[Sozerius]

I just thought I'd offer you another perspective as someone who is not 'constantly on' but who has been able to 'turn on' empath abilities for a brief period of time before - only to have it turn off again. Maybe that would be helpful.

First I will tell you what happened - I communicate with my brother online, and we rarely get to see each other in person because I live across state from where he and the rest of my family live. Still, we have bonded online and grown to be fairly close considering we didn't get to grow up together. One day, while chatting, I had a sudden moment of high sensitivity through the energy I was focusing on via my regular meditations. When I carried the focus on this energy to my conversation with him, I could suddenly feel his emotions as if they were my own, although more like they were being drawn into me. I felt a sudden terror on his end and surprised him by commenting on it, the circumstances are too personal for me to be more specific. But I felt that moment, and then I felt the stress surrounding him. I love my brother, so I didn't mind that. If it is his stress, I am ok with it - I might not be ok with it if it was someone else's. But, this wasn't limited to him, as later on I decided to chat with someone I barely know, but who I know is 'into' energy-related practices. I wanted to tell her about what I experienced and was still experiencing. When talking to her I could also feel how she felt through the energy too, although she had no stress or any particular feeling at all really, she was simply highly focused. It still contrasted with my own feeling or sense of self - as my own energy is and was generally peaceable, pleasant, perhaps even sensual but just in a very generalized way as a whole sense of being. When I felt her intense focus, it was cold, void of the warmth that I am accustomed to. There was nothing negative about it... I just didn't appreciate sharing in it, actually. It was too different from my comfort zone.

That day was when I actually understood part of what being an empath must be. I've sensed energy for years through energy working and sensitivity training, but nothing I experienced through any sort of energy sensing was like this. I truly felt as if the emotions were invading my space.

I learned a couple things from this, and some of that may be helpful to you. First of all, the ability to have a degree of empathic ability in that moment only occurred for me as a result of me focusing on an energy mass that I had been collecting near me for awhile. You might know what I was focusing on to be similar to what is known as a tulpa, or thoughtform. This may seem very niche at first but I think it may potentially fit into a theme with others. The thoughtform acted as a sort of go-between. I could feel the energy I had built through the thoughtform, and then that acted as a door for me to be able to feel other people too. Normally this is not the case, and I normally cannot achieve this even with the aid of a thoughtform. That night was just a special night, the stars aligned in the right way or something. It may have served to anchor my consciousness in the energy outside my body since it's focal point was outside of my body, and outside my 'self.'

When considering someone who is *always an empath* and doesn't know why this is, I can consider a few possibilities relating to my experience. Firstly, it is possible that an empath has a similar anchor that bridges their mind, heart, or self into the 'outside of themselves' zone of perceptibility and sensitivity. Or, they might be able to connect to everyone around them because they are always tuned into something that is not within them. This would cause them to remain opened up. I think that there are many things within our society's belief structures that could play this role, such as the concept of angels, gods, devils, entities, lights, energies, and whatnot. A basic concept of people, life or society could even be a connection to 'outside of self' and provide an anchor. Whatever the case is, the main point seems to be that the person is not fully grounded in themselves, so there must be something else that they are also grounded into. That allows an opening for them to connect with energies that are not their own. At least, on a powerful enough level to not only feel these things on a mere 'sensing' perception level, but also on the deeper 'feeling and experiencing' level.

One other thing I'd like to add is that, at least for me, this was only possible while potent energy was present. As soon as the potent energy started to dissipate, so too did the experience of empath-like ability. I cannot currently replicate the experience I had, as I cannot get the energy to be as potent as it was that night. I may eventually solve the mystery to getting that kind of thing to happen, but either way it is easy to surmise that it isn't natural for everyone to be 'grounded' outside of themselves. It wouldn't take potent energy to draw me out of myself if it was easy to do so for me, or perhaps for anyone who is not naturally an empath. From that, I think it is easy to either conclude that empaths are typically connected to a powerful energy - perhaps even one born of their natural lifestyle - or, it is possible that they are simply lacking whatever it is the rest of us would need potent energy to 'get past' to have an empathic experience. If it is the former reason, then I think that these may often be extraordinarily focused people who have perhaps unknowingly enabled themselves, perhaps even from an early age, as a result of some focus they have which most people do not. If it is the latter reason... then I'm sure that there are other conditions for that scenario, but it would be beyond me to guess accurately in that instance as to why that is.

Assuming it is the former reason, it may be that 'turning it off' would likely require an empath to turn off aspects of their beliefs, personality, or sense of environment in order to allow the dense energy that has built up, which grounds them into it, to fade or diminish naturally. That's just my observation, and even if it is incomplete perhaps it might help to stir up some thoughts that an actual empath has about the reality of what makes an empath empathic - to either add to these thoughts or speculate for themselves. :)

Edit: After re-reading my post, I realized that a concept in the energy to anchor the self outside of themselves is not necessary if a person is grounded into another person such as a parent or loved one - especially if this is in a way as to want to serve their needs. That kind of connection, and desire to serve, would likely also cause someone to open up to being an empath eventually. If it were done from an early age it may cause the person to remain open to others just as they were open to that special person. Learning to close this off might start to shut down these abilities - although with all things it would be a slow process if you were truly willing to turn off what may also be precious connections. Removing something like that effectively usually necessitates replacing it with something else. The simplest suggestion therein would be focus on the self, the self's needs, or self empowerment in a way that benefits the self and what it needs. And naturally for that to be 'above' a natural inclination to serve someone else or others. In fact you may use the focus on self to smother the automatic inclinations to focus on someone else, if this is the stem of being rooted out of yourself. This kind of focus would eventually cause you to be a bit more spiritually and emotionally separated from others. If that sounds imbalanced or unhealthy to you - that probably depends on your situation. If you are in an unhealthy state of needing to serve someone else or others, or society, etc... then it would be balancing for you and probably liberating to be able to finally focus on yourself. Otherwise, for anything to be healthy it should be balanced. Just keep in mind that sometimes you have to go a little bit extreme before you can settle in a middle-ground. Hot balances cold - lukewarm does not. :)