Strong
A strong level means other people's states come all the way in and stay a while. You catch tension in a room before it is announced, an upset conversation stays in your body afterwards, and someone else's bad week becomes a measurable part of yours. None of that is a fault, and it is not the same as being fragile — this is the channel that makes people notice when a friend has gone quiet. What it does mean is that time among other people costs something, reliably, and that the cost is invisible from outside. Everyone at this level needs a way to put things down, and the ones who last build it deliberately. If most days go on carrying states that started elsewhere, and they are taking your own weeks from you, that is worth saying to someone qualified.
Moderate
A moderate level means other people's states reach you without taking you over. A difficult conversation leaves a mark and the mark fades; a tense room registers, and you can still think in it. This is the setting most people describe as normal, and it is also the least stable of the three channels: absorption climbs during a hard stretch and falls once there has been some distance, so a moderate reading is a snapshot rather than a fixed trait. In caring, teaching or crisis work, expect this number to move a long way in both directions across a year, and treat a sudden climb as information about your circumstances rather than about your character.
Faint
A faint level means other people's states largely stay theirs. You can sit with someone in a bad way and remain yourself, and you can leave a difficult conversation without carrying it through the rest of the day. This is the channel that decides whether empathy is sustainable, and a low level here is why some people do emotionally heavy work for decades without it hollowing them out. What it costs is a certain immediacy: states that other people catch from a room have to be told to you, and the emotional temperature of a group is information you get late or not at all. Steadiness and attunement come out of the same setting — you can't turn one up without turning the other down.