What Is an Empath? - My Experience

What is an empath? To have empathic ability, What does that mean?
Trying to find a definition was not easy,  most were for empathy or empathic. I found one that best describes what an Empath is and what it means to have empathic ability, here it is.
Empath - A person capable of psychically reading the emotions of others - this came from wiktionary.org
Here is another great explanation or definition from the "Book of Storms" by Jad Alexander
An Empath is a type of "psychic", but instead of reading the "future" or viewing remote objects, the Empath specializes in reading people. Here is the link - http://mysilentecho.com/dreamtongue1.htm

I like this one too, it's a little more descriptive, however in my experience I have found that I can see the future and the past as well and remotely view both. This happens when I am facilitating a healing with a client. Other types of experiences that I have had as an empath have to do with sensing the energy of a person or group of people when I come into contact with them. This has been the hardest thing for me to deal with. There was a big learning curve. I went out and found a lot of different ways to protect myself from other peoples energy. All the ways I found worked, however not all the time and sometimes not at all. There was a lot of trial and error.
Over time as well, as I developed my empathic ability through meditation and by performing healings on clients, which for me acts as a form of meditation. I found that I was becoming more and more sensitive to other people, especially if they were really hurting. This was great for my ability to help people in a controlled setting. However in public people were attaching to me and draining my energy left and right. I was almost always in a state of fatigue. Trying to live life that way is no fun. Imagine being conscious enough to know that if you go to a public place that you will feel sick, tired, unsettled, helpless, hurt, the list could go on. All the feelings of the others around you. This is what an empath experiences. Once you realize that it's not you, your journey begins.
Next time I will talk about some of the ways that I found help with protecting yourself from what has become commonly known in empathic language as an "energy vampire". There is one super powerful way that has never failed me... Stay tuned...
~ Love & Light
~ L.E.C.