Being an Empath can be a Sign of Hypervigilance from Childhood Trauma.

As an empath, you may be able to sense people’s pain and suffering without them telling you anything.

You can sense things before they happen — a shift in energy, a facial expression, the tone of voice. You have a feeling that something is coming. You always felt that you are highly intuitive.

You can be highly attuned to others and take on people’s problems in an endeavour to comfort them or help them.

But you also find yourself in imbalanced relationship dynamics (romance, friendships, family, career). You feel drained after being around certain people. You often get used by people who take you for granted. You think you do more than you receive. One-sided relationships seem to be a reoccurring theme.

You also find that nature, being alone, prayer, meditation — solo activities — make you feel good. They rejuvenate you. But you feel guilty sometimes when you need time to yourself. As a result, you may have difficulty saying no to others or sticking to your boundaries.

This leads you to feeling mentally exhausted, burned out and anxious. To recoup, you often find yourself in cycles. You’ll give as much as you can before you find yourself unable to give anymore. If you look back over your life, you may have a history of chronic illness, an injury or seasons where you felt unwell. And perhaps if you look closely, you may find it was a way for you to retreat because you felt depleted from a situation or person(s) or even a breakup.

While you can take on the feelings of another, it isn’t easy to distinguish your emotions from another’s. This generally shows itself through anxiety that you don’t quite understand. So even if you are taking care of your mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing, you may wonder why you still go through waves of feeling exhausted, burned out or worried.

When you examine your life, you also notice periods when you feel calm or tranquil and wonder, “Why can’t I feel like this more often?” These are usually times when you travel, hike or do activities you love. They may also be periods when you were single or around new, refreshing people. Perhaps you lived in a new…

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