and even figure out which attending pet is going to sit quietly by their owner’s feet instead of chasing the balls that escape the park. I often remind myself to simply focus on the batter so I don’t get overinvolved in clairs that keep me from enjoying the game.
I share this snippet to show how easy it is for a shaman empath to know too much. The shamanic experience is further complicated by the fact that shamans attune to more than the day-to-day events in others and the cosmos. If I really opened up during a baseball game, I’d probably be able to have a conversation with a youngster’s deceased relatives! Shaman empaths have a proclivity for exposing themselves to beings and situations in other dimensions and time periods.
While the physical empath might touch an object and sense another’s bodily issues, a shaman could touch the same object and inform you about that person’s past lives, their pets, their health issues, and what the future might hold. While the spiritual shaman can sense another’s spiritual destiny, determining whether they are on-path or not, the shaman can peer through the lens of time to see if that person’s soul has ever been on the path toward that destiny, and, if so, during which life. As well, they might share information about one of the person’s invisible spiritual guides—say, an angel or a deceased relative—while forewarning about a potential car accident.
For me, as well as for many shaman empaths I’ve worked with, the most challenging aspect of this empathic style involves distinguishing between past, present, and future; your body senses each of these time periods right now—in the present. It’s also difficult to figure out whether what you are sensing applies to yourself or someone else.
For example, one night I lay in bed completely out of sorts. My chin hurt. I felt scared. I kept reviewing my car insurance policy. I had the sense of a dark presence. Was I remembering a car accident I’d had years earlier that I needed to revisit for some reason? Was I about to be struck down in the near future? Was I feeling an experience that a friend was currently suffering through?
I didn’t get my answer until the next day. At precisely 2:00 pm, both my children had accidents. Michael was in a head-on car crash and Gabe was hurt at daycare, injuring his chin. Every sensation I had experienced the night before played out that day, down to my sense of Gabe’s hurt chin and the need to call the car insurance company. I could only guess that remaining awake the night before had kept my adrenaline charged so I could take charge.
The compassionate shaman uses their multilayered experience to help the people and beings that the Divine asks them to assist. However, the wise shaman doesn’t help everyone, even if asked for help. They don’t feel everyone’s feelings or move every toad that is in danger of being run over off the road. Rather, they learn how to rely on divine inspiration, sensing the empathic information that is presented through the filter of the Divine and abstaining from getting involved unless directed by the Divine.
The shaman empath who reports for duty to the Divine can be defined as a healer in the truest sense of the word: one who invites wholeness where there has been a perception of brokenness. The shaman empath is truly a doctor of the soul.
Empathy by Transmission:
Radiant Empathy and the Six Empathic Styles
As an empath, you are usually in receiving mode. You are sensing, feeling, knowing, or relating to what is occurring inside another, whether the other is a person, another form of life, an object, or an energetic force. If you are committed to love and care, you might take the next step and act or think compassionately, appropriately seeking to alleviate another’s suffering or support their evolution. There is another side to the empathy coin, however, that is seldom discussed or understood. I call it radiant empathy, and it is another means for serving others compassionately by using energetic rather than concrete means to provide assistance.
While empathy involves receiving energetic information, radiant empathy involves sending assistance energetically. It is a transmission process whereby the empath actually sends helpful and loving energy to another in order to relieve their pain and suffering or to offer insight and guidance.
Think of radiant empathy in terms of an email exchange. We all receive emails, maybe too many and too frequently. The empath is constantly opening emails that enable them to know what is occurring in the outside world. Many empaths are in danger of either closing off their abilities or becoming too sympathetic because they don’t know that they don’t have to physically respond to every email. They can become underempathic as a way of protecting themselves or overempathic and maybe overinvolved as a way of serving.
Radiant empathy offers another option. It involves responding to others’ needs energetically rather than tangibly. In other words, you can answer an email instead of leaving your office, trekking to another’s abode, and sitting in front of them. While the recipient of your compassionate response might not physically hear, see, or even sense your response, it can still be effective.
Any form of empathy can invite a radiant empathy response to another’s needs. A physical empath might sense another’s injury and send healing energy. A physical empath can bless an object for the ill, programming it so it emanates healing energy when the person sees, holds, or wears it.
Some physical empaths are so inclined toward radiant empathy that their gifts evolve into telekinesis, the ability to move objects without touching them. Sometimes trauma blasts open a physical empath’s energetic field. Their strong reaction to their own condition can generate magnetic or electromagnetic fields that can literally move objects. Other physical empaths use their telekinesis ability to perform psychic surgery, energetically parting another’s flesh so as to remove cysts, tumors, illnesses, or other conditions causing health problems. They might also sense the issues causing a physical disorder, such as emotional repression or poor posture. These healers can also insert healthy energy to affect transformation.
An emotional empath might sense another’s sadness and send emotional assurance and love, kind of like a big teddy bear hug. A mental empath, on the other hand, might perceive that someone believes himself to be stupid and send back a corrective truth, affirming the other’s intelligence and brilliance.
A natural empath can send healing energy to any being or force in nature but might also be able to direct a natural being or elemental force to help another person. For instance, one natural empath I know can send the vibrational qualities of rocks and plants into her clients so they can better heal. Another can call to her clients their power animals, which are the spirits of animals, reptiles, and birds willing to provide guidance.
A spiritual empath might pick up on someone’s broken spirit and wish for them the power of grace, and a shamanic empath might do any of the above in addition to directing intrusive entities away from a person and asking for beneficial entities to show up and provide assistance.
This direct transference can occur without any in-person exchange, although I can also sit across from a client in my office and send radiant empathy. The point is that I do not need to be present to accomplish this goal. Such is the nature of radiant empathy.
empathic exploration 4 What Is Your Style?
We all have access to at least one empathic way of knowing, or style. Think about how you usually relate to people. Do you feel others’ emotions in your own body, know what they know, or are you more prone to spiritual or mystical understandings?
To get a sense of which of the six empathic abilities might best describe you, I invite you to take the following test. Read each question and pick a number between 0 and 5, 0 meaning that the statement does not fit at all and 5 indicating a strong fit. You will assess and debrief the quiz when you are done.
1. I take on the physical pains of people around me.
0 1 2 3 4 5
2. I am sensitive to the moods and feelings of others.
0 1 2 3 4 5
3. I often understand what is motivating someone, even if they don’t know understand themselves.
0 1 2 3 4 5
4. I can often tell what animals are going through, physically or emotionally.
0 1 2 3 4 5
5. I often feel the presence of nonphysical beings.
0 1 2 3 4 5
6. I often feel like a stranger on this planet, like I’m so aware of other times and spaces that it’s hard to tune in to the world around me.
0 1 2 3 4 5
7. I often feel others’ bodily symptoms of pain or illness in my own body.
0 1 2 3 4 5
8. Strangers approach me and share their most deeply held feelings for no perceivable reason.
0 1 2 3 4 5
9. I find it difficult to explain to people how I know what I know.
0 1 2 3 4 5
10. I often predict shifts in weather or environmental situations, even before they are announced.
0 1 2 3 4 5
11. I get a sense of inner peace around people who seem to live the values they proclaim.
0 1 2 3 4 5
12. I’m sometimes overwhelmed by my own psychic sensitivities to people, animals, objects, and even spirits. It’s like I have all of the empathic gifts.
0 1 2 3 4 5
13. I can sometimes hold an object and experience strong sensations, such as the lightheadedness, nausea, or other sensations that the owner might have once experienced or may currently be experiencing.
0 1 2 3 4 5
14. I often feel a surge of emotion right before an event with a big outcome, regardless of whether it turns out to be really positive or negative.
0 1 2 3 4 5
15. It’s easy for me to read between the lines and know what people are really thinking or saying.
0 1 2 3 4 5
16. I am happiest when in harmony with nature: earth, water, and skies.
0 1 2 3 4 5
17. I think we are all here fulfilling a divine destiny, and I like helping people figure out their own purpose.
0 1 2 3 4 5
18. Sometimes I’m more aware of the nonphysical worlds, dimensions, and beings than I am of the physical world.
0 1 2 3 4 5
19. I can feel the energy of the previous owners or visitors when
I walk into a house.
0 1 2 3 4 5
20. I can usually tell if someone is in deep sorrow, even if they do not speak about it.
0 1 2 3 4 5
21. It’s easy for me to get a sense of another’s perspective, even if
I don’t know them well.
0 1 2 3 4 5
22. I have a natural green thumb, automatically knowing when to water plants or offer them more sunlight.
0 1 2 3 4 5
23. I can always tell when someone is lying or being dishonest.
0 1 2 3 4 5
24. I seem to have every sense of empathy: physical, emotional, mental, natural, and spiritual.
0 1 2 3 4 5
25. I often know exactly where in the body someone is injured or ill.
0 1 2 3 4 5
26. Sometimes I feel waves of strong emotions, only to later meet someone who is experiencing those feelings.
0 1 2 3 4 5
27. I seem to know exactly what information to pay attention to, seemingly for no reason at all.
0 1 2 3 4 5
28. Astrological or astronomical events often greatly affect or disturb me.
0 1 2 3 4 5
29. Lack of ethics and integrity bothers me more than anything.
0 1 2 3 4 5
30. I get déjà vu about others’ pasts, including past lives.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Debriefing Your Empathic Exploration: What Is Your Style?
Part I: Tallying the Questions
Please record your 0 to 5 scores for the questions related to the specific types of empathy. Then total the number of points you put in each of the six areas.
physical empathy
Question 1
Question 7
Question 13
Question 19
Question 25
Total physical empathy score:
emotional empathy
Question 2
Question 8
Question 14
Question 20
Question 26
Total emotional empathy score:
mental empathy
Question 3
Question 9
Question 15
Question 21
Question 27
Total mental empathy score:
natural empathy
Question 4
Question 10
Question 16
Question 22
Question 28
Total natural empathy score:
spiritual empathy
Question 5
Question 11
Question 17
Question 23
Question 29
Total spiritual empathy score:
shamanic empathy
Question 6
Question 12
Question 18
Question 24
Question 30
Total shamanic empathy score:
Total combined score:
Part II: Comparing Styles
As you have seen, you can potentially receive a total of 25 points for each of the six different empathic styles. The higher your points in a category, the higher your aptitude in that form of empathy. And the higher your total combined points, the greater your overall empathic potential or abilities.
You might have only one strong category or perhaps several areas of high empathy. People typically claim one or two forms of empathy as their own. Shamans, however, will most likely have high points in each category as well as in the shamanic area because, as we have seen, shamans usually display every form of empathy.
Following is a brief interpretation of the point totals that will help you determine whether your proficiency is high, medium, or low in regard to each of the six forms of empathy.
high empathy: 20 to 25 points
You are highly empathic in this gift area. You often rely on this empathic style to relate to the outside world and would greatly benefit from learning how to set up appropriate boundaries so your experience does not overwhelm you. You might also want to practice ways of compassionately applying this empathic style to assist others, as you could be of great service when employing it with awareness and care.
medium empathy: 12 to 19 points
You show promise in this area of empathy. It has been useful for you and is a gift that most likely appears when others really need it. It would be worth your while to develop this style and learn how to use it when you feel like it can be beneficial to yourself and others.
low empathy: 0 to 11 points
This style is either not usable or accessible to you. It might be blocked due to simple lack of use or because of unresolved childhood or emotional issues. However, it could become available if you choose to examine any potential blockage and clear it. It is also possible that this empathic style is simply not “meant to be” for you, and it isn’t necessary for you to employ or develop it.
total combined score
There is a potential of 125 total points. Certain individuals are strong in several categories, which is reflected in a higher total combined score, such as between 90 and 125 points. Others find their strengths in two main areas and might achieve a score of only 50 out of 125 points, which simply indicates that you have empathic strengths and weaknesses. The total combined score is mainly of interest if you score extremely high or low. A high score indicates a highly empathic nature—and the subsequent challenges, such as the need to distinguish your own energy from that of others and learn how to care for yourself. You might want to pay particular attention to developing your sense of self and energetic boundaries. A lower score, such as under 25 if the points are dispersed rather than contained in one or two categories, could suggest that you have blocked your empathy and might want to conduct some personal work to figure out why.
Good work! Now you have a clearer picture of how you operate as an empath. In order to further develop your empathic gifts, let’s move on to part II for some practical application.