For me, an empath is someone who is sensitive to other people's emotions/energy or has a spirituaI connection that provides them with information about other people or the world that they feel or see in the mind. Our world is more than just what we can feel, hear and see. Our feelings and emotions effect our reality. This is why two people might see the exact same event but have total different interpretations about what they just saw and some retain the memory, and others might retain totally different aspects of the event in their memory.

Anyways, back to empaths, all atoms are energy and I think we all fall on a spectrum concerning our ability to sense energy (how empathic we are). Our thoughts are energy and our emotional thoughts are much more energetic than our mundane thoughts. Sometimes I wonder if people who are bipolar, schizophrenic, etc. are just more sensitive to the universe's energy.

So I do believe many of us are empaths; in fact, many may be a bit more of an empath than they realize but bury the thoughts in order to cope with drugs, alcohol, food, video games, and other distractions.