What Is the Difference Between Having Empathy and Being an Empath?

“Having empathy means our heart goes out to another person in joy or pain,” says Dr. Judith Orloff. “But for empaths, it goes much further. We actually feel others’ emotions, energy, and physical symptoms in our own bodies, without the usual defenses that most people have.” The Empath’s Survival Guide is an invaluable resource for empaths who want to develop coping skills in a high-stimulus world while embracing their gifts of intuition, compassion, creativity, and spiritual connection.

In this unabridged recording of The Empath’s Survival Guide read by Pam Tierney, Dr. Orloff shares practical, empowering, and loving advice for supporting empaths through their unique challenges—and for loved ones to better understand an empath’s needs and gifts. Here listeners will discover crucial practices, including:

• Exercises to identify where you are on the empathy spectrum
• Tools for protecting yourself from sensory overload, exhaustion, addictions, and compassion fatigue
• Effective strategies to stop absorbing stress and physical symptoms from others and protect yourself from narcissists and other energy vampires
• How to find the right work that feeds you
• How to navigate intimate relationships without feeling overwhelmed
• Guidance for parenting empathic children
• Awakening the empath’s gift of intuition and deepening your spiritual connection to all living beings

For any sensitive person who’s been told to “grow a thick skin,” here is a guide for staying open while building resilience, exploring your singular gifts, and feeling welcomed by a world that desperately needs what you have to offer.