What is the difference between being empathetic and empathic?

The striking difference between being empathic and empathetic is the experience. By Webster’s definition, empathy is the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it, or the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. In simple terms, it is the ability to relate to another person, but not actually feel their experience.

So being empathetic is to understand and relate, but being empathic is to feel and by feeling experience within the journey, life, and energy of another. This isn’t to say you become them, but you feel them within.

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