HELP: I'M TOO EMPATHETIC

Transforming hypersensitivity into inner strength

Did you know that empathy can sometimes turn into an emotional burden, overwhelming us to the point of exhaustion? Yet this great sensitivity can become a real asset if properly managed. How can we transform this natural ability into a balanced and enriching force?

Written by Chloé Lesage - October 2024

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Approx. 10 minutes

TRANSFORMING HYPERSENSITIVITY INTO INNER STRENGTH

This post explores how to rebalance your empathy to prevent it from becoming an emotional burden. Discover techniques to better manage your emotions and transform this great sensitivity into a powerful asset in your relationships and everyday life.

What if, starting today, you learned to manage your emotions to live a life of enriching empathy, aligned with your overall well-being? Ready to turn your hypersensitivity into a superpower?

"Let's take a look!

HELP: I'M TOO EMPATHETIC

When we come into contact with a person with negative emotions, we can feel bad for a long time, be stressed, or even be completely drained, to the point where we no longer have the strength to move forward with our own projects. It's as if empathy were a curse, condemning us to experience inner storms as we come into contact with others. So, unless we intend to become hermits, how can we manage this great sensitivity to avoid emotional overload? What if we could adjust empathy to make it a superpower?

For a long time, I myself thought that I was hypersensitive, highly emotional and overly empathetic. So it was only natural that other people's pain should twist my guts. Today, I know that it was a belief that allowed me to "accept" this type of uncontrollable situation that could happen to me. I've now readjusted my ability to connect with others and turn it into a strength.

A REVEALING SITUATION

Once in a bar, a friend was telling me how he'd had heart surgery.

The more my friend told me, the more I had the impression that it was me on the operating table. I could see the whole scene and feel every gesture he described on my body. I was experiencing his suffering as if it were my own...

And then... and then I fainted before he'd finished... Hello to the fire department. Hello to the doctors who found nothing...

What do you expect? Since it was purely emotional. I still remember that when I tried to explain the reason for my condition, they asked me if I'd taken any drugs. LOL.

I could tell I was really suffering from empathy... But...

EMPATHY IS AN INNATE AND VITAL ABILITY

Although we'll see that this doesn't fully explain how empathy can become a burden, there is a first, completely natural explanatory factor: human beings' extrasensory abilities.

It's an innate ability that everyone has. Even if some choose to focus solely on what they feel they have mastered... the mind. It's a reassuring strategy based on the mistaken beliefs of our modern societies, which condemn witches and venerate scientists. But it's a regrettable strategy that distances us from our true inner treasure, that cuts us off from a part of ourselves and from what differentiates us from a robot: our ability to feel.

All human beings have telepathic and empathic abilities, both powerful and natural. This explains why the other person can sometimes answer questions we haven't asked ourselves. It's also why, when you go to a group of positive people, you feel happier when you leave. Or when you go to a group of bitter old people, you feel more depressed when you leave. 

These predispositions are linked to the fact that human beings have been social by nature since the dawn of time. It's essential for living in a tribe. Language is a "technology" that slows things down. By the time you've formulated your thoughts, transmitted them and received feedback, the time's up. Of course, speech is essential and has always existed. It transmits complex knowledge. But imagine prehistoric hunting situations, where listening intuitively to the collective is the most efficient way to get the game.

So, as long as this ability allows us to build, all's well, but when it's really torrents of emotions that come to put us in a second state, it's a signal to tell us that there's something to work on. So, no, it's not normal "for someone like me" to suffer from empathy. In truth, the problem lies not in an excess of empathy, but in a mismanagement of my emotions.

NATURAL EMPATHY + POOR EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT = OVERFLOW POOL

This natural and powerful capacity for empathy becomes a problem when coupled with poor emotional management. The great neglects of our century. There's the collective belief that human beings are rational beings and that willpower and reason are enough to manage their impulses. Not at all! Goodbye Freud (who is largely ignored beyond the borders of France). Hello to the emotional body.

When we encounter a situation in which we are literally emotionally kidnapped, it's actually resonating with our own history, wounds and flaws, like a pebble that spreads ripples far beyond its epicenter. For example, my husband finds himself totally stressed when someone comes into the room with a very rushed energy. He can't regain his composure, even though he has no reason to be stressed in the first place. In his story, it was his rather domineering dad, always in a hurry, who came into the kitchen like a tornado, demanding answers and immediate action. It's hard for a developing child to be regularly confronted with everything going well and, a quarter of a second later, with urgency, demands and excessive performance.

So yes, we can drastically select inspiring and positive people around us to avoid finding ourselves dealing with uncomfortable emotions, but you, like me, know that this strategy has big limits since these people are already pretty rare and there will always be uncomfortable contact with uncomfortable people. So we can work on the only thing we have power over... ourselves.

SERENE EMPATHY: THE BALANCED, ENRICHING VERSION

The day we are able to manage our emotions, whatever they may be (powerlessness, anger, disgust, rejection, shame...), then we can be in true empathy. The kind of empathy that's present when we're connected to a person, and that fades instantly when we cut the connection, like a radio changing frequency.

True empathy is a channeling posture in which we clear our inner space to welcome information and feel it. In this authentic empathy, we connect with the other without losing ourselves, we are able to welcome the emotions of others while knowing how to sort out what belongs to us and what doesn't, and above all we are able to return to our own energy while maintaining our emotional balance. 

Being in control of your emotions doesn't mean stifling them or running away from them.

It means being able to weather storms like a sailboat on the sea.

Wind and rain pass by. The boat doesn't get lost or try to keep up. It doesn't resist. It stays on course, senses the outside elements, aims for calm and eventually transmutes the situation. 

A HEALING PATH: STRATEGIES THAT WORK

Nobody says it's easy, but it's not impossible. Just as Harry Potter learns to manage his powers, it's necessary to train and, above all, to repair your history, because the more personal resonance you have, the harder it is. 

Whether you want to heal yourself or surf the emotional waves, there are 10,000 ways to do it. There are only 2 ways that don't work. The first is to think that in time things will work themselves out, to wait and do nothing... It's all very well to be positive, but you have to understand the mechanics of the human being. What we face up to fades away. Otherwise, we configure ourselves in a perpetual negative reinforcement over the years.

The second way is to consider that the problem lies with the other person. Taking responsibility is not a way of grieving or feeling guilty. On the contrary, by recognizing what contributed to the situation, we regain the power to act. We get out of the victim posture and become actors again. Of course, we are often not 100% responsible, but there is always and inevitably a part of us that has contributed to the situation. I find it, I heal it at source and I never have to pay attention to it again. It's like magic!

What do we do? First of all, when you're touched by another person, you take a moment to identify when in your life you've already had this feeling. This can sometimes be completely related to something that may seem insignificant to our brains today, but which was of prime importance to a part of us at the time. The deeper we dig, the more we can find the very first time we felt that way. So we take time to repair at source. Sometimes, if it seems difficult, we can ask a professional for help. 

There are plenty of tools available to help you regulate your emotions: NVC (Non-Violent Communication), mindfulness...

EMBRACING EMPATHY: TRANSFORMING SENSITIVITY INTO STRENGTH

The path to balanced, enriching empathy begins with ourselves. It's a worthwhile journey, because it allows us to live in harmony with our emotions while sincerely connecting with others. So yes, it's never going to stop us from crying in front of a movie. Why does Bambi's mommy have to die? Why does Simba's dad have to be killed by his brother and pass the guilt on to his son? What's all this about??! It's just awful! 

But by cultivating a balanced empathy, I transform my sensitivity into a superpower that makes me much more resilient, but also more compassionate. Instead of running away from my emotions, I'm now learning to embrace them. I choose to transmute my flaws and work every day to become master of my emotions.  

I now recognize that my sensitivity is not a weakness but a real strength that is necessary in this world. It allows me to create deep connections with others, to understand their struggles and to share moments of joy and sadness. Every tear shed, every laugh shared, is a step towards a deeper understanding of myself and others. It is through my sensitivity that I am guided towards a richer life, where I can act constructively, become the best version of myself and inspire those around me. 

So, concretely, what do I do now? What's my next step? 

(Beware, however, that this ability can have side effects... mediumnity, for example).

Many thanks for your 4th inspiring article, Chloé!

Your words remind us that it's possible to transform our sensitivity into a real inner strength, and that every emotion can become a starting point towards greater well-being.

  • Chloé LESAGE

    Leadership coach and project facilitator

    Warrior at heart" is often the conclusion I get when I explain my life path. After a rocky start on this earth, I sought inner balance and expansion through a 15-year personal development journey in which I tested all conventional and atypical practices.

    Because learning never stops, I'm constantly nourishing my thirst for understanding. As a person with high intellectual and emotional potential, I've learned to put my abilities at the service of life so that it becomes a gift.

    My method is at the crossroads of who I am, the reappropriation of my 2-year training in personal development coaching and all my life experiences.

    It's a practice that involves the body, the emotions and the spiritual dimension all at the same time. For me, it's out of the question to accompany someone for years on end, which would, in my opinion, lead to dependency. My job, however, is to create the conditions for reappropriating one's inner power, so as to achieve immediate results in materializing one's objectives.

    Find out more about his career

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