Highly Sensitive Person, Empath, or Intuitive — What’s the Difference?
Hey! Are you in, around, under, over, or adjacent to “wellness” conversations? If so, you’ve probably heard the terms highly sensitive person, empath, and intuitive thrown around whilst perusing the adaptogens aisle in your favorite health food store or seen them used on your favorite all-white-wearing manifestation teacher.
(Oh, she’s spicy today.)
These terms are certainly useful and relatively well-known in wellness spaces, but they’re also up for personal interpretation and have flexible definitions. Typically, though, you’ll hear these words used to describe someone who’s pretty sensitive to the energy around them — including the energy of other people.
I prefer to think of these distinct “types” of people not as separate entities (like, “I’m a highly-sensitive intuitive”) but more as steps on a ladder. Although the goal doesn’t have to be ascension, I think that we generally start as Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) and evolve into intuitive beings with deep practice and thoughtfulness. I don’t think that ascension is necessarily better or worse, but I do believe that commitment to self-mastery is something to strive for no matter where we fall on the spectrum.
Good news — there’s no definition police when it comes to these terms so if you have a problem with it, cool! You don’t have to agree with it or even like it! Feel free to take my interpretation with a grain of salt.
However, as someone who’s on DEFINITELY on this spectrum, I feel comfortable sharing my experiences, successes, and failures on this path. Keep scrolling to learn more about HSPs, empaths, and intuitives — and see where you fall on the scale.
Highly Sensitive Person
An HSP, or a highly sensitive person, is defined as someone who’s both extremely sensitive to the physical world and energy. I always think of HSPs as Rob Lowe’s Chis Traeger character on Parks and Rec — incredible physical specimens, but if they touch a germ they’re down for the count.
HSPs typically have superpowers — they’re super tasters with extra tastebuds, they have amazing hearing, they’re incredible athletes — but they’re so sensitive that if a “grain of sand” gets in their system they’re toast.
HSPs are known for food allergies for this specific reason. They’re more likely to feel shitty than other people after eating poorly because they’re so attuned to their bodies … and also because they legitimately have more food allergies and intolerances. Microchip! While definitely a skill, but you can probably see why that’d be really annoying and difficult, too.
If you’re a HSP, you may also have a hard time in crowds, experiencing loud noises, watching movies with action or disturbing imagery, or watching the news. HSPs have an extremely permeable energetic membrane. Watching a five-minute CNN story will give them depression for a week. Again, you can see how this would be problematic, because if an HSP can’t manage their sensitivity then they need to effectively opt out from much of the world’s experiences.
Opting out is a choice rooted in privilege, and if you care about intersectionality, then it’s something you’ll avoid at all costs.
HSPs are also incredibly sensitive to the emotions and energy of the people around them. If they walked into a crowded room, they’d feel a wave of energy overcome them, and they immediately take on the emotions of others in the space. However, HSPs are so sensitive that they have a difficult time feeling into whose emotions they’re glomming onto; if you’re an HSP you might ask yourself, “Is this emotion really mine? Or is it someone else’s — and who?”
The best way for an HSP to discover which emotions are truly theirs is to be alone. For this reason, HSPs require lots of quiet time.
It’s amazing to be an HSP, but it’s also pretty overwhelming and lonely. You’re kind of like an X-Men before they go to school with Professor X — you’ve got powers but like, WTF are you supposed to do with them?!? And also how can you not hurt yourself in the process of utilization?
For HSPs to upgrade their operating system, it’s important to develop personal resilience and boundaries so they’re not thrown off by every other entity that they encounter in their day-to-day. Otherwise, in order to get things done and feel their most peaceful they’ll find themselves spending a lot of time alone.
Empath
The next level up from an HSP, empaths have a better handle on their ability to operate in the world, but still, feel other people’s feelings.
Empaths aren’t thrown off in the same way that HSPs are. This is a hard-won benefit. Someone who identifies as an empath probably has spent a fair amount of time examining their sensitivities and cultivating personal sovereignty over their own emotions. Maybe this came through spiritual practice, daily meditation, or a deeper understanding of their gifts and how to use them.
They’ve likely dialed in their nutritional needs, are a little more hearty, and for that reason can exist relatively normally. An empath is still very sensitive, but knows how to avoid or solve for problematic energy that they encounter.
That being said, empaths live up to their name and are able to empathize with another person’s emotions or feelings — to a fault.
Maybe this is accidental — an empath will pick up on the emotions of another because of their sensitivity and feel them so deeply that they don’t recognize if the source of the feelings is coming from inside them or beyond them. This can also come up as codependency in relationships, because we feel enmeshed in the emotions of the person we’re spending time with.
When we operate with empathy instead of compassion, we become entrenched in the emotions of others to the point where we’re unable to see and operate with clarity. If we can use compassion, we retain our personal sovereignty in all situations, which is way more helpful to everyone involved.
For example, if I’m an empath and a friend tells me about their mistreatment by their employer, I’ll feel all the same emotions my friend is feeling: anger, disappointment, fear, betrayal, hopelessness. I might even start crying with them, and feel the need to retaliate against the employer as if I were the one being abused. But if I can relate with compassion, I can see the problem my friend is going through and offer them support (a shoulder to cry on? A glass of wine? A spell?) and possibly, a helpful outside solution or perspective.
In some cases, empaths pick up on the emotions of another person purposefully. They feel into what the other person is going through, without needing to ask.
This is actually super invasive and low-key problematic. It’s the same as reading someone’s diary. If you are an empath and use your gifts to “mind read” without permission, watch yourself. Would you like it if someone did that to you? Probably not. We need to earn the trust and respect of the people we care about enough for them to decide to share their feelings with us. We aren’t entitled to access to their inner world. Ask for consent, ALWAYS.
Intuitive
An intuitive is a highly sensitive person with mastery over their gifts and their boundaries. Ideally, someone who is intuitive can effectively turn their gifts on and off — tune in when they need it, turn off when it’s inappropriate.
This isn’t a final destination — I find that I slip into HSP or empath qualities a lot, depending on how well I’m taking care of myself or what’s going on in my life. But I feel my healthiest when I’m able to create boundaries for myself, because boundaries mean we honor or have respect for ourselves. And when we respect our own boundaries, we usually begin to see and respect the boundaries of others.
You have to start somewhere when creating boundaries. I think that seeing and practicing the difference between empathy and compassion is a helpful place to begin. Remember that boundaries are a permeable thing, and ever-changing. They’re not meant to be a brick wall that keeps everything out — more like a cell wall that’s selective with what it allows in and out.
Like a cell wall, your boundaries can change depending on how you feel. Emily Anderson uses the term “self-honoring” practice instead of a boundary, which I find so helpful. Instead of trying to anxiously create boundaries, ask yourself instead whether an act honors you or not. If it doesn’t, there you go — you’ve created a boundary by saying, “no” to it.
Conclusion
We’re all HSPs. Empaths. Intuitives. We’re all special!!!! The difference between these destinations is a matter of self-compassion and mastery over boundaries.
