I’ve been questioning myself recently as to wether I want to identify an an Empath? I learned over a year ago some tools to protect my empathy as an Empath but the major tool that was missing to truly empower me was boundaries. I have put some major boundaries in place to safeguard my empathy the past 8 months and I’ve empowered myself in that sense, but still something didn’t feel right. I realised as I stepped into my own power (through using energetic boundaries) that I began to feel feelings I hadn’t felt before about my own empathy, I do NOT like feeling people’s emotions as my own. I truly do not like how I feel when I take on someone else’s emotions. I have questioned wether my empathic trait is from my mother (she is certainly HSP and has a huge heart, and she’s possibly an empath I can’t be 100% sure), or did I develop empathy as an expression of abandonment toward myself because my emotional needs were not met as a child and therefore I learned to put the needs of others before myself? Is that even true empathy? I’m not sure but I wanted to at least discuss what’s on my heart regarding being this empathic and how it’s affected me. I certainly don’t resonate with the label Empath anymore and that’s just a sudden revelation I’ve had. I’ve even questioned wether rejecting my empathy is another form of self-abandonment, but what I’m truly addressing here is that I don’t feel good when people’s feelings are taken on as my own, and even having boundaries has made me question things. Having boundaries an an Empath is no longer enough. I do not want to feel people emotions in my body. There are other ways of empathising obviously because everyone can empathise (unless you have a personality disorder and are a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath) but not everyone feels those feelings in their own body. It’s overwhelming and has started to feel very gross to me. I started to realise I have a choice, I don’t have to be an Empath. Sure people can be a disempowered Empath or an empowered Empath, but you actually have a third option, you can choose to stay an Empath or you can retire, and I’m feeling on the edge of retiring and so I wanted to discuss this in today’s podcast.