Many people identify as empaths.
We feel deeply. Not only our own feelings, but the feelings of other people. We feel what is being said and what isn’t. We sense what is underneath the words. We’re taking in a tremendous amount of information all the time.
For many empaths, this degree of input can become overwhelming to the nervous system. We may become sensitive to noise, light, crowds, stimulation, the news, and even the emotional content of a television show. There is simply so much coming in.
My experience is that many empaths learned very early in life to process what others could not hold.
A child comes into the world bright, open, and connected. The parents are carrying the load of adult life. They are stressed, worried, overwhelmed, grieving, anxious, or simply trying to get through the day.
The child senses this overload and, most innocently, the child begins to offer their light.
The child starts paying close attention to subtle shifts in their parents’ mood and emotional weather. Instead of being immersed in play and imagination, some of their energy becomes organized around monitoring the people around them.
The parents are doing the best they can under the load they’re carrying. When the result is stress in the household, without realizing it, the child learns that life goes better if they process what others cannot hold. They adapt, and their adaptation becomes a way of life.
The empath becomes highly skilled at sensing. They can feel what is needed. They often know what would help. They develop remarkable intuition, but they also become overloaded by carrying emotions that don’t belong to them.
Over time, the nervous system can become strained under the weight of all that it is holding. In my own life, and in the lives of many sensitive people I’ve worked with, this often shows up as chronic pain, fatigue, immune system challenges, and other expressions of overload.
The challenge is that empaths become so practiced at tuning in to others that they often don’t realize they have merged with them. The process is automatic.
When someone is struggling, upset or carrying pain, the empath immediately begins processing.
The healing journey begins with differentiation.
This is me.
That is you.
And while those words sound simple, it takes a lot of practice to reduce this tuning tendency.
The empath must learn that other people can have their pain, struggle and process. None of it requires the empath’s involvement for the empath to feel safe.
For me, one of the deepest realizations has been understanding that the child within is looking outside for safety. She’s trying to save the whole world to feel safe.
But life doesn’t work that way. There will always be pain, uncertainty and things that need healing.
At some point, the adult self has to turn toward the child and say: “I’ve got you. You are safe with me.”
When we stop pouring all of our energy outward and start pulling our energy back into our bodies, our own experiences, and our energetic fields, we’re more capable of developing a relationship with our child-selves and being the safety for them.
For me, strengthening my body has been an important part of this process.
For many years, I was drawn only to gentle practices. Walks in nature. Swimming. Yoga.
In the past few years, I began lifting weights. It has been one of the most stabilizing things I’ve done. It’s brought me more physical grit and taught me to stay with myself when there are a lot of other people and energies around me in the gym.
Empaths need practices to remain rooted in our own bodies amidst stimulation.
We need to create more earth, more grounding, more resilience.
As we build our capacity to hold ourselves, the absorption reduces. We become more trusting that we’re not here to save people. We trust that people are on their own path.
When we become more held within, the impulse to act on everything we sense softens. We no longer need to process everything we perceive.
The gifts of intuition and sensitivity remain, but we have more inner space and more capacity to sense and release rather than hold for others.
As we pull our energy back to ourselves, life becomes quieter. There’s less emotional weather to track, and less energy is spent monitoring everyone else’s inner world.
At first, it can feel strange to be in the space and the stillness. The mind will look for things to process or fix, but ultimately, if we can stay with ourselves, there’s less drama and more freedom.
The more we hold ourselves and our inner child, the more playfulness and joy we can access. There’s more capacity to simply be.
The mature empath still feels deeply but can distinguish what belongs to them from what belongs to others. They can be intuitive and open without carrying other people’s pain. They’re deeply rooted in themselves and strongly held within.
They keep cultivating trust that everyone is on their own path and rest into the inner safety they’ve created to hold themselves.
I wish you well pulling your energy back to you, holding yourself, nurturing yourself, and trusting that you can be both intuitive and strongly held.
With care,
Alyssa
Go Deeper
Much of what I’ve shared here is explored in more detail in my free Healing From Within course.
The course looks at the emotional load we carry, how we developed the patterns that shape our lives, and what it means to become more held, boundaried, and at peace within ourselves.
There is a section that is particularly relevant to empaths, including boundaries, differentiation, and making peace with what is from a place of greater containment.
The course is free for one more week. If you’d like to join, you’ll find the link below.
Register for Healing From Within
Students who are engaged in the course are also welcome to attend a free live workshop with me, where we’ll continue exploring these themes together. The registration link is in the course.
