I don't know that I would term myself an empath, but I know I am intuitive and sensative to other people. I get "vibes" I have learned not to ignore and when someone is anxious or feeling some strong emotion but not openly display it, I can just kind of feel it as a tension or energy. I usually feel gratified if someone is hurting/upset and I can do something to help. I have gotten strong vibes just from people I've sat with in waiting rooms, or passed in a hallway or something and silently sent prayers their way. Sometimes I openly address what I am sensing and try to do so gently and back way off if I sense I am intruding or my energies are unwelcome. This shared, I did have a question--have any of you ever felt drained by what some call a psyvamp? I ask because I think I have had this too--over the years it has occured several times and I wonder if some people can even sense that others are more open and receptive and they prey upon them. I know I have a fiend who is a curandera (a kind of healer who uses herbs, ritual, prayers, and other techniques to heal and treat in a holistic manner) and she says that healthy people (in the mental sense) can't be around unheathy (here meaning destructive, negative) people for very long. It drains them physically and spiritually. What do you all think? Is this real or am I trusting my senses too much when I feel a natural aversion? This conversation is both validating and interesting and I hope this question fits. Love and light, lunalamia

welcome lunalamia,

You are following to the letter what it is you should do to best protect yourself. It is as real as the body you inhabit.

BTW, you most def qualify under the empath heading,lol.

Thanks Novia for the welcome and the clarification. I don't want to act paranoid about "psyvamps" and overstate the occurance of my experience with feelings that I needed to shield myself and back way, way, away from someone, but it has happened. Not that I wish them harm, I just sense I can't help them and they could drain me. I am sorry about the recent loss of your gentlemen freind and any pain this caused you, but it sounds like you also needed to experience those emotions and feelings for your own sense of finality and release. It sounds like he was very giving and special. I can't help but wonder if by opening yourself up to to the sense of love and grief his family felt you actually gained something rather than drained yourself--a deposit of reserve light energy and understanding? Any kind of growth even for someone experienced such as yourself can be traumatic. Metamorphosis is a wonderous process but demands courage (Again, something I sense/intuit from what I see but have barely begun to experience myself as fear has constrained me most of my life). One last question for the empathic--in curanderismo water and lemons are used for purifcation, rebalancing, and cleansing. My freind who I mentioned in the last post not only drinks water but pours it over her hands after every healing. She carries lemons in her bag and just holding a lemon, she says, can help cleanse away negativity and recharge her. I use lemon oil in aromatherapy for energy and have also used water (ritual showering or bathing, drinking) and lemons when I feel drained and feel that it helps. I said this was a question but it's turned into more of a statement, lol! Have you ever tried this or do you have other techniques to rebalance/recharge?

Abundant Blessings, lunalamia

I see I am coming late to this discussion. I find that I tune into inanimate objects more than living and animal more than people.

After Mom crossed and Dad found a girlfriend, he began changing the house to suit her. New wall paint (beige), new carpet (beige), the livingroom became the bedroom (because her fourposter bed didn't fit in the bedroom) and the diningroom became the livingroom. As this process happened, I became aware of the house first crying and then screaming as if in pain! It's been 6 years and I still have stomach aches if I stay more than a couple of hours in the house.

As to reading posts/news stories, I am always a pile of jelly when the story is about an animal that has been abused, is ill or has passed.

Blessings,

I have been an empath all my life and up until i was 30 didnt know what i was at all, felt freaky and out of place. My mother hated to tell me of death though now it has guided me into what i do now. I use my gift to help me understand, and get me out of making myself a recluse which i know isnt healthy but things happen in my life that guide me its only recently i seen the purpose.


Blessings
Happy