Being an empath can be immensely rewarding and exhausting in turn. On one hand, it can be extremely beneficial to be able to sense what others are feeling when you’re in a position where you can help them. But on the other hand, being an empath can get overwhelming when you’re already overstimulated and you’re being walloped by waves of emotional energy from all sides while trying to concentrate on work deadlines.
Empaths who dislike their current jobs might wish to consider these alternate career paths, depending on whether they want to embrace their gifts or shield themselves from them.
Careers for empaths who want to use their gifts
Medicine
Empaths can often sense things that are wrong even when there aren’t any noticeable signs (or when lab results come back as supposedly “normal”). As such, they may thrive as doctors, nurses, or in other related healthcare fields so they can use their gifts hands-on to heal and care for people.
Social Work
Much like with nurses, social workers who have empathic gifts can often intuit issues that are hiding below the surface. The people in their care might be doing their best to hide problems they’re struggling with — either because they’re ashamed of them or they’re afraid of potential repercussions if they admit them — so empathic intuition can often mean the difference between safety and danger for vulnerable members of society.
Humanitarian outreach
Extroverted empaths who embrace their gifts often get involved with humanitarian causes. Some may work with homeless people while others lead search and rescue teams, using their intuition to help those who might otherwise fall through the cracks — sometimes literally. A friend of mine is a fiercely extroverted empath working with the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue, and she has often found lost hikers and tourists just by following her instincts.
Psychotherapy
Therapy can be really intense for people, so empathic, supportive, caring, and natural listeners are ideally suited to help those who are navigating emotional distress. Furthermore, they can offer advice and approaches to suit each individual based on what they feel will work best for them.
Arts instruction
Some of the best art, dance, and music teachers are natural empaths who know how to reach their students in the ways that suit them best. They can just sense which approach will work with whom, and spark that light in them accordingly. Note that arts instruction isn’t just limited to classes, but can involve therapy as well.
Fitness training
As with healthcare practitioners, fitness trainers who are naturally empathic can often intuit which exercises will benefit a person the most just by sensing their strengths and weaknesses. They may also be able to “see” past injuries or malformations that the individuals weren’t even aware of, and thus avoid further damage.
Hospice care/death doula
Empaths who are comfortable with death and dying may find hospice care or death midwifery/doula work immensely fulfilling. They can approach end-of-life care with great compassion, will intuitively know when their clients are ready to pass on, and can offer the support they need accordingly.
Careers for empaths who find that their empathy drains them too much
Graphic design or illustration
Artistically inclined empaths often thrive as graphic designers and/or illustrators because they can work alone, on their own terms. Some might work with studios while others are freelancers, but either way, they can work from home without being constantly interrupted or bombarded by other people’s energy. Additionally, many designers can naturally intuit what their clients are looking for, even if those clients can’t express their needs in words.
Library sciences
If you’ve ever been shushed by a librarian for breathing too loudly, you know just how quiet and serene libraries can be. Many empaths are drawn to library sciences because not only do they get to spend their days surrounded by the books they love, but they can do so while working in near silence.
It’s very rare for libraries to become overcrowded, raucous spaces either: the people who frequent them either choose books and check them out rather quickly, or spend hours studying and working in quiet corners rather than broadcasting their emotional drama in all directions.
Horticulture or botany
Do you know what’s great about plants? They don’t shout at you or disrupt your energy field. Although plants do communicate via electrical impulses and chemical signals, they don’t have the same impact on empathic senses that human emotions do. As a result, empaths generally love nature, and those who spend their days cultivating and tending plants tend to be far more grounded and serene than those who are forced to “people” all day.
Music production
Much like graphic design, music production can be done independently, alone in a studio or at home (depending on the type of music being created), on the empath’s own terms. As long as they have the instruments and/or equipment needed to create this music, they don’t actually have to see or speak to other people unless they absolutely want to.
Online teaching or tutoring
Empaths who love the idea of sharing their knowledge with others but don’t have the capacity to endure a classroom environment may thrive as a remote teacher or tutor. One great thing about interacting with others remotely is that their energy doesn’t affect empaths the same way as it does in person. By teaching or tutoring online, they can share their knowledge and experience without being drained, and then they can simply log off when they’re done.
Writing and/or editing
If you were to take a poll of various writers and editors, you’d likely discover that a startling number of them are empaths. Many empathic people are fiercely creative, and they often took solace in reading books from an early age. This makes them ideally suited to careers in writing and editing, both of which require a lot of silence and solitude.
Furniture moving
When helping people to move furniture, there’s usually very little socializing involved: it’s mostly lifting heavy things, putting them into a van, driving a bit, and then reversing the process. If a few “strong and silent” empaths work well together, they can team up and start a moving company with the knowledge that they won’t fill their days with hollow small talk or drama.
*Note: empaths who love to drive might also benefit from long-haul moving or truck driving as well. They get to spend hours on the road by themselves, only interacting with clerks at truck stops and clients at their final destinations.
Night shift clerk/front desk work
Being a night shift clerk or front desk worker at a business, apartment complex, or hotel is low-stress work that involves very little human interaction. As a result, it’s a great option for empaths who neither want to work from home nor wish to be overwhelmed with conversation.
Security guard
Empaths who fall onto the “big and strong” spectrum but don’t particularly want to haul furniture around often thrive as security guards — especially in places that don’t get a lot of traffic. For example, guards who patrol storage units or shopping malls might go entire shifts without running into other human beings: they simply go on their routes, take notes, punch in and out, and call in if they come across a suspicious-looking raccoon.
Final thoughts…
These are the main career paths that are best suited to empaths of both flavors, but there are sub-categories for each of them depending on what part of the empath spectrum they fall into. For example, those who get overwhelmed easily but still want to socialize can work with people part-time and spend the rest of their time freelancing from home. Similarly, an extremely sensitive empath who still wants to work in medicine may thrive by working in a research lab. Each individual can intuit the path that’s best for them.
