An empath is a person who:

• is empathically tuned into the inner lives of others.
• feels what others feel even when they don’t verbalize their feelings. 
• has an emotional “reciever” that is basically always on.
• picks up on what others “transmit” through their subconscious – which is also always on.

Because an empath’s “receiver” is always on, the world seems noisy to us. Empaths don’t just detect or perceive what others feel – we feel what others feel whether we want to or not. We “sympathetically vibrate at the frequency” of those around us. Which makes us particularly skilled at intuitive arts like tarot reading. 

Think of a set of tuning forks. If you cause one to vibrate at a certain frequency by striking it, another in close proximity will vibrate at the same frequency. In physics, it’s called “resonance” or “sympathetic vibration.” 

The life of an empath can be tough. Without wanting to, we walk into a room and know who is angry, know who is frustrated. We perceive the “inner lives” of others. To me, it feels just like suddenly starting to vibrate at the same frequency as some of those in the room. It feels like a tuning fork in the corner has been struck, and I’m vibrating at the same frequency as well whether I want to or not. Frustratingly, I don’t feel “happy tones” as strongly. The inner lives of those who are happy and feel in harmony with their lives just don’t cause me to vibrate as much. 

How, exactly, do empaths feel the emotions of others?

I have been trying to answer that question all my life. Is there some sort of “dark energy” being transmitted? Is it all in the “ether”? Does it happen at the quantum level? Or, is it just a profound sensitivity that automatically and immediately tunes us in to body language, posture, verbal cues, tone of voice, and physical tics? 

After decades of exploration into how personality traits manifest and get broadcast – at both the physical and metaphysical level – I am no closer to the answer. All I know is that the troubled inner lives of others broadcast to me “on eleven”. If you have seen This is Spinal Tap, you know what I mean. 

Why do empaths sense pain and not satisfaction?  

The only explanation I’ve come across that makes sense is that the troubled inner lives of others broadcast to us empaths at higher levels because that’s where the danger is. All humans are hard-wired to detect danger, but not necessarily to detect harmony – or at least not at the same level. The detection of danger is more advantageous to our survival than the detection of harmony. Empaths just sense danger coming from the personalities of others at much higher levels than most. 

Throughout my life, I have collected friends and lovers who are very upbeat. Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism. I want to counter-balance the waves of pain I recieve from all the others who have troubled inner lives. 

How have I adapted to being beset by the troubled inner lives of others?

While I try to surround myself by those with sunny dispositions, at the same time, I am attracted to folks with troubled inner lives. I hear them so much more clearly. I want to help them. Perhaps, more than a call to service, I want to serve myself – to quell the noisiness I feel while I’m around them. 

Intervening directly never works. If I say, “You seem upset,” the typical response is, “What are you talking about? I’m fine,” followed by thier inner monologue (which I can “hear”): “Who does she think she is telling me I’m upset? She needs to mind her own business.” More often than not, folks have developed complex coping mechanisms, don’t know they need help, and take offense to my offers of help particularly because they haven’t asked for any. Offering help to another unbidden is an invasion of privacy. Most people protect their troubled inner lives most rigorously. 

So, decades ago, I stumbled upon tarot reading. Folks don’t ask for a tarot reading unless they are in some way troubled and do want help. This gives me permission to address their troubles and allows me to exercise my life-long desire to soothe. 

How does Tarot help me cope with being an empath?

Walking around all day resonating with the troubled inner lives of others is painful and exhausting. I first noticed my empathic nature living in the Third World as a youngster. My father, an Air Force officer, was given an assignment as an attaché with the American embassy in Liberia in the 1970s. 

Liberia was most definitely Third World at the time. My first foray downtown filled my consciousness with a whole lot of trouble – abject poverty, disfiguring disease, and oceans of hopelessness. Of course it affected everyone who saw it for the first time, but it paralyzed me in a way that somehow did not seem to paralyze others. I simply vibrated uncontrollably and it took over my entire experience. I did eventually learn to “tune it out” and managed to live a normal life. But it always remains in the background like a radioactive isotope – a low humming buzz that is very difficult to ignore. 

When I stumbled upon Tarot reading in my 20s, I found it extremely cleansing. This was a way for me to explicitly acknowledge the troubled inner lives of others with their permission. It was also a way for me to provide them with guidance for how to perhaps resolve their painful issues. Once I articulate the nuanced nature of their pain to them, I remove it from myself, and sometimes provide them with a map for getting out of their pain. 

How does my Tarot reading help others? 

I believe that each of us already holds within us a hidden strategy and pathway for getting out of our troubles. We may not know the answers consciously, but the vast landscape of the subconscious absolutely does. I believe that sitting through a tarot reading automatically puts one into a “suspension of disbelief”. 

If even for a moment, if one allows oneself to roll the die and think “C’mon seven!”, they open themselves to their subconscious mind. Even if they are a staunch atheist and don’t think some outside devine force will help them, and also don’t believe in “the power of positive thinking” it opens them up to the vast resources of their own subconscious which already holds the answers. 

The art of Tarot hits upon a wide array of possible answers for one’s troubles. If one’s troubles are caused by subconscious blocks around creativity, emotion, intellect, material survival or spiritual develoment (and they often are in first world cultures), odds are that a tarot reading will touch upon more than just a few of these issues. Coupled with my ability as an empath to “sympathetically vibrate” at the same frequency as the troubled inner lives of others, the vast majority of my tarot readings bring practical insight into how to get out of a jam. 

Most folks I do tarot readings for (I estimate it at 75%) are “wowed” by the reading, remember it for years afterward, and make some sort of material, creative, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual change in their lives because of the reading that works out for the better.