Are you an empathetic person? If so, you may have run into this problem before. When you take on another person‘s emotions or baggage as your own, it is very easy to lose yourself in the process. Where many empathetic people have a difficult time turning on and off their empathy, it is necessary to a certain extent or else you run the risk of ruining your own life and happiness. So, is your empathy preventing you from living your life?
As empathetic people, we are able to better maintain relationships, deeply understand people on a level that others cannot even fathom, and most of all we are able to comfort and help people in amazing ways. When we are unable to find boundaries for our empathy to live, they can take control of our lives and our emotions. We can even destroy our closest relationships when our loved ones see we are inflicting harm upon ourselves by being unable to turn the empathy off. We tend to give too much of ourselves. We give until there is nothing left to give.
Because this is such a common trait among empaths, empaths have a difficult time building boundaries for themselves. They struggle and fight to contain their empathy. But many cannot. The emotions are too strong.
There are things you can do that will help you control these emotions and behaviors. Once you are able to do that you will be able to enjoy the abilities to their fullest potential.
3 Ways to Keep Your Empathy in Check
Mind over matter– where empathy is a large part of who we are, it is not what defines us. It is an ability, yes. It is an emotion, yes. It is a powerful source of understanding, yes. Yet it does not define who we are. Like any emotion, we must be conscious of it when it arises and realize that it’s like any other emotion and it’s our choice whether to feel it or not. We must use brain power to decide if it’s healthy to embrace the empathy or if we would be better off to let it go.
Stay present in the situation– in order to have mind over matter, you must first learn how to stay present in the situation. For many of us, empathy is something of a process that happens in the realm of not knowing. It’s unconscious and it’s intuitive. The process will happen before we even know what hit us. For this reason, we must learn to stay conscious, to watch the process. We must clearly define our triggers and be aware that when they arise, empathy is soon to follow. Empathy is a powerful source and we are much better off learning how to yield it than we are allowing it to overtake our lives.
Learn to control your emotions– like anybody else empaths must learn how to control their emotions, but especially empaths. Why? Because they feel their own emotions plus others. It can be extremely overwhelming and difficult to control. Imagine being overtaken by another’s emotions? Isn’t it hard enough to deal with your own? Many people will take advantage of empaths who are not in touch with their own emotions because they are easily controlled. Especially a narcissistic personality will detect an empath who has no control over their emotions. They will then get the empath to feel for them and they will control the empath’s behavior this way. This is scary stuff for an empath. The best thing we can do is learn to control our own emotions.
Being an empathetic person is not a bad thing, but it is a tough life to live, especially if you do not have control over your empathy. It’s a large responsibility to bear, but remember the universe only gives us what we can handle. The way to do the best with your empathy is to learn to control it and use it when you choose to do so and not let empathy prevent you from living your life.
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