Through the Peephole

  

 

    If you were to peek into my life you would see strength, wisdom, and would feel a sense of calmness amongst the chaos. I have spent all nineteen years of my life being an empath. You might ask yourself reading that sentence "Is Samantha saying being an empath is a bad thing?" or "What is an empath?". Let me explain, an empath is someone who has the natural ability to understand or feel what state of emotion another person is in, whether it is physically, mentally, or emotionally, just by feeling the persons energy. It definitely sounds cool but believe me when I tell you it can be a curse in disguise. I have learned and inherited this from my father whom has always told me empathy is one of the strongest gifts a person can have, however it also can take a toll on such person for various reasons. 

     Reason number one is if someone you love feels a negative emotion such as: anxiety, nervousness, sadness, or grief, you will feel it as well. We all know that those feelings aren't great especially when they aren't your own. The bright side to this is you know how they feel so most times you are the best kind of help in that situation. You can understand what that person may need or how to distract them from such feelings of despair. In that instance you become whom everyone wants when they are sad. Have you ever heard of the "therapist friend"? Well hello that is and was me my entire life. I have grown to love being there for people but at times it can be very overwhelming to feel so many emotions without the validation I can give people since I feel in a way what they feel.       

     Reason number two is you are completely dependent on other people to feel emotions. If my loved ones are happy I am happy. Now I think you can guess where I am heading with this. If they are sad I am sad. If I care about you and start crying, I will most likely start crying too. So please don't. Anyway, having my own emotions is something I have had to learn and so is learning how to put my feelings and self first sometimes.

    A positive to being an empath is I can see all perspectives. If I get in an argument with a loved one, I can easily step back and feel the frustration and anger from their side. With these feelings, I do my best to understand their point of view and help them see mine. Nine times out of ten this resolves the issue and helps both sides learn about the others feelings and move on. 

    Empathy had made me strong and wise to help those around me work through their feelings and be better people, even though there is some downsides I wouldn't trade the connections for anything. Its one of my favorite qualities about myself and my loved ones can agree they can always count on me to make them feel better. I think everyone in today's world we could use more empaths. Are you an empath?