Lately, I’ve noticed a trend: people saying they avoid anyone who calls themselves an empath. That reaction says more about the person avoiding than the one claiming empathy. If someone’s openness about feeling deeply makes you uncomfortable, it’s worth asking—what part of you feels threatened by vulnerability?
Here’s what’s often missed: narcissism and empathy aren’t just personality traits—they’re energetic expressions. They’re the visible tips of deeper, often unconscious, patterns of masculine and feminine energy at play.
- Narcissism is usually seen as self-centeredness, lack of empathy, and a need for control. Energetically, this aligns with wounded or distorted masculine energy: rigid boundaries, dominance, performance, and separation.
- Empathic overdrive—the kind that leads to self-sacrifice and burnout—reflects wounded or ungrounded feminine energy: porous boundaries, over-giving, emotional enmeshment, and self-abandonment.
Neither is inherently “bad.” Both are simply energy out of balance, showing up in different ways depending on our level of awareness.
It’s a spectrum. At lower levels of consciousness, these energies become extreme—hyper-selfishness (narcissism) or hyper-selflessness (martyrdom). As consciousness expands, the energies begin to harmonize. The healthy masculine brings clarity, direction, and protection. The healthy feminine brings intuition, compassion, and connection. When balanced, they create wholeness.
“Masculine-feminine imbalance is often what people call narcissism or codependency, but deeper down, it’s just energy out of alignment, waiting to come home.”
So, when someone says “I’m an empath,” and the response is immediate avoidance, it’s worth reflecting: is this a reaction to your own discomfort with feeling, or a projection of unhealed energy? Blaming empaths while excusing narcissism as just “confidence” is missing the point.
We’re all somewhere on this spectrum. The real work is noticing where our own energy is out of balance and bringing it back into harmony. That’s how we move from unconscious patterns to conscious wholeness.
To learn more watch my most recent ‘My Naked Truth’ video (episode 91) here Narcissism and Empathy: It’s All a Spectrum | My Naked Truth ep 91
