Do you consider yourself an empath or a psychic? Do you prefer to think of yourself as both? That matters enormously.

Your choice — and it can certainly be a choice — will have big consequences for:

• Your consciousness lifestyle (what you do with awareness in your waking hours)
• Your relationships
• Your sense of identity
• Making money
• How well your aura is doing
• And the kind of work you do to help people

Today many talented people equate being empath with being a psychic. Or they assume that being one automatically causes them to become the other.

Wow, is that ever not true!

Cleaning this up matters. Mixing up psychic this and empath that amounts to far more than some little technical misunderstanding. What you don’t know can really mess up your life.

In my opinion. Of course everything that follows in this article will be my opinion, what flows from my professional experience, including skills at energetic literacy — aura reading to learn the truth all the way down to the level of chakra databanks.

What really matters? You decide. I’m adding to your knowledge base, that’s all. And maybe we’ll have some conversation in the COMMENTS section below.

Many people equate being an empath with being a psychic or intuitive. Some even put the words together — psychic empath or intuitive empath.

This creates a horrible mashup that has already been discussed a bit in this cautionary blog post for empaths.

Yesterday a related topic came up at my Empath Empowerment® Skills Group on Facebook. Some of our members were discussing whether they were also studying psychic development.

Reminded me how so many people don’t know the difference. In terms of your personal development this is like eating whatever food is available, paying no attention to nutrition or health consequences.

What if nobody taught you the difference between eating candy bars versus a balanced, nutritious meal? What if you assumed, “Yum, it’s all food. If I can put it in my mouth and swallow it, that’s all I need to know.”

As if! So today I’m going to begin a multi-part series to explore this very important topic in the depth it deserves.

Let’s start with some basic concepts.

What Is an Empath?

An empath has at least one gift for directly experiencing what it is like to be another person. Altogether I have identified 15 different gifts that an empath might have. Each one, alone, would qualify somebody to call yourself an empath for life.

Have you ever heard terms like “Emotional Empath” or “An empath feels other people’s feelings”?

To put it politely, that lacked nuance. Ideas like these are so distorted and simplified that they are distinctly unhelpful. I could cascade further down the slippery slope of direct speech, but let’s leave it right there.

Now, to be practical: Might I suggest that you get yourself a copy of “The Empowered Empath: Owning, Embracing and Managing Your Empath Gifts“? Because there, in the expanded edition, you will learn the truth in enough detail to know the basics about what it means to be an empath, which gift is which.

You’ll be fully convinced not to mix them up, I suspect. And, if you were born as an empath, right away, you will have learned many important things about yourself.

What Is a Psychic?

A psychic is someone who pursues psychic development. Psychics have learned some skills to acquire knowledge and, maybe, to help people. Often psychics receive information about the past or future, or what is happening far away.

Some psychics do channeling or mediumship. Other psychics simply give readings.

What is the source of knowledge for a psychic? Some kind of spirit, or spirit guide, collaborates with the intuitive, or sensitive, or channeler, or medium — a.k.a. “The psychic.”

Let’s pause here.

And What about Being Energy Sensitive?

Everyone is energy sensitive now. We live in the Age of Awakening, folks. So it’s not just you, noticing energies.

Sure, you may know some people who are highly energy insensitive. They may mock you for speaking up. Well, these people would be in spiritual shutdown, as about 45% of Americans are (and so many millions of others around the world). In spiritual shutdown, a person is well defended against noticing energy ANYTHING.

This is a very Post-New-Age way of being a Highly INsensitive Person. People in spiritual shutdown pay for it, because their auras get junked up with gray slime, one of the 15 kinds of STUFF that blocks emotional and spiritual growth.

Basically, anybody living now who is NOT in spiritual shutdown is energy sensitive.

So if you are sorting our whether you are an empath or a psychic, at least you don’t have to confuse this significant choice with whether being energy sensitive makes your anything.

• Being energy sensitive does NOT mean somebody is an empath.
• Being energy sensitive does NOT mean somebody is a a psychic.

All the more reason why it is important to define these two terms properly and decide for yourself what you are, what you choose to be, what to do next to support your way of being yourself.

Your Turn

Any questions so far? Share your ideas, please, Blog-Buddies. Of special interest, how many of you have encountered people who say things like “Psychics are empaths” or “Empaths are psychics”?

How many of you have been on Facebook groups or forums where the group became a big, enthusiastic combo of empath + psychic + whatever else? If so, what was the impact on you? Did that really make your life better?