Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Dr. Judith Orloff. Judith Orloff is a psychiatrist, an author, and on the UCLA psychiatric clinical faculty. She synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting-edge knowledge of intuition, energy, and spirituality. Judith is also an empath and specializes in treating empaths and highly sensitive people in her Los Angeles-based private practice. Judith Orloff is [the] New York Times bestselling author of Emotional Freedom, Positive Energy, The Power of Surrender, and Second Sight. With Sounds True, Judith is the author of a new book called The Empath’s Survival Guide.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Judith and I talked about what makes someone an empath and how the rest of us can learn about empathy from these particularly sensitive people. We also talked about empaths in relationship, empaths at work, and [what it’s] like for men to be empaths. Judith showed us some on-the-spot practices that empaths can use when they’re feeling overwhelmed or needing to discharge other people’s energy that they’ve absorbed. Finally, she led us in heart breathing meditation for all of us to open our hearts to the gifts of empathy. Here’s my conversation with Dr. Judith Orloff.
Judith, your new book is called The Empath’s Survival Guide. Just to begin, I’d love to know what you think about this situation we are in where there’s a part of the population that is trying to develop, if you will, empathic skills. “I want to learn how to take the position of the other so that I can be a better collaborator and communicator. I really am going to try to develop more empathic skills.” Then, we have this other percentage of the population that needs The Empath’s Survival Guide. They’re so empathic that they’re overwhelmed by their level of empathy. How do you see that curious situation we are in?
Judith Orloff: I can totally relate to that. I’m a psychiatrist and also an empath. One of the reasons I wrote this book was to really share what tools that have worked for me and that have saved my life so that I can be an empowered empath with other people. What happens with empaths—who are people who are emotional sponges and [are] high up on the empathic spectrum—meaning, they feel maximum. They feel a lot and absorb a lot. They tend to get burned out and overwhelmed and go on sensory overload.
As a result, they’re going to need tools to deal with their empathy. Otherwise, like a lot of my patients, they’ll come in with panic attacks, anxiety, depression, or just plain exhaustion from taking on so much from the world.
To me, empathy is the medicine the world needs right now. We need it personally in our relationships and we need it collectively. What empathy does is that it allows you put yourself in someone else’s shoes even if you don’t like them, even if you don’t agree with them, and to really sense where they’re coming from. Why would you want to do that? You’d want to do that because that’s your only hope of bridging the gap. It doesn’t always work, but it’s your only hope of it working and is your only hope with success. For that reason, I wrote this book to train people [to] know how to be empathic and be comfortable with it and not get burned out.
TS: It sounds like we both need to learn from people who are empaths so we can develop those skills if we don’t feel we have them and we need to help empaths handle their empathy. We need to support them.
JO: Oh, yes. The empaths need a support desperately and I have an online Facebook community with 7,000 empaths chatting all the time. It’s a place of kindred spirits.
In the book, I also recommend that people form empath support groups based on the book where they read a section of the book and then they share about where they are empathically and learn from others because some more seasoned empaths can teach those who are just newbies how to deal with it. You do learn so much along the path. I can share so much with people who are just beginning because I’ve gone through everything. Believe me. I felt everything and every day is a meditation on time management, saying no, taking care of myself, learning to be with others, learning to be alone. It’s a constant balance of how to do that.
But, a new empath coming in is like somebody who get sober for the first time. They just have to learn that life isn’t always going to be this tiring or you’re not going to be sick all the time; you’re not going to be anxious all the time. You just have to learn certain skills.
That’s why I was so excited about writing this book because so many empaths are misdiagnosed by traditional medicine. They get put on all kinds of meds and given all kinds of medical test that cost lots and lots of money. and rarely does anything really come up that’s treatable.
If you take a history—and this is what I’m trying to teach healthcare professionals and everyone who works with others—you have to take a history if somebody is an empath. You have to ask them, “Are you extremely sensitive to noise, smells, and excessive talking? Do you replenish yourself alone versus with other people? Have you’ve been labeled as ‘overly sensitive?’ Do you prefer taking your own car places so that you can leave when you please? Do you suffer from ‘anxiety’ from too much togetherness if you’re in a relationship?”
These kinds of things are a checklist that I think all healthcare professionals should ask their sensitive patients because then they won’t be overmedicated or put in a psych ward or labeled—especially children. Children suffer from this enormously—sensitive children who are diagnosed and put on Adderall or something like that because they’re anxious from their sensitivity. I really want to veer people away from that course if possible—to learn very simple productive skills that could make empathy a joy and that’s the whole point. You want it to be a joy.
TS: What’s the difference Judith between being an empath and just being a highly sensitive person?
JO: Good question. I get asked that a lot. There’s a spectrum of how empathic people are. On the zero side are the narcissists and sociopaths who have what’s called “empathy deficient disorder.” Meaning, they don’t have empathy. That’s really important for people to get. Then, there’s the middle part of the spectrum, which is most people where you are able to feel for others. Then, you get up higher on the spectrum—highly sensitive people—who have all the sensory elements. They are sensitive to sound, noise, smells, talking, like being alone, but they don’t—like an empath—absorb people’s emotions and physical symptoms into their own bodies. That absorptive tendency goes along with empaths, which are the highest on that spectrum.
Also, empaths have highly developed intuitive abilities. I have a chapter in the book on intuitive empaths who include earth empaths, plant empaths, animal empaths, dream empaths, mediumship empaths. Empaths are very sensitive intuitively and can tune in in a very deep level to many levels of existence. Highly sensitive people aren’t really known for that, but I want to say that you can be a highly sensitive person and an empath. You can vary and go in and out of it.
TS: When you were first beginning to speak here in this conversation, you said, “I’m a psychiatrist and an empath.” How did you first identify that you were an empath?
JO: I really knew about it as a child, but I didn’t have a word for it. This is why it was so dangerous, because I would go into shopping malls or crowded places walking feeling fine [and] walk out exhausted, anxious, depressed or with some ache or pain I didn’t have before. What happened was I was absorbing whatever in that shopping mall and taking it on in my own body and I go to my parents who are both physicians and they’d say, “Oh, dear, you just don’t have a thick enough skin.” Or, “Oh, you need to get tougher.”
That wasn’t the solution. The solution for empaths isn’t to get tougher. It’s to learn how to center and ground yourself so you can expand wildly your sensitives and explore them and enjoy them.
I think, as I was developing intuitively and learning how to open up my intuition, I came upon the whole concept of empathy and it made sense to me that I was an empath—that I was absorbing all this time. I have to find it out on my own because I never had anybody to guide me, which was very difficult because empaths who are guided—let’s say—by grandmothers or mothers who have the abilities, it’s a very different stories than a child who is alone with it. And I was alone with it.
My stories that I wrote about in Second Sight—I turned to drugs and got very heavily involved with drugs in the late ’60s and early ’70s to try and squash my abilities because they were just too much for me. That’s why I have a chapter in the book on empaths and addiction.
There are so many people who are in 12-step programs that, if you talk to them, they are empaths who are overmedicating to numb their sensitivities because they were so overwhelmed. Really interesting. That applies to food addiction, sex addiction, shopping addiction—any addiction. Many empaths turn to these addictions to numb their sensitivities. Once those kind of addicts realize what they’re doing, then it’s like a huge “aha.”
I really learned as I was going through medical school. I was training myself to develop my intuition and I discovered, “Aha! This is what I am. This is the revelation for empaths. Aha! I’m an empath. I never knew what to call it. Nobody ever told me this, but I fit here. This is what I am.”
I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve received with this kind of statement. It is just such a relief because you finally know what to do. You begin to learn the tools and start to feel better.
I got an email just yesterday from a woman thanking me because now she is a happy and healthy empath. She gave me all the examples—her work is something that she is really attuned to. She is able to navigate relationships. She has a garden. She has art projects. She just feels very balanced in her body because she was able to put all these tools into action.
That’s the goal. I just want to there are empaths out there who are listening to this, who maybe aren’t at that point now—you can get there.
TS: Now, I just want to dig in a little bit more and make sure I understand—for someone who is listening who is like, “I’m not sure if I’m a highly sensitive person. I don’t like crowds and I’m sensitive to smells and bright lights. I need certain kinds of food. But am I an empath?” What would be the telltale sign for that person who is trying to self-assess?
JO: For instance, if you are talking to a friend who is very anxious and you were fine before you started talking to the friend and you walk away full of anxiety and panic—that’s an empath. You take it on. You literally take it on.
Or you can be with somebody who has, let’s say, lower-back pain and suddenly your back starts aching whether you’ve had back problems or not. Then, also—if you have on the higher level of intuitive empath—if you have a connection to animals and you can commune with animals and actually know what’s good for them and hear inwardly what they’re saying, you’re an animal empath. You have those intuitive abilities to connect—or you’re an earth empath. You can literally feel what’s happening in the earth in your own body. I’ve had patients who are able to feel a drastic oil spill in their body as it’s happening or before it’s happening. The toxicity and the poisoning of the earth. I have some empaths patients who can’t eat any kind of meat and they have to be vegan because they feel the suffering of the animals in their bodies. HSPs don’t traditionally do that.
TS: It’s interesting that when you were describing this as a range, I can imagine someone having the experience, “You know, I visit the world of being an empath occasionally, but I don’t live there.” What do you think about that?
JO: That’s a very rare phenomenon because usually you’re either an empath or you’re not an empath. You could become less sensitive at times. I know when I went through medical school, I had to just focus on linear scientific realities. I couldn’t even remember my dreams in the morning. I became more focused in my head and less focused on my empathic self. With those kind of extreme situations—that lasted 12 years for me. Those kind of extreme situations, you could become less empathic or you could become more. A lot of times when people become pregnant, their empathy just blossoms because they’re in communion with another life inside of them, and so it just blossoms.
Sometimes your empathy can grow. What I’ve seen with my patients and workshop participants, working with people who are devoted on their spiritual path [is that] ear after year, they get closer to themselves and they get more and more sensitive—and especially those in the yoga who have yoga practice. The more they deepen their practice, the more sensitive they become. Then, all of a sudden, they’re overwhelmed with all this energy that they’re absorbing that they never were able to do before.
So, becoming an empath can be part of certain people’s evolution, which is interesting. The more spiritually open you are, the more empathic you become. It’s just very natural.
TS: So, absorbing another person’s energy or even the energy of the earth or a plant or an animal. How does an empath know, “This is my own personal inner experience. I feel anxious right now,” or, “This is so-and-so’s anxiety after I just had a conversation,”? How do you sort that out in any given moment with what you’re feeling?
JO: The quickest way—let’s say you’re at a party and you’re talking to somebody and suddenly you feel really anxious—is to just excuse yourself, go move about 20 feet away, or go to the bathroom. That’s always the best thing to do because then it really gets you out and it’s a socially acceptable excuse to leave. Then, see if you still feel anxious because a lot of times if it’s the other person, if you get out of their energy field, you won’t feel it anymore. That’s just a quick way.
For me, if I am with somebody and suddenly I start taking on their stuff, the first thing I ask myself is, “Are these my issues? Are they the other person’s issues or are they both?” which is often the case.
I have to see—whenever I’m triggered, I always ask myself what isn’t resolved in myself because the more I can work through my issues little by little every day, the less I have a tendency to absorb them. That’s one of the skills in becoming an empath—really devoting yourself to working on your own stuff. When you begin to heal little by little, more and more, the less you absorb. It’s really fascinating. There’s a self-healing mechanism inherent to healing as an empath.
TS: Let’s say it’s the end of the day and you get into bed and you feel like, “I just don’t quite feel right. I don’t quite feel like myself. I’m not feeling centered in the way that I want,” and you ask, “Is this feeling whatever it might be mine or someone else’s or both?” What if you don’t feel like you’re getting a clear answer? It’s not clear. Does that ever happen?
JO: Where you don’t know where all this energy is coming from?
TS: Yes. Whatever it is you’re feeling, you’re not quite sure if it came from someone else [or] if it’s your own material. You ask, but you don’t feel like the answer. I mean, I’m curious—I could imagine—and certainly it’s true in my own experience as well—but sometimes I can’t sort it out. I don’t know.
JO: What’s useful is to scan the day—to start from beginning until end and just do like you scan a body intuitively up and down. You just put your attention lightly on various parts of the body to get a read on it. The same thing is you can read the day and you can start with the morning. How was it opening your eyes in the morning? How did you feel? How was it [with] the first person you spoke to? How was it at work? How was it working out? How was it when you came home? Just quickly scan it to see if you get any blips on the screen there. If you see anything that sticks out or where you are triggered, you could focus on that. It’s just a really easy way.
Let’s say you don’t know. You can’t find the suspicious person you think you might have absorbed. Go and also do an inventory of who you interacted with each day and how you felt with each person—if you have that awareness.
But let’s say you can’t find out. Let’s say that worst case scenario of “no idea.” It’s more important at that point to center yourself and to reconnect with Tami or reconnect with Judith and really come to center. I meditate before I go to sleep every night—at least I try to—and I meditate first thing in the morning after I remember my dreams because I find that’s a good way to start out. It’s a good way to start out feeling myself and feeling the divine first thing. So, I get out of bed. My altar is in my room—my sacred space—and I go right there, and that helps me center myself.
Sometimes you might not know where the energy is coming from. It could be coming from the earth. It could be coming from your neighbor if the walls—or if you live in a townhouse or something. Sometimes you don’t know where it’s coming from, but you know you feel thrown off. That feeling thrown off for me is always the signal. “All right. Start from point one again. Connect to your heart, connect to yourself. Breathe. Feel the wind. Look up at the moon.” Do whatever you know can ground yourself. That’s how I would deal with it.
I wouldn’t worry too much if you can’t figure out where it’s coming from. If you see repetitive patterns—you are around the same person over and over again and you don’t feel great around them—that’s important to notice.
TS: OK, Judith, in the spirit of transparency, I’m going to share that I am married to an empath. I’ve been with this person for 15 years. One of the things I’m curious to know from your perspective is: for somebody whose partnered with an empath, what do you need to know to really bring out the best in them?
JO: The first thing you need to know is that she is going to need a lot of alone time and I wouldn’t take it personally. If she says, “I need to go in my room and be quiet for an hour, a day, a weekend,” really try to accept that and take that seriously because she replenishes herself alone. That’s important. A lot of non-empaths feel hurt by that because they want to connect and they want to spend the time with them. They want all that and that’s totally understandable, but from an empath’s point of view, when they’re on sensory overload, they need to do things to take care of themselves. That’s the point of understanding.
Sometimes—I know in my relationship, I’m with a guy who is not an empath. Honestly, I really prefer sleeping alone. I prefer sleeping alone and that’s hard for him because I like to have my own dream-time space and not be awoken by little noises or whatever. So, we’ve compromised on that. What do you do when empath is living with a non-empath? We’ve compromised. If he is feeling any back pain or if he is sniffling, he doesn’t stay in bed with me because that’s really disturbing to me. To a non-empath and especially a deeper sleeper, maybe that would be OK. They just drop off into sleep.
It was kind of like “The Princess and the Pea”—and I say that lovingly—where you can feel the pea underneath 25 mattresses—[for] the empath. It’s a different perception.
So, number one, I would give her alone time. Number two, I would really listen to what’s important to her so you don’t judge her or say something like, “I wish you were different.”
TS: That sounds like good advice.
JO: Yes, because she is not different. She is who she is and this is the person you’ve chosen to be with and this is your spiritual teacher. You are being taught by an empath. [Laughs.] I think that’s a beautiful thing actually.
TS: Now, as an empath in relationship, what have you learned over your decades of love relationships about how to navigate that successfully for yourself? You’ve mentioned a couple of things, but I’m wondering what else [you can say] for the empaths out there who maybe are struggling in different ways with intimacy.
JO: I have to say for me and my path—and I write about this in the book—it’s been a real challenge for me, especially being a writer and being an only child and very solitary. I wasn’t born for relationships. I’m much more comfortable alone in a lot of ways. My relationships for years would last maximum two years because I just couldn’t stand it at a certain point. I’d go on such sensory overload. I was so uncomfortable with expressing all my empathic needs—as there are many, many needs. I would just bolt.
So, I wouldn’t really have long-term relationships. I would have lots of time single. I could go a decade single. I’d always dream of having a soulmate, but I could go a long time single because on some level I was more comfortable with that.
It’s quite a journey being in a partnership. I’ve been with my partner now for almost four years, which is a record for me. But the challenges that empaths face—how do you be a sensitive person in a relationship when your needs may be very different than your partner’s?
In the book, I have a number of scenarios. One is, “What if an empath is living with an empath?” which is one scenario. Or, “What if as an empath is living—let’s say—a rock or somebody who is pretty solid?” That’s what’s happening in my scenario. I could never live with another empath. It would drive me insane.
TS: Yes. Tell me about the empath-to-empath relationship—what that’s like.
JO: They don’t have any membranes between themselves and the world, so they’re both feeling everything. If they’re both on sensory overload, both having anxiety, they could just drive each other over the edge. What two empaths need to do during those times is to separate. They need to go on their separate room, separate times, learn to bring themselves down before they reconnect again.
The positive about being in love with an empath if you are one is that they get you. They totally get where you’re coming from. They understand your emotions. They understand your needs. You don’t have to use code with them. They really understand you.
But, the downside is that you both can get so overwhelmed that you triple your anxieties like a synergetic effect, which is not good. I’ve counseled so many empaths who are living with each other and it can be done. It’s tricky. It can be done, but you’ve got to both separate. You’ve got to both meditate. Try to learn how to set boundaries with each other and not be tempted to keep asking questions when somebody is going through an anxiety attack. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to encourage them at all because you’re going to get all fired up.
So, it’s interesting. That’s the challenge of living with an empath. The advantage for me—living with a non-empath—is that he does not get shaken like I do. The smallest thing—if I’m feeling an energy—I can just be affected very, very strongly by something. I’ve been known as an empath to leave dinners because I can’t be around a lot of anger. Empaths often have a hard time with yelling, anger, and hostility.
It’s not just the normal, “I don’t like anger.” It makes me ill. It feels like bullets are being put in my system and being shot at and toxic. I can’t take it. If I’m at a dinner, let’s say, and a couple is—this happened one time, and I wrote about it in the book—where one member of the couple was putting the other one down. And they kept doing that over and over and kept amping up.
I just left the dinner. It wasn’t my business to deal with it, nor to get involved with why they were doing that. I just didn’t want to sit there in that energy. It was too painful for me. If you’re a non-empath, you just sit there and grin and bear it usually. But for me, I left.
You have to get used to taking care of yourself in the ways that you need to. I won’t subject myself to energy that is painful to me unless I have to—if I’m in a situation like with my partner, I’ll do it if we’re working through something. But not just random people sitting at a table. I wouldn’t do that. Or if I’m in an airport and I’m sitting next to somebody and I’m not comfortable with their energy, I’ll just pick up my stuff and leave. I don’t even think about it anymore.
I want to tell you this to give everyone permission to do it. I’m not just telling you my story. It’s hard for people because they’re so afraid of hurting other people’s feelings by leaving, by saying no.
Actually, I don’t leave that many times during dinner. But the one time I did leave, the woman asked, “Is it me?” Actually, it was her because she was that particular example with somebody who had had too much to drink and I was really uncomfortable with it, so I just left. So, she asked her friend [if] it was her. And yes, it was her. I was uncomfortable with her drinking.
You have to get used to that kind of thing. But, it spares you so much angst because what happens to empaths is that they’re overly polite. They tend to be people-pleasers. They tend to be very nice people—very loving, very intuitive—and they stay in the wrong places too long. They don’t have the wherewithal to set boundaries and say, “This doesn’t feel right. I’m out of here.”
What I’m encouraging people to do in a very loving way is to begin to take action to take care of yourself so then you can enjoy your gifts. You want to be an empath and go out in nature and feel the ecstasy of nature. You want to communicate with the plants. You want to be able to feel the universe and all your abilities to feel the depth of things. You want to play with that. You want to expand that. You don’t want to be bogged down by the mundane challenges of being an empath. By mundane, I don’t mean unimportant, but more of the earthly plane—the regular ordinary reality plane. You want to go to different places. You want to really expand your gifts and love, love, love and really expand the heart and play with areas of consciousness that maybe other people don’t have that facility [for]. There’s so many advantages.
TS: Tell me what do you mean by that. How does an empath like you play in areas of accessing expanded consciousness that other people might not be familiar with?
JO: I go out into nature and it’s just—I have no defenses or no boundaries that I feel. I’m able to feel the plants and I’m able to feel the sky and I’m able to connect to the creatures of the earth. It’s really like the Garden of Eden in so many ways on this Earth planet that we are on.
If you can feel it, you don’t want to go out in nature and be talking and be in your head like so many people do. They’ll have conversations in nature about whatever. I go to nature as an empath and just open up. I get filled that way. That’s how I fill my body and my soul and [am] able to feel spirit. So, to be able to expand. Where does that go? What do you feel? Do you get messages in those states? Sometimes, when I’m sitting [and] meditating next to a tree, I’ll be able to get clarity about issues in my life. One thing leads to another. Intuition leads to knowing, leads to revelations, leads to, “Oh, now, I know how to deal with this.”
Your expanded state in nature can stand you in good stead for the other aspects of your life just simply because you are flowing. I don’t talk a lot in nature. I try and be quiet because then I could feel more in my body. For me, nature is a playground, and I know for many empaths it is.
And the moon! Just last night, I saw the beautiful full moon and I just opened my body to it. I looked at it. I felt it. I breathe it in. It’s a beautiful thing when you have this kind of openness to really feel in your body the universe.
This is how I play. Many empaths have their own form of play. You can just experiment with so many things. When you’re with other sensitive people who can connect, then having the joint experience is just blissful when you’re with somebody who gets all this.
TS: You are listening to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. We welcome you to learn more about our collection of more than a thousand learning programs and receive three free gifts just for visiting us. Go to soundstrue.com/free. That’s soundstrue.com/free. And now, back to Insights at the Edge.
Now, Judith, I’m imagining someone listening and the light is going off inside and they’re going, “Oh, my God. I think I might be an empath. I’m feeling it as Judith is talking, although I also having a certain amount of trepidation about, ‘Am I going to be overwhelmed? Am I going to be able to ground and center myself in the midst of this very chaotic world?'” and however busy that person’s life might be. I know in the book you teach different practical skills, and I’m wondering if you could share with us a grounding skill of some kind for that person who is listening to our conversation right now, that light bulb is going off, but they’re afraid of feeling everything they feel, which might include being overwhelmed by how much they feel.
JO: Yes and yes. They will get overwhelmed and they will learn to feel with it. Being overwhelmed is part of the process. I wouldn’t put too much charge on it. Once you know what to expect, then you’ll know how to deal with it.
I think people get panicked about being overwhelmed. I would just expect that’s part of the journey and you’re going to learn skills to bring that down and balance it. A quick skill that I use if I’m with somebody or if there’s some toxic energy and I feel like it’s getting in my body—I visualize myself as a window, and fresh air and wind blowing through my open window and out the other side. The release comes with the air and the wind is going through the window. I don’t have to do anything. It just blows itself away. That’s a very appealing visualization for me, where I can feel that it just goes. Let it go in and out. I love the wind and I love the air element. It’s very appealing to me.
Another quick way to dispel negative energy is to breathe. Breathe it out. Don’t hold your breath because when you do that, that holds the energy in your body. You don’t want to do that. You want to keep breathing.
Then another technique that’s quick is earthing, where if you just get to some earth somewhere and get barefoot and put your feet there, that really helps because then you can feel the force bringing you down to the earth and that’s what you want to do. When you’re overwhelmed, you want to ground yourself, and earthing is a very, very powerful way of doing that. Then, also, when I’m overwhelmed and I’m in the moment of being overwhelmed, I can either excuse myself if it’s too much and just go and center myself—which is fine—or I can look at the situation and I can sense how I could connect to this person’s heart. Sometimes it’s a challenge for me. I just do it as a challenge to see if it will work. Anything I can do will work with this person. It usually does. Not always.
Empathy doesn’t always work if people are very shut off. They’ll do what they’re going to do and no amount of empathy is going to change that.
A lot of times, I’ll be in situations where I feel overwhelmed by what’s happening and I don’t like the nature of the conversation, and I’ll shift it by affirming something in that person. I’ll tune in to them and I’ll say, “What are some of their good points?” I’ll say something like, “Wow! You’ve really thought that out.” Let’s say they’re giving me some argument I don’t agree with. Instead of arguing with them, I say, “Wow! You’ve got a great intellectual mind. You’ve really thought that out. I’m really impressed.” Human beings are funny like that. When you say something nice to them, they usually melt. It’s a simple truth.
TS: Judith, you said something interesting when I said, “Someone—the light could be going on. I’m an empath and, oh my God, I’m so afraid of being so overwhelmed by everything.” You’re like, “I don’t put too much on it, being overwhelmed. That’s going to happen when you develop skills.” I thought that was interesting because here is this big fear, “I’m going to be overwhelmed” and you’re saying, “I’m not even going to put too much on that.”
JO: No. You can’t. It’s just part of the process. If you’re interested in developing your empathy and you want to go down that path and if you’re getting these aha’s from this conversation, and if you’re wanting to really learn how to deal with overwhelm, you have to feel it first before you deal with it—to just embrace overwhelm as an energy. To embrace that as your teacher, really, instead of an adversary. You don’t want to look at it as an adversary that’s going to kill you because you’re not going to let it. You see, that’s the thing about The Empath’s Survival Guide. It’s a survival guide. It’s, “How do you survive these energies that can really bring other people down?” Like, overwhelm has brought so many people down because it just goes on for so long. But, I’m not going to let that happen.
If you read this book, you’re not going to be overwhelmed all the time. I can guarantee you because I’ve written about these strategies because I desperately needed them in my own life. For me to go around overwhelmed all the time, I couldn’t do my work, I couldn’t do anything. It would just be too debilitating.
These are strategies and there are enormous number of them that really work. What do you do if you’re an empath in relationship? What do you do if you’re an empath at work? Should you be a sales person, for instance? Should you have a business at home where you can have more downtime? Of course, have a business at home. Empaths are notoriously bad in sales or working in the public. You have to know these things. Many empaths that I’ve spoken to haven’t really thought about this. They just know, “I’m miserable in my job. What should I do?” A lot of times, they’re just in the wrong line of work for an empath.
TS: Why would an empath be so bad at sales? You might think someone understands how the other person’s feeling, they would know how to sell them something. [It] would be a good skill to have.
JO: Oh, well. Yes, maybe. But, what happens in sales if you have to deal with all that inauthentic energy and having to deal with the general public—which is a terrible challenge, dealing with the public. I’ve had one patient who worked in Costco—one of the big places that she had to go to. She was selling things that Costco—or helping customer support—and she had to deal with the loud megaphones and the cash registers and the people and disgruntled public. It’s very, very draining. It would cause her to have anxiety attacks that were not helpful. She shouldn’t be working in a store like that that’s so big. Empaths don’t do well in those kinds of stores.
If you’re in sales in a very unique environment—let’s say you have a catered clientele and you know the comfort level of it—it might be a little different. But just general sales? That can be brutal. Being in advertising meetings and company politics. It’s just brutal for empaths.
TS: Now, let’s talk about men who discover that they’re empaths and specific challenges that men might face being that empathic.
JO: Yes. Bless all the male empaths. I really, really love all of you. It’s just so beautiful to find a man who can embrace his abilities.
The problem is that boys have been labeled as, “If you feel, you’re a sissy. You’re a cry baby. You’re too soft. You’re feminine. If you don’t like being on sports team or competitive sports, what’s wrong with you?”
A lot of sensitive boys don’t like that at all. They like going out in nature. They love poetry. They love creating things. They don’t like going on football teams. That isn’t what an empath likes to do. Empathic boys and empathic children in general can sense things, and they’re very aware of when to be cautious, which is great because it stops them from getting in situations that could be harmful. It’s very different.
Empathic boys and children don’t like going into these loud movies where the trailers are so loud that sound reverberates through your body. The bass is just causing pain in the body to an empath. And boys who say, “Oh, I want to leave,” they’ll get shame for their sensitivities. Now, we girls is a little different, a little better, maybe more than a little better. Boys just get shamed for being sensitive. They grew up believing there was something wrong with them unless they’ve had extraordinary parental modeling where they say, “Hey, you, this is a gift. You developed this.” Teachers often shame boys. School systems shame boys for being sensitive—boys who don’t like going in the locker room and all that locker room talk.
Sensitive boys have a real challenge growing up. If they can grow up and not have their sensitivities totally demolished by our society and they begin to mature and get people around them who could support their sensitivities, sensitive men can be strong men. And I think the misconception is that sensitive men are overly feminized, where they just take on the feminine energy. That’s not what I’m talking about as the goal. That can happen, but it doesn’t have to happen. What I’m trying to teach in the book is how to be extremely strong and have a strong masculine side and also have the sensitivities, which is traditionally more related to the feminine side. To find a sensitive strong man—I mean, wow. To me, that’s the most attractive man.
TS: Do you have any sense, Judith, what part of the population as a whole are genuinely empaths, and then what part of that group are men or women?
JO: In my empath support group on Facebook, I would say 90 percent women, maybe 10 percent men. And the men have often come out and said, “I’m in the group, but I’m reluctant to share.” They more listen and sometimes they’ll share.
My feeling is—I mean, the statistics are 20 percent of the population are highly sensitive—as a result of Elaine Aron’s research—and probably half that are typically empaths. But, I don’t believe that that research is true for empaths. I think those are only the identified people. I think when people are educated and learn, “What is an empath?” and, “Am I an empath?” there are just millions of them out there. I mean, there are so many people that are contacting me and letting me know that they’re are an empath all over the place. One woman in my group was even complaining being an empath has become a trend and she doesn’t want to become part of a trend. That’s all to say that I think there are a lot more empaths out there than the research has unveiled so far.
TS: Now, a couple times you’ve mentioned children who are particularly empathic—children as empaths. It occurred to me in a way aren’t all children super permeable and absorptive, or are there really some kids that you could say, “Oh, that child is much, much, much more likely to be an empath,”? Aren’t all kids permeable and empathic?
JO: Not really. Each one is born with a specific energy that they come into this life [with]. A lot of them have innocence and that innocence makes them more sensitive and more open. As they grow up, that gets drilled out of them. I think many, many children have that sensitivity, but certainly not all.
I’ve been in the area of birth when children are birthed, and they come out and some of them just don’t have much sensitivity at all from the get go. I think it’s a romanticization to think every child is sensitive and open. They don’t think that’s true. But a lot of them are and a lot of them are highly sensitive and highly empathic.
I write about the whole indigo children phenomenon and what that is in terms of spiritual evolution of the spirits that are coming into the world now. You have more empathy and more awareness of global issues. Many children today, at a very young age—who are the empaths—have more awareness of global issues and have strong desire to take care of the earth. It hurts them when they find out that the earth is being damaged. It hurts them in their bodies and they’re able to articulate that. I think there are levels of empathic children being birthed into the world now that needs to be nurtured as very special, gifted children. Instead of thinking of “gifted children” as just intellectually gifted, it’s essential we think of them as empathically gifted too.
TS: Now, in the beginning of this conversation, Judith, I talked about how there are some people who are trying to develop, if you will, or open up more to standing in someone else’s shoes. I really want to learn how to take other people’s perspectives. I want to understand what they’re feeling. That doesn’t come naturally to me.
Then, we have this other part of the population who are self-identifying as empaths. They’re so sensitive. Let’s say someone’s on the side of wanting to develop more empathic skills. How could an empath teach them? How can they learn from empaths?
JO: Empaths can share their perceptions with them—what it’s like for them to—and I would start with the positives if somebody else is just starting to learn with empathy. What are the positive of tuning in? Just the skill of asking somebody else what they’re feeling or how they’re doing, as supposed to just stating your own views in a conversation. If you’re starting out with empathy and you want to develop it, your verbal skills are very important. You have to ask others how they’re feeling or how they’re seeing something because a lot of times nobody ever asks anybody these questions and people love to be asked. They love to be affirmed and understood and listened to. If you’re curious about other people, you could find out what they’re feeling and seeing. The trick is not to judge them when you actually find out what’s in their mind. You might not always like it, but you will find out what it is, which I think is good because then you know, “Oh, this person believes this. OK.”
It’s important for the sake of clarity to know what’s going on in people. Just in the beginning, ask people how they’re feeling. See if you can feel their suffering. Everybody is suffering. I just want to make sure everybody knows that. Everybody has suffering in them. That’s the nature of being human.
However, Empath 101 is learning how it’s not your job to take their suffering on. You see, that’s the problem with empathy and that’s what’s scares people off with empathy. The minute they can feel that suffering in others, they don’t want to do that anymore because it hurts too much.
Codependency comes into play here, where it’s not your role to take on other people’s suffering. It’s your role if you want it to be—if you want to be empathic, to witness someone else’s suffering and maybe guide them, or just even hold the space for their suffering without you taking it on. That’s where empaths get into trouble because they’re absorbers. Or if somebody starts talking about the loss of their loved one who got killed in a car accident and this is the love of their life—I could go on and on, and the empaths on this call would start feeling exhausted with the trauma that I would be describing.
You want to be able to listen to somebody as the other. This isn’t you. [It’s] someone else on their own spiritual path going through their own journey, experiencing suffering. What you get from that is that your heart opens as you connect to their hearts and it’s a very healing experience—as opposed not being empathic and just shutting it off, going, “Oh, my God. They’re starting to tell me their stuff. I can’t even stand it. It’s too painful,” and then shutting off.
There are choices to be made in how you want to relate to people. The reason I feel so strongly about empathy being the way is because I’m such a big lover of the heart energy. The heart energy is behind everything—the energy of unconditional love; the heart energy you can develop for yourself and the empathy.
Empathy starts with yourself. You have to have empathy for yourself and compassion for yourself and all of your shortcomings. You’ve got a million of them. I’ve got a million of them. Just little by little say, “Honey, it’s OK. You’re working on it. It’s fine.” Then, to be able to have that same empathy for others. If you’re at all interested in healing, this is how you do it. You don’t have to say a word. Somebody could begin to share what their perception is, and let’s say you radically disagreed with it. You hold the space for them. That’s all.
What people respond to more than what they believe or don’t believe is how you respond to them. That takes precedence over even the most vehement belief because most people are not treated with kindness, believe it or not. This is what they respond to. If you know that—you have to be really smart with people. Whatever they’re doing about defending their point of view, if you can at least allow them to have it even though there’s a part of you that’s seething and so disagrees—there’s another part of you that might not love them, might not agree with them—but you can hold that space just to be there for them. Why would you want to do that? Because you are evolving the whole nature of the interaction.
TS: Judith, I want to pick up on one thing—this idea of having this open-hearted space towards ourselves. I’m curious: if someone is listening who’s an empath and has suffered in their life as a result of their empathy, and has perhaps turned against themselves in some way—how could you help that person—that empath—open their heart energy [and] their love really to [accept] themselves?
JO: First, I would work with them and start with saying, “It’s OK. Whatever you’ve done, however you’ve turned against yourself.” They’d say, “I’ve smoked cigarettes and I caused—” this is like a dramatic example, “—I’ve caused myself to have lung cancer. How can I ever know I have empathy for myself when I did it to me?” I guess the logical mind would say, “Yes, I guess you’re right.”
But, the empathic heart doesn’t even think that way for a second. The empathic heart says, “Sweetheart, you are opening right now. Yes, you’ve some things that have been dangerous to yourself, but you’re making a turnaround at this point and you could start at this point to begin to heal yourself no matter what you’ve done, really.”
Know the film Dead Man Walking—I don’t know if you saw that—with Susan Sarandon. In the end, he is getting the IV—the lethal IV—and she is looking into his eyes, forgiving him as he is going, and he gets it right at last minute in terms of the self-forgiveness.
These are big examples. As an empath, that causes rushes of joy through my body—to see somebody who is able to turn it around even at the last minute. It’s never too late to open up your empathy and to develop self-compassion. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. I feel very strongly about that. You can start now.
I work with people of every age—young people, middle age, old people, whatever—super-old people—who want to turn it around. For me, it is just so exciting. Wherever you are, whatever time it is, it’s your time suddenly. It’s your time.
To me, this is what living life to the fullest is. To me, these are the priorities—the empathic priorities that mean so much to me. When people get there on their own and they’re ready for it, even if they’re on their deathbed.
I just did a session with somebody who has a potentially very terminal illness and was going in for surgery for it, and she came in the day before the surgery. She had not awakened any of this in herself until recently. Honestly, I don’t even know if she made it at this point. I think she did, but I don’t know. Let’s say she didn’t. Let’s say she came to me the day before she was about to make her passage. She made that change. She awakened just in time before she went. To me, that’s exciting.
I look at this empathic awakening—whether you are a full-pledged empath or simply a beautiful person who wants to keep their heart open in the world without burning out. This, to me, is the path of light.
It’s so easy to close your heart and see the differences between people and go to war and all that. It’s so easy and it’s so justified on a certain level. To me, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that. Empathy takes you to another level. It might not change all minds. I just want to say that. I don’t see it as a shotgun solution for everything, but I do see it as being the only hope of changing minds. For that reason, being an empath, being empathic, being sensitive, learning to interrelate with others in another way that isn’t just, “I push your button and I’m triggered,” it’s really worthwhile.
TS: Judith, as an ending note, I know you teach a heart-breathing meditation. You might have different variations on it, but I wonder if you could just leave us here in a brief breathing with our heart because I think so much has been potentially stirred up for people. I think that would be a wonderful way to end if that’s OK with you.
JO: OK. I want to thank everybody who has been listening. I feel the beautiful quality of your attention.
This is the three-minute heart meditation that I discussed in The Empath’s Survival Guide and it’s one of the tools I used to ground myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed or off-centered or toxic. It’s just three minutes. It’s not the type of meditation you do for a much a longer time. Just three minutes.
If everybody can close their eyes, take a few deep breaths. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in clarity. Breathe out stress. Breathe out worry. Breathe out tension. Breathe in clarity and love and breathe out anything you’d like to release. Begin to tune in to the rhythm of the breath. Feel yourself getting settled in your chair or wherever you are sitting—just relaxing your body. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to be. The search is over. You’ve arrived in just the right place.
Then, begin to focus on your heart chakra, which is just in the middle of the chest about three inches above the sternum. You might want to put one hand lightly over that area and just focus on the unconditional love in yourself. The merciful, warm, forgiving nature of the heart. You might feel warmth. You might feel rushes. You might feel even coolness. The Taoists called the heart center “the little sun.” You might feel radiations and pulsations of warmth or a honey-like feeling, or just pure relief when you focus on the heart.
In your mind, you might want to focus on some image that makes you happy or makes you feel loved. It could be a sunset, a little pony, flowers, the moon. And just hold that awareness as you stay focused on your heart energy. Heart energy is your healing—the healing energy of the body, the unconditional love for yourself and everything you’ve been through and how strong you’ve been and how good you’ve been and how hard you’ve tried.
These are all beautiful things you focus on the heart. Just take a big breath and allow that unconditional love to flow from your heart into any parts of your body that it feels like it wants to go to. Allow yourself to be self-soothed by the heart, the healing heart energy, beginning and end of all things, the most beautiful sensation. It gives you the release you’ve been looking for and the centering.
All right. Take a final deep breath and really memorize this feeling of calmness, of love, so you can return here whenever you like. Gently and slowly open up your eyes and come back to the room—100 percent of your body—still feeling the energy of the heart. As you opened your heart—more centered, clearer, more in your body, and ready to face the next moment they come.
TS: Judith, thank you so much. Thank you so much for that beautiful heart meditation.
JO: You are very welcome.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Judith Orloff. She is the author of a beautiful new book called The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People. She has also created with Sounds True the audio program Essential Tools for Empaths: A Survival Guide for Sensitive People.
Thanks, everyone, for being with us and thanks for sharing your empathic skills and developing empathic skills. Judith, as you mentioned, it’s what we need—this flood and increase of empathy in the world. Thank you so much for bringing your empathic gifts to Insights at the Edge. Thank you.
JO: You are welcome.
TS: SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey.
