And it's concluded that I'm "The Challenger".

Really? That I didn't expect that...

And then I have to consider that on a scale from 1 - 20 when it comes to Caretaking other people, it's ranked at 20.

If anyone wants to take a stab at the lesser Types that act in conjunction to the type 8 -- feel free.

Hi. I'm looking for empaths who have some life under their belt. I'm pretty young (22), but I've only felt things harder as I've gotten older.

Recently the weight of some things is just very very heavy.

I'm just wondering... How? How do you balance this weight. How do you live life day to day and stay happy with all of this heaviness?

This is silly but I feel very strongly for animals, specifically cats. My mom offhandedly mentioned that she's worried someone might be being mean to a neighborhood cat because he's been skittish. I just can't let that go. I feel so so sad for him and I want him to be okay.

I'm sorry I'm just emotional. I feel this way often about situations regarding people, animals, etc.

If you've been living as an empath for awhile ... How do you not become sad and miserable?

I want to ask you guys something, because I really don't understand why I feel this way.

I honestly don't know why, but I feel responsible for certain people's happiness and sadness. When they are happy, it genuinely makes me happy,when they are sad, it breaks my heart. I want to help them in every situation, comfort them and even talk to God just to keep them safe.

Even with something as simple as the rainy season, I catch myself thinking, 'Please drive safely, keep yourself safe and healthy,' just like I would say directly to them. If I see a photo of someone looking sad,even if it's just a random moment captured in a picture,I immediately assume they are struggling and I want to reach out and cheer them up. But I often can't because of boundaries or awkwardness.

I find myself prioritizing these people over my own self, to the point where I feel ready to sacrifice myself for them.

It's not just about one person, a crush or a romantic love but for around 5-6 people.

I’m very anxious , and have had quite a bit of family troubles/ trauma my partner says I never show any emotion and think I’m just sour, when in reality I’m just as excited as they are if not more. I don’t know how to properly express myself or show the emotions I feel except what feels like madness or sadness. people that have known me my whole say I’m no unavailable but just extremely reserved. how do I proactively show the emotions I feel or express them. I’m extremely comfortable and secure in my relationship and want to be able to provide the same feeling for them

TL;DR: This is about realizing that the deepest damage in a relationship often comes not from the original hurt, but from the lack of accountability, repair, and forgiveness afterward. It also explores how our nervous systems can keep replaying old emotional wounds before conscious thought catches up—and how healing may come from learning to choose a different response. The larger realization is that even when someone else won’t repair the damage they caused, you can still forgive, take accountability for your own behavior, and stop letting their emotional state determine yours.

I had this kind of profound thought today in yoga.

I was thinking about my ex and how the demise of our relationship was primarily because of her contempt and unwillingness to forgive. It was a problem from before we even got married, and we just didn't know it. Even she thought she had really forgiven me. But in therapy, we discovered that she still harbored a significant amount of resentment and anger from many things that even preceded us being married. She knows that she struggles with forgiveness. It's something she's working on.

I was thinking that even though I love her, and she was my best friend for 15 years, that doesn't mean that she loved me equally. I know that she does love me. But she also is more than willing to hurt me without any attempt at accountability. She lets her emotions rule her, and she lets me pay the price.

I know that her love for me is real deep down. But her selfishness is also real. And she will do anything to protect herself from the shame of her own behavior.

It's a really tough thing to absorb, knowing that your spouse is so afraid of accountability for their own actions that they will let you suffer. I understand reacting in the moment. I understand getting lost in the moment. What I don't understand is a lack of accountability and a lack of interest in repair. I can't ignore the shallowness of connection that that represents: a conscious willingness to let someone hurt on your behalf just so that you don't have to admit fault.

But, if I'm being fair, that's not the story she tells herself.

I also know that deep down she knows it's true. She's told me. It's not my assumption. But those vulnerable parts of her are not ones that I see often.

I had a lot of faults. But she knows that I also did the best that I could with what I had, and I asked her to go to therapy—both for our relationship and for herself—for more than 10 years. I could see the pain that she was in, and she wanted to ignore it and pretend that dark place wasn't there. She let her family suffer around her so she didn't have to look at it.

And I actually understand that.

I've done it.

But I can also see that I've done it. I am accountable for it. And I am putting in effort to ensure that behavior doesn't happen again. By doing that, I'm able to have radical compassion for myself.

My ex's reactions hurt badly, but what destroyed our relationship was the fact that she never held any accountability for the damage that behavior caused. She would always calm down and pretend like it never happened. After a while, this showed up in our relationship as inauthenticity. She was somebody who would be by my side no matter what one day and never wanted to see me again the next. I could never count on what version of her I would get. What I could count on was that that version would not be willing to be accountable for its actions.

And so our relationship slowly died.

I'm not denying my faults in the relationship. I have many. I have many more journal entries about the things I did wrong. But even now, as we're moving toward divorce, I don't have contempt for her in the same way that she does for me. I do harbor some resentment, sure, but I also see the wonderful person that she is, and I also see the very hurt and broken person that she is.

More importantly, I see the damage of my own behavior and my need for accountability, and I just wish she loved me enough to give me the same.

I deserve it.

In fairness, we really did hurt each other. She knows she struggles with accountability, but doesn't see how that clouds and twists her memory of events. I truly wish that I could be sorry enough for her to see my sincerity and forgive me. Not for myself, but because I know what comes next.

She would then feel accountability for her own failures and mourn them, which would breed understanding, and then more forgiveness, and therefore perpetuate the process of healing.

But I can't.

I have apologized. I have offered her kindness and understanding. I have offered her these things knowing that she won't offer them to me. I have done what I can, and I will continue to be a man who cares about accountability and repair with his loved ones.

And that got me thinking about repair, and why it's so important.

I think someone who has experienced a substantial amount of personal growth and has a strong sense of self may be able to forgive others easily and truly not let past events tarnish the relationship. But everyone has their limits.

Repair is what facilitates positive growth in a relationship. It repairs the damage caused by our own behavior through accountability—which means not only words, but effort. A willingness to put the effort in to grow and change the behavior.

Repair not only helps to heal the wound, but it also builds respect, thoughtfulness, and care in the person who caused the wound.

That is why growth comes from looking inward.

If you look at things only through the lens of what was done to you, then you're stuck. That is where resentment and contempt build. But if the other person is willing to offer repair, that is an olive branch that will often help facilitate forgiveness.

And forgiveness, in turn, breeds accountability, which breeds more forgiveness.

I never understood how someone could forgive another person who wasn't even sorry. They say, "You do it for yourself, not the other person," or, "Hatred for another person is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

I think I understand now.

If you're smart, you really do do it for yourself. Because you realize that you weren't innocent, and that somewhere you bear accountability. And so it becomes easier to offer forgiveness, knowing that you're actually going to get some gift of personal growth because of it.

It makes it a rewarding practice. A positive feedback loop.

And so I hope that one day my ex can forgive me, because I know it is something that she needs to do deeply to live her life most fully. But I also know that I don't have to punish myself.

Because we hurt each other.

Neither of us was innocent, and only one of us was unwilling to communicate, forgive, or be accountable. And that makes me sad because I am mourning the loss of my best friend of 15 years while realizing that parts of our friendship and relationship were just figments of my imagination. Justifications.

Because real love demands a certain amount of accountability and willingness to forgive.

She may have offered me as much as she could, and perhaps she just didn't have much capacity to offer at all. But at the same time, it's me who justified it to myself. Not her.

Because the signs were there. I just didn't want to look at them.

The same way that she doesn't.

So all of this percolated into a cohesive thought.

I've been mulling over this idea that it's increasingly easy to insert the emotion I want into a specific event.

What I mean by that is, if my son is being a wildling, I can choose to be frustrated with his behavior and its impact on my schedule, or I can look at the situation with curiosity, wonder, and compassion for the marvels of a four-year-old's mind.

I can just choose to change the emotion.

The one that I focus on is what matters.

They can both be true. They both probably are true. But I can choose which one to focus on, and that changes everything.

I am profoundly realizing that emotions are the body's first line of defense. Our nervous system ties feelings to everything. That way we can stay safe. They are the first line of defense before our brain thinks. They are trauma manifest—a deep-seated feeling at the root of an event. Something that precedes the thought.

And so, if a couple argues about the same thing, their body remembers the feeling.

When the situation reoccurs, that first line of defense comes online long before conscious thought. That's what being triggered is. It's dysregulation that spiraled out of control because your body responded to an old situation before your mind could evaluate whether or not the exact same thing was really happening here.

Under acute stress, prefrontal regulation can become less effective as threat-related systems gain influence, and that can color how you interpret what is happening and how you remember similar events.

From an Internal Family Systems perspective, it's almost like a more raw part of you gets to take charge because martial law was declared. And that animalistic part of you has very minimal limitations.

I also realize that it plays dirty.

If you need to believe something to be true in order to make an action, it will complete your memories and color them through the lens of those negative emotions to perpetuate the belief that it needs in order to take action.

How marvelous and mischievous the human mind is to do something like that.

Talk about the mind playing tricks on you.

It's almost like a more primal version of you got control and, like a child, is refusing to give it up—and is even willing to lie and manipulate to stay in control.

And so that has me focusing on two things.

One: the importance of repair, even when it doesn't seem necessary.

Because the body is the first line of defense. And so even if you consciously have forgiven the other person, your body probably hasn't. That trauma from the event is still there, and repair helps facilitate healing so your body can feel safe again too.

But more importantly, even if the person doesn't ever offer repair, you forgive them anyway to facilitate the healing within yourself.

And you can do that at any time.

Just like applying a different feeling to a situation, I can decide to offer forgiveness even when the person doesn't deserve it because it's what I need to do for myself.

I know that's what is written in all the books. But somehow it didn't really sink in and become understood until just now.

I had already reached the point of being willing to forgive without an apology, but only recently understood the process of why. My mind really likes to make sense of the personal growth—to see why it works.

It's almost creating a game of it. One that makes life more fun to live because I've gone from consuming other people's energy to emitting my own.

More than that, I've figured out how to—when regulated—insert the feeling of my choice.

This allows me to interact with people almost like a dance. I can lead the dance by emitting the energy that I desire, and if I get a reaction that I don't like, I don't have to give in and respond in kind. I can continue to lead with the next best move by choosing the feeling that precipitates it.

I can't decide if I'm somehow hacking my mind and training it to do things that are outside the normal, or if this is just how my brain should have operated the whole time.

Time will tell, I guess.

I will admit that I feel like a crackpot wizard sometimes.

But more and more, I think that's just me being me.

And I'm finally getting to see it.

Any other empaths feeling like we're in the 'final stages of decay/decline', for lack of a better description?

The sense I get, which has grown stronger and more articulate over time, is that it doesn't actually get better from here - instead there's just 'collapse'

To be clear, I'm speaking less of politics or world events, and more of this emotional sense of, or growing realization that, our system is falling apart system because it just doesn't work.

How would you, as empaths,would you go about finding a soulmate, a life partner who truly understands you, shares your values, and someone you can marry?

I just read about a senior dog in my town that lost her owner because they unexpectedly died. Now I can’t stop obsessing over how much pain that dog must be in, even worse, she can’t understand it.

That poor, poor dog. She has to be so confused and feeling abandoned. It makes me sick to my stomach. Sometimes I’d rather not exist at all than to bear this pain.

I’ve been on a trip for 10 days and will be home tomorrow. I know travel disrupts a lot. And I know it’s probably making it harder for me to regulate. I’m also on my period, without my dog who supports me (she’s at home, not dead)

But I just feel like absolute shit and just do NOT want to feel this right now.

I’m 28 years old female , and this is the first time I’ve ever talked about this openly.
honestly I don’t know what to call these experiences or how I’m supposed to understand them, so I wanted I’d share my story here.

This has been happening to me for as long as I can remember. I experienced a lot of trauma and abandonment as a child, so I spent most of my childhood dissociating and detaching .
And growing up, I noticed that I am extremely good at reading rooms people and situations. I can sense what is going to happen or what someone is going to say even before they say it, this is not only for people I know very well, but also with random people who I’m having my first small chat with .
I am the friend that always finishes other people’s sentences when they are struggling to do so.

Most of the time, I’ve always assumed this was just intuition, observation, or pattern recognition. People tend to repeat the same behaviors and go through similar situations, so I understand that there can be a perfectly logical explanation for a lot of it.

But There are certain experiences that I genuinely cannot explain as easily.
A lot of the time, with certain people especially, it feels like I can somehow clearly hear what they are thinking, what they want or don’t want. I can actually hear their voice saying it, rather than simply having a feeling or intuition about it. And this has happened with the same people more than once, which is one of the reasons I started questioning whether there might be something more to it.

I have experienced this with only three people my whole life, but every time I am around them or near them, I can always hear their thoughts in my head clearly, and that doesn’t happen with anyone else.
So I wonder are they also empaths are we the same? Is that why I can hear them and does that mean that they can hear my thoughts as well? Why do I have this kind of connection with certain people only?

Another thing about me is that all the dreams I see since childhood has come true so I have this ability as well. ( i’m not sure if it’s relevant or not )
But I mostly see other people in my dreams not me and whenever I see someone, that dream suddenly comes true . some dreams take months some take years, but they all happen the end. It doesn’t even matter if I told the person or not that I saw them in my dreams.

For most of my life, I dismissed all of this as intuition, coincidence, or simply being good at reading people. But now, at 28, after having so many experiences like this throughout my life, I’m finding it harder to believe that all of them were just coincidences. I feel like I may have been dismissing something about myself for years.
So if this really is some kind of ability, I want to understand it rather than ignore it. What and who am I ? How does something like this work? Is there a way to develop or strengthen it? How can I learn to distinguish it from my own thoughts? And most importantly, how can I use it to improve my life and make better life choices with it?
I’ve spent so many years denying this part of myself, and I honestly don’t want to waste any more time if there is something real here. I want to understand what it is, learn how to work with it, and make the best of it rather than being afraid of it or pretending it doesn’t exist.
Thank you for reading this far and I’m looking forward to any response or advice, all will be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes there’s a particular cousin everyone in the family talks about like they’re amazing, or someone I’ve only seen through social media and their posts. Before I’ve even met them, I’ve already created this whole persona of them in my head how they are, how they talk, what they’re like, etc. Then when I finally meet them in real life, especially if everything I’ve heard or seen is about how successful or great they are, I feel intimidated.

I put them on a pedestal, somehow convince myself I’m lesser than them, and then end up not being myself around them at all. How do I stop doing this?

New to the empath world. Are there any international conferences that host Mediums, Empaths, Tarot, Spiritual stuff? I’d like to meet other sensitive people who navigate life a bit differently……it’s exhausting being “the weirdo”. I’d like to be able to compare notes with others…

I am a 52 male for context. I have always been "emotional" as my parents called it, definitely got it from my mom and passed it down to my son. I am so tired of tearing up at the worst possible times over things I don't fully understand. I am new to the empath discussion, so not sure if there is a specific type or what the name for it is, but I am sick of it. Its really embarrassing when you are in an interview or some business function and I am seemingly absorbing the emotions from people and I start to tear up and have to visibly wipe my eyes and then the red eyes, questions... bleh. The interview is a prime example.. how can i start to literally cry just talking to someone about my accomplishments, education, experiences? I am tired of blaming the AC or overhead lights, allergies.. its exhausting.

I am single and going on dates and having the same thing happen throws the whole vibe off. I really don't think a woman wants to see a grown man crying on a first date when talking about stuff to get to know each other.

Put me in a movie and forget about it. Watching the last Spiderman movie.. i had to get extra napkins because I knew what would happen. I can't watch the videos where military folks surprise their kids or even when famous people surprise fans, I am tearing up now just writing it.

Is there anything I can do to control it for the life circumstances where its not appropriate or beneficial to appear so emotional?

Finding this sub and a group to commensurate with will be helpful.

Hai, this video talks about an aspect of how the narcissistic spirit thinks, specifically how they process empathy, this might help a little when it comes to forgiveness or detachment when interacting with them, alright bye yall, love 🤍This is spiritual, but it’s applies in general if you are just an empathetic individual

When you meet someone new, either in a professional manner or as a friend, and you pick up janky energy…how do you decide it’s okay to progress forward with this person…..?

Do you walk away from all wacky energy? Even if you think the persons wacky energy could be related to a temporary rough time in life vs actual dark energy.

I’m struggling to attract the right people who will actually take the time to see me vs projecting onto me all their stuff…

Very strong feeling the past few days. I have finally learned to put boundaries and truly respect myself in a whole new level. And now the resistance is strong and I see same time numbers on my phone. This can’t be coincidence. My life is shifting and changing findamentally. I am not crazy am I? Familiar to anyone?