Hi ,
If you wonder, “why are people always telling me their life story!”, or “I feel everything from everyone and it’s exhausting!” – Then you’re probably empathic. Then this for you.
Empaths are special people.
They are easy to like, and people trust them as they can pay attention to feelings in an authentic way that is disarming and often alluring.
They walk through life experiencing a very different moment-to-moment experience than most people, and people don’t generally notice this.
You might expect a well-developed sensitivity to people’s feelings to be a fun superpower, but if you ask an empath what it’s like to be them, you’ll frequently hear “it’s exhausting! It’s overwhelming! I get so overcome with feelings that I can’t even be in the room. It’s hard to go to the store, much less to a party. People think I’m strange or something, but I can’t help it. I’ve always been this way. I sometimes can’t even tell what feelings are mine and what are other peoples! And please, why does everyone want to tell me their life story?”
Sounds pretty unpleasant and exhausting to me.
Empaths, by necessity, often develop sophisticated strategies for managing.
Some come to my sessions saying, “I need to develop good boundaries,” and that is often true but just as often not the real problem.
Frequently, empathic folk feel victimized. After all, it’s not their fault they are born sensitive in a harsh, inattentive world.
A wounded empath is often continuously and often invisibly (to others) triggered by the simple experience of other people.
It’s not a happy place to be; generally, no one notices or appreciates its intensity.
They can feel incredibly lonely and misunderstood.
Add to this that resentment about these feelings can be strong – – “Damn it! That feeling is not mine, but it’s ruining my day!”
I get you.
I have a special appreciation for empathic folk and specialize in working with people who identify as intuitive, empathic, and creative in ways that can seem to set one apart from the world.
Because I am on.
I’m Tired of the Roller Coaster
When I hear “I’m exhausted from this emotional roller coaster!” or “I’m tired of feeling knocked around by the feelings of others,” I think “YES!” because it mean there’s part of you that knows there is a better way.
That healthy part of you knows you can have a better life AND knows the way to get there if given a chance.
The notion that the path to healing is built-in is a based on a principle called organicity*.
The practice, the path to better is embrace the you that already knows the way – and expore how to give that voice a more central role in your life.
THAT’s how you reclaim your space.
It’s Not Fair
The belief that “it’s not fair” to be sensitive in an insensitive world can lead to a sense of victimization.
Some practitioners will shame you, saying, “you don’t want to be in that victim mentality.”
To me, that kind of judgment is a form of violence* and part of my work embodies non-violence.
You’re not wrong for having those feelings.
They are your feelings and you good reason for them.
My work is to help you explore whatever feelings you have so you can discover anew for yourself how these feeling arise. Only then can you be at choice.
When you feel in a very bodily way, “in your bones,” so to speak, the truth of your situation, then, and only then does it become possible to choose to be different.
Once you’ve seen the solution to a puzzle, it’s not a puzzle anymore.
You can’t ever return to your “baffled” self about it.
In the same way, when you gain a foundational, somatic sense of who you truly are – you can’t unknow it.
(One way I help clients turn to this is to ask “who were you before the world told you who to be?)
Everything you do after that is better informed.
Other People’s Feelings are Intrusive
Underneath all of this, a wounded empath is continuously dealing with the IMPACT of feelings that, in their world, come from other people.
It’s like other people are at fault for disrupting their world.
This often has roots in reality.
Consider the world of a young person (say 7 or 8) who had parent, caregiver, or sibling that was unstable and could be abusive at any moment.
In this house, a child learns to be VERY attuned to the mood shifts and non-verbal behavior of people because their safety literally depends on it.
In this scenario, one learns that sensitivity is directly related to security or it’s shadow – danger.
Awarness become neurlogically connected with saftey (or fear of harm).
They become associated in your brain (called a neural network).
So relaxing is interrrpeted as danger.
In another scenario, a child may develop an intense awareness of others in order to get attention and affection.
If a caregiver was distant or hard to reach, one of the tools a child or infant has is to amplify some kind of behavior so they get noticed.
The child may choose an attractive expression, such as being cute or endearing (and later, potentially leading to seductive behavior).
The child may also choose to be unpleasant or disturbing. Whatever works.
As an adult, this person could identify as empathic because they are continually monitoring others to see if they are paying attention to them.
If yes, they feel safer, and if not, then the world is a cold, insecure place.
This particular kind of wound is called an attachment wound.
Specialized techniques are used to carefully and mindfully explore these issues.
The Rightful Life of a Healthy Empath
While I’ve talked about the ways that empathy can be born of unpleasant circumstances, it isnt always so.
There are those who are simply resonate beings. Who feel others deeply in substiantuial and meaningful ways.
Empaths have work to do to get in right relationship to their talents.
And when they do. You are gift to the world.
They can bear witness to great suffering in an incredibly supportive and compassionate way without losing themselves.
Their moment-to-moment experience can be one of great depth that is profoundly satisfying and not dependent on the moods of others.
They have the power to elevate the mundane to a celebration of the exquisite richness of life.
Being in a conversation with an empathic soul in a state of loving presence, is in and of itself – a healing experience.
There is no judgement. No expectation. No ask. Just loving presence and connection to place beyond words.
As Rumi says “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
In a mature, well-developed, empath – empathy with people broadens to be resonance with life itself. And that is a pretty awesome superpower.