The Ultimate Guide To Happiness For Empaths

Finding your happiness as an empath can be challenging when you feel everything so deeply. In this article, we share tips to feel happier.

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Did you ever ask yourself ‘Why was I born an empath’ or ‘Why can’t I just feel everything less deeply’? This is a thought that crosses many empaths’ minds sooner or later. Usually, this happens at a point in life where everything feels too intense.

Especially when your surroundings do not understand your challenges as an empath or gaslight you, it may feel overwhelming to be an empath.

You may start seeing your trait more as a curse than a blessing. However, it is fully possible for empaths to be happy in life. In this happiness guide, you’ll discover how to be happy as an empath.

What Makes An Empath Happy? Five Core Aspects To Realize Happiness As An Empath

Happiness is not determined by just one or two factors in life. In fact, it consists of five core aspects that together contribute to your overall wellbeing as an empath. These five core aspects are described in the PERMA model as introduced by Dr. Martin Seligman.

Perma stands for Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments. In this article, you’ll discover each of these factors and learn how you as an empath can utilize them the most.

If you’d like to deep dive into these five aspects of happiness, make sure to read the book ‘Flourish’ by Dr. Martin Seligman.

1. Positive Emotion

Positive emotion involves emotions such as interest, joy, love, gratitude, compassion, amusement and hope. Moreover, these high vibrational emotions positively influence your overall wellbeing.

Studies show that individuals who implement these positive emotions in their daily life, manage to improve their habitual thinking and acting. By consciously focusing on seeking positive emotion, you increase your happiness as an empath.

So, how can you as an empath evoke these positive emotions within you? Here are some practical suggestions:

Gratitude Practice For Empaths

First of all, you may want to consider implementing a gratitude practice in your daily routine. Expressing gratitude helps you to look at the blessings you have in life, rather than only longing for the blessings you don’t have yet. Here’s an easy gratitude exercise for empaths:

1. Grab a notebook and a pen
2. Write down 3 things you are grateful for
3. Tune into the emotions of each gratitude item you wrote on your list
4. End the practice welcoming more of these blessings into your life

This simple practice is incredibly powerful. By tuning into the different items on your list, you invite many different positive emotions to arise. Doing this consistently, may help you to feel more and more positive in your day to day life.

Listen To Uplifting Music

Another powerful way to evoke happiness as an empath is to listen to uplifting or inspirational music. For instance, you may want to start listening to affirmation music.

This is music that repeats positive affirmations to increase your vibration. There are thousands of different types of affirmation songs. For example, you may want to listen to money affirmation songs, health affirmation songs or positive mindset affirmations songs.

Start your day with these positive tunes and notice how your energy changes.

Spend Time On Your Hobbies

Spending time on your hobbies may have positive effect on your happiness as an empath. When we do something we love doing, our bodies feel relaxed and at peace.

Moreover, our hobbies inspire us. This inspiration is valuable in our other activities – such as work – as well. If you feel guilty for spending your time on hobbies, try to remember the benefits of evoking positive emotions. It will not only benefit you in that moment but also in the long run!

Protect Your Energy

As an empath, your happiness is influenced by the people you surround yourself with. Oftentimes, you may take on emotions that aren’t yours. Therefore, it is crucial to protect your energy field.

Begin your day with a energy protection meditation. This helps you to shield yourself from any unwanted negative emotions in your body that aren’t yours.

Moreover, end your day with an energy cleansing meditation. This helps you to get rid of any energies that ‘stuck’ to your aura throughout the day. Also, you may want to recall any energy that was taken from you without your consent. Simply say ‘I recall all energy that left my body without my consent now’.

Here is a powerful meditation you may want to try at the end of the day:

2. Engagement

Besides positive emotions, engagement is a crucial happiness factor for empaths. When you are truly engaged, you find yourself in a state of ‘flow‘.

According to happiness researcher Csikszentmihalyi, flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it”.

Oftentimes, we find ourselves in a state of flow when we have a challenge at hand and our skill set enables us to find solutions to this challenge. Repeatedly working from a place of flow helps you to increase positive emotion and thereby increase your happiness.

So, how to achieve that level of engagement?

Practice The Power Of Now

One of the aspects of engagement is to let go of the past and the future and focus on the here and now. Oftentimes, empaths and also highly sensitive people find themselves overthinking.

Learning to focus your mind on the here and now, helps you to be more engaged with your current activities. If you struggle with this, reading the book ‘The Power of Now‘ by Eckhart Tolle may help you to overcome some of your challenges.

Regularly Participate In Activities That Make You Lose Track Of Time

Which activities make you feel like time passes by quickly? Try to make a list of all the activities you can think of. Whether it is going on a boat trip, apple picking or dancing – as long as it helps you to feel engaged, do it!

Doing these activities regularly helps you to increase your happiness hormones, which will positively impact your daily life.

Learn More About Your Strengths

If you want to feel more engaged and experience flow in life, learning about your strengths is incredibly helpful. There are many ways to learn what you are good at.

One personality test that is wildly popular amongst highly sensitive people and empaths, is the free 16 personalities-test. It provides you with an in-depth report of your strengths and weaknesses.

Knowing your strengths and using them can help you to increase your happiness as an empath and experience flow more often.

3. Relationships

The third aspect of the PERMA model is relationships – or to be more specific – positive relationships. This aspect involves all the people you interact with on a regular basis; family members, co-workers, friends, your spouse and other acquaintances.

However, we all know that not all relationships in our lives are positive. Positive relationships are those who make you feel loved, supported and valued by others.

Especially for empaths, this aspect is crucial! After all, you do not only feel your own emotions, but also those of the people around you.

Therefore, pay close attention to this part of your happiness as an empath. Here are some ways to improve positive relationships in your life.

Find Your People

While it is okay that everybody is different, it definitely helps to have a couple of people in your life who truly get you. Especially as an empath, having people in your life who understand you and your needs is valuable.

If you do not know many people who are on the same wavelength, make sure to join hobby classes or groups to get to know people with similar interests.

Also, as an empath you may want to join our Ideal Self Membership. Here, you’ll find many like minded souls whilst being able to work on your personal growth.

Let Go Of Negative Relationships

Life is too short to spend your time with people who do not respect you. If you have people in your life who constantly disrespect you and cross your boundaries, let go of them. It sounds very harsh, but these people take up space in your life energetically.

Sure, you can protect your energy every time you visit them, but what is the point? Why would you do that? If you do not really enjoy their company and they make you feel bad about yourself, it may be time to lovingly let those relationships go.

4. Meaning

The fourth aspect of happiness for empaths is meaning. Everyone desires to feel valuable and experience a sense of worth. That is what meaning is all about.

In the end, contributing to something greater than ourselves makes us feel appreciated and worthy. Therefore, it is crucial to seek a purpose in life and do everything you can to pursue that purpose.

Your purpose is widely defined by your personal values and research has shown that people who live their purpose experience greater life satisfaction and less health problems.

So, how to experience meaning in your life? Here are some practical tips:

Support A Cause That Matters To You

One of the easiest ways to experience meaning in your life as an empath is to find causes that align with your personal values. For instance, if you care about sustainability, try to support organizations who care about this as well.

Support comes in many different forms; whether it is financial support, helping the organization with your skills or spreading their message on social media. As long as you can help out in some way, this will provide your life with meaning and ultimately happiness.

Find Ways To Help Others With Your Skills

Another method to find meaning is to look at your specific skills and see how they can help others. All of us are good at something and when we utilize our skills to support others, this may result in great meaning in life.

For instance, you could share your knowledge about your skills on social media and write a blog, or you could help somebody who is in need of your skills.

Ultimately, helping others is a wonderful way to experience meaning and a sense of belonging in life. Especially empaths – who care deeply about others – seem to thrive when they can help others. Consequently, this is a great source of happiness for empaths.

5. Accomplishments

Finally, accomplishments is the last aspect of the PERMA model for happiness. When a child overcomes a hurdle, it smiles proudly and is happy. It accomplished something.

The same goes for us! When we overcome challenges, we feel proud and fulfilled. It feels like a true accomplishment. At the end of our lives, many of us will look back on this aspect. What have we accomplished in life? What have we contributed?

This emphasizes how important it is to look at your life and what you want to leave behind. Below are some ways to ensure that you as an empath can increase your happiness through accomplishments.

Look Back On Past Successes

First of all, it is important to look back on past successes every now and then. Oftentimes, we only look at the road ahead and forget to look at all the hurdles we’ve already overcome.

Therefore, try to regularly reflect on your past successes. Look at what you’ve overcome. Write it down. Feel the pride of overcoming these moments.

Doing this, will help you to feel motivated to reach your upcoming challenges!

Set Powerful Goals

Once you reflected upon your past achievements, you should work on setting powerful goals. A powerful goal is smart: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

By setting smart goals for yourself, it will be easier to keep track of your process and stay motivated.

Celebrate Your Milestones

Once you’ve achieved your goals, make sure to celebrate them! Don’t dismiss them as if it was nothing! You worked hard to achieve your goals and deserve to celebrate them.

Treat yourself with a nice flower bouquet or a dinner out with a good friend or your partner. Milestones should be celebrated, no matter how small!

In the end, feeling happy as an empath is possible. By making sure to include positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishments in your life, you can truly thrive.

I am curious; which of these aspects do you struggle with right now? What could you do to change that?

Do You Want To Learn More About Happiness For Empaths? Here Are Some Valuable Resources:

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