Are You an Empath? Signs to Look For (Transcript)

Episode transcript, ShelbyRADIO · 31 minutes

Short answer: You may be an empath if you feel other people's emotions as if they were your own: their pain, happiness, confusion, joy and love. Common signs include feeling overstimulated by noise, smells or nonstop talking, being drained by crowds, getting anxious or sick to your stomach before going out or during arguments, being told you're "so sensitive," and feeling like you don't fit in. Being an empath isn't rare anymore, because more people are becoming sensitive as they wake up. Shelby Carino's advice is to not stay in the label too long: heal your own emotions and build energetic boundaries so you can feel what others feel without taking it on.

Listen: ShelbyRADIO podcast

Key takeaways

• The word empath comes from empathy: the ability to sense and feel other people's emotions as if they were your own.
• Being an empath isn't necessarily common or rare. It's an awareness of your ability to feel, and more people are waking up to it.
• Signs include overstimulation from noise, smells and crowds, anxiety before going out, avoiding arguments and feeling like you don't fit in.
• Empaths are huge energetic givers, so ask yourself what you're actually giving: your personal energy, or the space to hold someone else's.
• Boundaries have to be energetic, not just mental. Healing your own emotional baggage builds an immune system for your energy.
• Don't confuse being empathic with being a victim. Catch yourself before stacking other people's emotions turns into victim mentality.

Full transcript

Lightly edited for reading.

Are you an empath? (00:00)

Good morning, and welcome to ShelbyRADIO. I'm Shelby Carino, and today the question we're diving into is, "Are you an empath?" If you've been following the podcast, you've probably waited a long time for this one. This is a packed episode, so let's get into it.

This is truly how many of us on this spiritual train wake up. We get into a space of sensitivity, and that brings us to the word empath. Grab your journal so you can take some notes, because you may need to revisit this episode from time to time.

What an empath is (03:16)

What does it mean to be an empath? The word empath comes from the word empathy, which many of you know. Empathy is the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of others outside of you and your own perspective. So what's really happening is that you're sensing and feeling other people's emotions as if they were your own emotions or experiences.

Put another way, as an empath you can feel other people's pain. You can feel their happiness, their confusion, their joy and their love. You have the ability to feel things that are coming from other people.

Move from empath into alchemy (04:40)

One of the key things I teach about the empath is that you want to move out of the empath stage as quickly as possible and into alchemy. If you stay in the empathic realm, you create a firestorm of anxiety, depression and confusion about who you are. You're just taking in the emotions of everything around you, and you miss out on going into the emotional depth of yourself. So this is where you really want to start moving away from that. But let's stay on course and keep defining the term.

Is it rare to be an empath? (06:32)

I'm speaking from my own experience and from the wisdom I've gained through it. People often ask me, "Shelby, is it common to be an empath, or is it rare?" My answer is always that it's not necessarily common and it's not necessarily rare. It's more an awareness of who you are and your ability to feel.

In the fifth dimension, we're all gaining the ability to feel through our emotional senses. If we're willing to let that energy into our energetic field and break down the old energetic system, then yes, we'll be creating a lot more empaths on the planet. And we need to, because there's a lot of healing that needs to happen here.

Empaths are big givers (08:24)

Empaths may be people you have in your life, or you may be one yourself. They come forward as healers. They're often very motherly and very nurturing. They're also very highly sensitive in relationships, in love, because empaths are huge givers. They're always giving.

I don't necessarily mean physical gifts. I mean they're very giving energetically. They can be so giving that, and I'm raising my hand guilty here, you get to the point where you're exhausted because you've given and given and given and you just can't give anymore.

So when you realize you're very empathic and that you give of yourself, you have to discover what you're actually giving. Are you giving your personal energy? Are you giving the space to hold someone else's energy? Because that's exhausting too. Pay attention to that.

So is it rare to be an empath? No, not at this stage of the game, because more and more people are waking up. They're shaking, rattling and rolling their vibration, which makes them more sensitive. They start feeling other people's emotions, which leads them to feel more of their own, which sends them on this spiritual path.

Signs: noise, smells and crowds (11:12)

So how do you know if you're an empath? One of the very first things to notice is whether you get overstimulated when you're around a lot of noise, odors or people who are constantly talking. If you do, you're definitely running empathic tendencies.

Another test: has someone told you, "You are so sensitive," or "You're so shy," or "You're so introverted"? That happened to me all the time. Empaths don't have to be shy or introverted. You can have empaths who are very extroverted, love to talk and love being around people, but are also very sensitive. When I looked at empathic traits, I realized I really did appreciate my alone time, and I also really enjoyed being around a lot of people and engaging in life. It's more about whether people drain you when you're out, so you need to retreat.

Anxiety before you go out (13:04)

Another question: do you get anxious or overwhelmed very quickly or often? Do you get anxious going out in public? Do you have to go to the bathroom eight times before you can get out the door? Is your stomach doing flip-flops because you're already picking up the energy of where you're about to go, whether that's work, the store, a friend or a concert? Your energy picks that up ahead of time, and it can make you very anxious.

Are you someone who avoids arguments at all costs? If you get into an argument and voices get raised, do you get sick to your stomach? I literally mean your stomach flips, because that emotional energy lands in your emotional gut. You're taking it on, and it can make your body feel ill.

Feeling like you don't fit in (14:56)

Are you at a place in your life, suddenly or maybe your whole life, where you just feel like you don't fit in? Lord knows I went through that, and I still do sometimes. You look around at the people you spend time with and think, "I don't really fit in here."

If you don't have enough confidence or enough of a foundation in knowing who you are, that's when you can get in trouble. You can start taking on behaviors and emotions just to fit in, which takes you off your path and makes the empathic part of you even worse.

And I'll say it again: if you're in a crowd and you find yourself getting drained, and you think, "I need to go somewhere else, I need to be alone, I need to revive myself and give myself some space," that's another aspect of being an empath.

Boundaries have to be energetic (16:20)

If you're an empath, you want to move into alchemy quickly, learning to energetically transmute what you pick up and build an immune system for your vibration. You do that by clearing out your own emotional baggage, which makes you less susceptible to other people's emotional baggage, because you begin to build the boundaries you need so you don't receive those emotions.

Those boundaries are never only mental. They have to be energetic. You can block people mentally and physically all day long, but if that emotional and spiritual energy still gets through, there's really no block and no boundary. You have to work through the energetic field to build the boundary.

It's like when you've been sick and you don't want to get sick again, so you take a vitamin every day to build your immune system. The same applies to energy. If you're going to build a strong foundational immune system in your energy as an empath, you have to handle your emotions. You tap into the emotion, the energy in motion in your world, and you stack it with other practices, like forgiveness work, to build that immune system.

What changes as you heal (19:08)

Then the empath part isn't so hard. The anxiety starts to fade a little. The depression isn't as heavy. Outbursts of uncontrolled emotion aren't wreaking havoc on your world like they used to. You're not sitting in isolation as much, and you can focus a little more because you're not overstimulated by the energy around you.

That insecurity about going out in public or being around a lot of people, which may have come from picking up a lack of self-worth from the energies you were around, begins to subside. The chaos, drama, back and forth and feelings of inadequacy tend to fade, because you realize, "Wait a minute, I was processing a lot of stuff through other people." If you're in rapport with that energy, you have to heal, harmonize and balance that piece of it inside of you. That's how you move into a completely different part of your spiritual ascension.

The emotional empath (20:32)

What I just described is the emotional empath. I'm just putting a title on it. The emotional empath, maybe you, is the person who picks up on other people's emotions.

Say someone you know gets a promotion at work, and suddenly you can feel how happy they are as if you got the promotion yourself. Or your friend just went through a huge breakup and is very sad, and suddenly you feel how sad they are. You're picking up the energy of that emotion.

Can you be an empath and still feel without personally taking it into your vibration? Yes. If you've healed those aspects of yourself in the emotional body, then when you meet someone going through a deep emotional process, you can still feel how they're feeling, but you're not receiving it into your personal field and getting pulled down into anxiety or depression. You've processed your own emotions about those things, so now you're simply holding an empathic space without taking on someone else's emotions as if they were your own. That's very important to understand.

"Really? I'm an empath?" (22:52)

I've met so many people starting their spiritual journey and deeper soul work, and look at who I attract. When I tell people, "Oh yes, you're definitely an empath," so many of them come back and say, "Really? I'm an empath?" Like I just handed them a gold medal at the Olympics. And I say, "Oh yes. And you'll want to move through that quickly, because that's not where you want to stay."

So enjoy the label for a second, but trust me, you'll want to move from "I am an empath" to "I am an alchemist." I always get a good laugh out of it, because I remember how I felt when I was first labeled. I thought, "Look at that. I'm so special. I'm an empath." Then once I really got into what it meant, I realized this label isn't fun at all. I didn't want to stay in it. So you move through it, into alchemy.

Becoming more sensitive (24:44)

I don't want to say we're all born with empathy, because I swear I've met some people and wondered if they ever had any. So I can't say whether we all have it. What I can say is that as you do your soul work and go deeper into your emotions, you increase your ability to be empathic, which means you increase your ability to be empathetic toward other people. You're becoming more sensitive and more aware, and those feelings start up inside of you. That's really what takes people onto the spiritual path: we start feeling everything around us.

Empath is not victim (26:08)

There are people, and you may be one or have them in your life, who seem naturally empathic, like they were born into the ability. And I'm not talking about running victimhood. Don't confuse being a victim with being empathic.

A lot of empaths do become victims, because they've been stacking so many other people's emotions on top of themselves, layer after layer, that eventually so much is buried on them that they fall into a victim mentality. Then it takes a lot to excavate all that energy, pull them out of being a victim and empower them into their own emotional space, so they can become a strong source of spiritual inspiration to themselves, and then to other people.

When I catch people in the beginning stages of being an empath, before they go down into victimhood, it's so liberating, especially as a teacher. I think, "Okay, let's build you up from here." That doesn't mean you won't go through victim experiences or victim mentality. That's a normal part of the empath journey. But you want to catch yourself before you go too far down, and move through spiritual and emotional energy in a healthier way that keeps you in the higher frequencies instead of the lower ones.

Notice what you're picking up (28:28)

The empath is a huge word and a huge topic. If you're resonating with this episode, it will help you make sense of certain things in your world. I know it did for me, when I finally went through enough chaos and destruction and realized, "Oh my God, that's what I've been doing the whole time." It took me years to figure this out, which is why I'm out here speaking about it now. When you have the wisdom, you eventually share the wisdom, and I can do that energetically because I've experienced it myself.

Let this sink in today. For the rest of the day, just be aware of how you're feeling and what you're attracting, and jot down some notes. That way you begin to build a foundation of awareness about what you may be receiving, so you know what to work on next.

Frequently asked questions

What are the signs of being an empath?

Common signs include feeling other people's emotions as your own, getting overstimulated by noise, smells or constant talking, feeling drained in crowds, getting anxious or sick to your stomach before outings or during arguments, being called "too sensitive" and feeling like you don't fit in. Anxiety and stomach upset can have many causes, so please also talk with your doctor if they're ongoing.

Is being an empath rare?

Not anymore, according to Shelby. It's less about being rare and more about awareness of your ability to feel, and more people are becoming sensitive as they wake up spiritually.

Can empaths be extroverted?

Yes. Empaths don't have to be shy or introverted. Many love to talk and be around people but are still very sensitive and need time alone to recharge after being drained.

How do empaths stop absorbing other people's emotions?

By healing their own emotional baggage and building energetic boundaries, not just mental ones. When you've healed those parts of yourself, you can still feel what someone else feels without taking it into your own field.

Where to go next

• Start here: my free 16-minute audio, When You Don't Feel Like Yourself
• The course: Healthy Boundaries & Personal Power, stop over-giving and keep your power
• Listen next: How I Knew I Was an Empath
• Work with me one-on-one: private sessions