1. Empathy is the ability to recognize, understand and read the emotion of another person. A simple way of describing this would be to say you put yourself in another’s' shoes. You are literally doing this and in turn it could be said that you are resonating with the other person. Some people can do this voluntarily and others do it accidentally. The process involves the ability to read in others, the energy and subtle differences in frequency associated with the range of human thought and emotion. Most people don't understand how this process works but when it comes to helping others it's enough to just recognise you have a gift and that you are sensitive to others.
2. Empaths often have telepathic ability which means that your ability to 'read' is enhanced. Some empaths have a deep sense of 'knowing' which further enhances their ability to read another person. This is very useful because people are complex and often display a persona over many layers of thought and emotion. The ability to see under the surface and sense someone's true feelings has many useful applications when it comes to helping others.
3. As the word empathy suggests, empaths have the ability to act in empathy. This helps others because you can act with compassion and understanding enabling the other person to feel they are not isolated or alone in what they are experiencing.
4. If you could measure the strength of an empaths ability you would a wide range of difference in ability. This is because of the 'human' factor. We all have varying degrees of understanding, awareness, judgment, emotion, intelligence and compassion. However everyone has empathic ability to a certain extent. For a variety of reasons people ignore or are unaware of this ability.
5. Many empaths have an interest in people and become proficient with reading body language and listening for verbal cues that betray what someone really means during the process of communication. Whilst these skills are not empathic they do enhance the empaths ability to help someone.
