A big issue that some empaths face is unrequited love and all the grief that accompanies this experience. If someone truly is your soulmate or twin flame, the relationship will happen sooner or later. Don’t put your life on hold for another person, no matter how badly you want to be with them. If it’s meant to be, it will be.

It is in no way, shape or form your cosmic duty or responsibility to take away the pain of other people. This is because by absorbing the pain of others, you are depriving them of a vital element of their spiritual evolution and karmic responsibility.

Empaths feel more deeply, more intensely, and more persistently than those around us. We even feel what other people are afraid to feel within themselves.

The very best thing we can do for others isn’t soaking up their pain, it is actually holding space for them. Holding space for a person means giving them the room to grieve or vent while still maintaining our own boundaries.

When we meet and fall into the gravitational pull of a narcissist, we are entering a significant life lesson that involves learning how to create boundaries, self-respect, and resilience. Through trial and error (and a lot of pain), our connection with narcissists teaches us the necessary lessons we need to become mature empaths.

A narcissist, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of an empath. Emotionally, narcissists are like brick walls who see and hear others but fail to understand or relate to them. As a result of their emotional shallowness, narcissists are essentially devoid of all empathy or compassion for other people. Lacking empathy, a narcissist is a very destructive and dangerous person to be around.

Derived from the Greek word “em” (in) and “pathos” (feeling), the term “empath” refers to a person who is able to “feel into” the feelings of others.

If you’ve ever met an energy vampire (and you probably have), you’ll get the distinct feeling that this person has an intense need to prey off the vitality of others. There is a kind of acute neediness present in energy vampires which can be quite overwhelming and depleting to those they come in contact with.

The shamanic Quechuan word for empath is “Qawaq” which means “one who sees.” It comes from the verb “Qaway” which means “to see” the living energy. The Incas believe that people born with the ability to experience the energy of others have a great blessing as they are able to connect to their Souls and the Spirit of existence much more easily than others.