You Are Not An Empath, You Are Just a Human Who Wants To Be Special!

General Discussion
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You Are Not An Empath, You’re Human!… Claiming To Be An Empath Is Like Claiming To Have Skin!… Having Empathy Is Part Of Being Human, Not Part Of Being Special!!!

The last piece I wrote about was inspired by Jason Miller on the dishonesty of a magician’s success rate. This time however I have been inspired to write about something someone else wrote. This is a piece on empathy, inspired by Robert Norman Roske who posted a great little piece on empaths. He says in his post:

“Stop claiming to be an empath. Being an empath is not some magical type of being. All people have the ability to feel empathy unless they are severely mentally ill. Empathy is a natural human ability and one of the things that separates us from lower creatures. It actually is a criteria for sentience. Stop thinking you’re a special flower. Being an “empath” just means you’re a good person, that’s all”

Never have I read a post in my life that gave me so much joy. Finally, someone had posted something that nailed one of our spiritual community’s problems right on the head. Every single time I walk into a new group or sect of the community there are those folks who take the Empath label and wear it like a king would wear a crown. Like a badge of honour usually the first thing these people will tell you is that they are an empath. They are similar to vegans in the fact they can’t wait to tell you what they are. You are never surprised when you find out someone is an empath… they can’t wait to tell you.

But let’s look at what empathy actually is. By definition empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. So, with this definition in mind an empath is simply someone who has the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This is called being human. Every single person apart from those with severe mental health issues can or at least has at some point in their life been able to understand and share the feelings of another. Parents feel the pain of their child at certain stages in their life, pet owners who have experienced losing a pet can relate to someone who loses one. These are just a few examples of how common this feeling of empathy can be. Even feelings of happiness or success are included in this. Empathy isn’t always feeling the bad things.

So why is it that so many people both in the spiritual communities and outside want to slap this Empath label on themselves? Because let’s be honest, saying you’re an empath is a bit like saying you have skin… it a no brainer. The reason I believe that these folks slap this label on themselves is because of a need to feel special and different. Robert hit the nail on the head with his post, they want to be a special flower.

In our community many have this need to want to be special or to be different; to have something few others can have, to be subject to exclusivity. But the reality of this entire thing is that they are insecure and lack a sense of true identity for themselves. They are so lacking in confidence in themselves that they have to slap on a name that sounds and is described by many of them exclusive or rare to feel better about themselves. Now I am all for making each other feel better but when that is done by lying to ourselves, and deceiving ourselves, it does more harm than good. What would do real good is having the psychological mind state changed so that they don’t have to go out of their way and slap labels on themselves to feel special. We all have value, and none of us need to slap a fancy name on it for it to exist.

Written by Asbjorn Torvol

Artwork by Gary Rosenberg

All Rights Reserved!

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Point taken. Sheesh lol

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lol this is the kind of writing I love, strait to the point, no punches pulled, just strait up.

Its an acquired taste though

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I feel your pain :joy:

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I lost interest at ‘you are not’. Just saying.

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I don’t understand. I was under the impression that an empath was someone who had EXTREME empathy. To the point of it becoming supernatural. Mind reading and such

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I am sorry your attention span is so low… common problem with today’s society :wink:

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Im just going on definitions here. Extreme or not, being empathic is something we all have. We all have the ability to grow fingernails (unless you have a rare medical condition) doesn’t mean I need to announce it and wear it like a badge… its a no brainier. Some people grow nails faster than other, its not about the degree its about the need to throw a label on to hide insecurity rather than address it.

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I know you do not understand. But I will give you a hint. You cannot change what someone thinks, but you can instead do what you can to influence.

Imagine yourself as a bow, and your ideas and impressions as your arrows. You can stand atop your tower and fire your arrow with the intention to fire and forget…

But once that idea is set free, you do not have control of it’s trajectory.

You do not have a monopoly on absolute truth, because there is no absolute truth.

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I do not care what other people think nor do I care about changing it. I simply state my view on something to give food for thought. That is all. Take my work as you will, at the end of the day it makes little different to me.

Do not mistake my willingness to talk about my thoughts as a need for your approval… I really could not give any less of a fuck.

:wink:

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The difference between passive nihilism and active nihilism is direction.

Your reply to me is Perfect. And I mean that kindly. Let me tell you that you are close. So very close. I did not say that you are wrong, I said that you have said it wrong, and I still have yet to read what you have said.

Kind of like prayer. Some spirits will come, glance, walk away and pit someone else in their place because they do not like the tone. The same goes for someone you will meet on the street or where you work.

Do not, however, mistake my kindness for weakness. To mindlessly accept the world as it is, is to accept that you are dieing and do nothing to enjoy the time you have.

Break the wheel my dude, whatever your wheel is.

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There is an actual phenomenon of those who are “empaths”, but not in the context most use it. As you said, all functional, mentally healthy people are capable of empathy. Being an “empath” is a condition where an individual is actually feeling the emotions of another person simultaneous to that person’s experience.Think of the cases of identical twins feeling injury or emotional bursts from the other side of a continent. These are documented instances studied by mainstream science. That being said, this is relegated almost to the realm of urban legend for all the likelihood of finding someone who can actually do this. I cannot (thank the gods) and I have never met anyone who has made such a claim in any seriousness. Like you said, Asbjorn, I suspect most who lay claim to such things are seeking special snowflake status.

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I met a woman once who to me was truly the voice and breath of the universe.

She was so brilliant and bright during the day, yet at night she would crumble, and one day I felt I must ask

“Why do you fall when you are so bright?”

She smiled to me and she said, “I’m sorry. Sometimes the weight of it all just drags me down. It hurts to burn so brightly.”

I had been blind, and I stood forward at once to protect my starlight, “Rest now then and let me carry your weight, and when dusk comes once more, you will rise in the sky again.”

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Then why make a thread about a topic you call “bullshit”? You “don’t care”, yet care enough to call out on it? That’s quite contradicting, as I see it, and not so much empathetic either.

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I am an author, my job is to talk about things. I do not talk about things with the intent on changing peoples minds and I care little for what people think.

I do what I do to share my views with people who have both asked for it and people who want to partake in debate and discussion.

I do not have time to change the minds of people who do not want to change their mind. With people who have made their minds up already I care not for.

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I do agree that people often stupidly give themselves labels that barely apply to them.

That said, many emotional/energy vampires are strongly empathic to a much higher degree than other people because they feed off of emotional energy. And there are some people who just naturally can tell what even the most stoic person is feeling.

I consider an ‘empath’ to be someone who can tell what you are feeling no matter how little emotion you let show outwardly. It’s very similar to feeling currents and energies from what I’m aware, just with some minor differences.

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Asbjörn Torvol, as far as I know, is the only BALG’s author who posts threads here, on the forum and that is really great. It would be nice to hear from others, too.
But, what we get here is really strange.
Plastic rubies, attention seekers, fake empaths, f*** Odine, fake this and that…
Most of us are more than aware of the subjects you cover.
I wouldn’t like to read between the lines, but what’s the problem?

Best wishes!

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Everybody is talking about evocation and divination, working with demons etc. I want to touch on some real issues that nobody wants to talk about. The way I write is belligerent yes. This is the thing, we are in a community who wants to ascend and evolve yet so many people hide behind illusions they create so they don’t have to face the hard truth… in a community where what we are searching for is truth.

What I write is open to debate, I do not claim to be 100% correct. I encourage people to prove me wrong and to debate my work. This is how we evolve, not by pretending everything is ok. Our community has issues, and when we deal with those issue we grow.

Nobody wants to talk about these issue because they are controversial, or because it makes the writer a target of hate. I am happy to deal with all that if it means we can have some actual debate. I am an instigator of thought, and all I aim to do, is to get people to think outside of how to evoke and how to deal with real psychological issues that hold them back from ascending.

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‘Controversial’ topics are some of the ones I like to talk about the most, because it shows where people stand on things and has the most potential for new ideas to sprout, assuming all involved can be levelheaded and civil about it.

Edit: And as I said in my earlier post in this thread, I do agree that people often stupidly give themselves labels that barely apply to them. That doesn’t mean the label itself is a falsehood, just misinterpreted.

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Thanks for a clarification. I guess that’s all you can say.
And, about empaths: it’s a form of intelligence/perception. Some people are very intelligent, some not. The same thing is with empaths: some people have a more emotional understanding and receive more from others, then others. They don’t have to be attention seekers, even some are. I don’t see the connection.

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