HELP: I'M TOO EMPATHIC
Transforming hypersensitivity into true inner strength
Did you know that empathy can sometimes become an emotional burden, overwhelming us to the point of exhaustion? Yet, this great sensitivity can become a real asset if managed well. How can we transform this natural ability into a balanced and enriching strength?
Written by Chloé Lesage - October 2024
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About 10 minutes
TRANSFORM YOUR 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 heightened sensitivity into a powerful asset in your relationships and daily life.
What if, starting today, you learned to manage your emotions to experience enriching empathy, aligned with your overall well-being? Ready to transform your hypersensitivity into a superpower?
"Let's take a look"!
HELP: I'M TOO EMPATHIC
When we come into contact with someone with negative emotions, we can feel bad for a long time, stressed, or even completely drained to the point of no longer having the strength to move forward with our own projects. It's as if empathy were a curse that condemns us to experience inner storms as we encounter them. So, unless we intend to become a hermit, 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 I was hypersensitive, had high emotional potential, and had an excess of empathy. It was therefore only natural that the pain of others would 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. From now on, I have readjusted my ability to connect with others to make it a strength.
A REVEALING SITUATION
Once in a bar, a friend was telling me how he had had heart surgery.
The more my friend told me, the more I felt like it was me on the operating table. I saw the scene completely and felt, on my body, each of the gestures he described. I experienced his suffering as if it were my own...
And then... and then I passed out before he finished... Hello to the firefighters. Hello to the doctors who found nothing...
Normal! Since it was purely emotional. I still remember that when I tried to explain to them the reason for my condition, they asked me if I had taken drugs. LOL.
I could tell I was really suffering from empathy... But...
EMPATHY IS AN INNATE AND VITAL CAPACITY AT FIRST TIME
Although we will see that this does not fully explain how empathy can become a burden, there is a first completely natural explanatory factor: the extrasensory abilities of human beings.
It's an innate ability that everyone has. Even if some choose to focus only on what they feel they have mastered... the mind. A reassuring strategy that relies on the erroneous beliefs of our modern societies that condemn witches and venerate scientists. But a regrettable strategy that distances us from the true inner treasure, that cuts us off from a part of ourselves and from what differentiates us from a robot: our capacity to feel.
All human beings have powerful yet natural abilities for telepathy and empathy. This explains why others can sometimes answer questions we haven't asked. It's also why when we hang out with a group of positive people, we feel happier when we leave. Or when we go to see a group of bitter old people, we feel more depressed when we leave.
These predispositions are linked to the fact that human beings have been, by nature, social since the dawn of time. This is essential for living in a tribe. Language is a "technology" that slows things down. By the time you formulate your thoughts, transmit them, and receive feedback, time has passed. Of course, speech is essential and has always existed. It transmits complex knowledge. But imagine prehistoric hunting situations where intuitive listening by the collective is more efficient in obtaining game.
So, as long as this ability allows us to build, everything is fine, but when it is truly torrents of emotions that put us in a trance, it is a signal to tell us that there is something to work on. So, no, it is not normal "for someone like me" to suffer from empathy. In truth, the problem is not in an excess of empathy but in a poor management of my emotions.
NATURAL EMPATHY + POOR EMOTION MANAGEMENT = INFINITY POOL
This natural and powerful capacity for empathy becomes a problem when coupled with poor emotional management. The great forgotten ones of our century. There is the collective belief that human beings are rational beings and that will and reason are enough to manage their impulses. So no, not at all! Goodbye Freud (who is, incidentally, largely ignored beyond the borders of France). Hello to taking the emotional body into account.
When we encounter a situation in which we are literally emotionally kidnapped, it is in fact the resonance with our own history, our wounds and our flaws, like a pebble that diffuses waves well beyond its epicenter. For example, my husband finds himself totally stressed when someone with a very hurried energy arrives in the room. He cannot regain his calm even though, basically, he has no reason to be stressed. In his story, it was his rather dominant and always rushed father who entered the kitchen, like a tornado, asking, demanding answers or immediate actions. It is hard for a child in the making to be regularly confronted with everything being fine 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 serious limitations since these people are already rather rare and there will always be unpleasant contact with uncomfortable people. So we can work on the only thing where we have power... that is, ourselves.
SERENE EMPATHY: THE BALANCED AND ENRICHING VERSION
The day we are able to manage our emotions, whatever they may be (powerlessness, anger, disgust, rejection, shame, etc.), we can then be in true empathy. The kind that is present when we are connected to the person and that fades instantly when we cut the connection, like a radio that changes frequency.
True empathy is a channeling posture where we empty our inner space to welcome and feel information. In this authentic empathy, we connect with others without losing ourselves, we are able to welcome the emotions of others while knowing how to sort out what belongs to us and what does not, and above all we are able to return to our own energy while maintaining our emotional balance.
Being in control of your emotions does not mean stifling them or running away from them.
It is being able to weather the storm like a sailboat on the sea.
The wind and rain pass. The boat doesn't get lost in them and doesn't try to follow them. It doesn't resist. It stays on course, feels the external elements, aims for calm, and ultimately transforms the situation.
A PATH TO HEALING: STRATEGIES THAT WORK
No one says it's easy, but it's not impossible. Like Harry Potter learning to manage his powers, it's necessary to practice, but above all, to repair your story because the more personal resonance you have, the more difficult it is.
Whether it's to heal yourself or to surf on emotions, there are 10,000 ways to do it. There are only two ways that don't work. The first is to think that with time it will repair itself, to wait and do nothing... It's nice to be positive but you have to understand the mechanics of the human being. What we face, fades away. Otherwise, we configure ourselves in a perpetual negative reinforcement over the years.
The second way is to consider that the problem comes from the other person. Taking responsibility is not a way to grieve or feel guilty; on the contrary, by recognizing what in us contributed to this situation, we can regain the power to act. We move away from the victim position and become actors again. Of course, we are often not 100% responsible, but there is always and inevitably a part of us that has fueled this situation. I identify it, I heal it at the source, and I never need to pay attention to it again. It's magic!
How do we do it? First, when we are touched by another person, we take a moment to identify when in our lives we have already had this feeling. It can sometimes be completely linked to something that seems trivial to our brain today but which was nevertheless essential for a part of us at the time. The more we dig, the more we can find the very first time we felt this way. So, we take some time to repair at the source. Sometimes, if it seems difficult, we can ask a professional for help.
To learn how to regulate your emotions, there are also a huge number of tools: NVC (Non-Violent Communication), mindfulness, etc.
EMBRACING YOUR EMPATHY: TRANSFORMING YOUR SENSITIVITY INTO STRENGTH
The path to balanced and enriching empathy begins with oneself. It's a journey worth taking, because it allows us to live in harmony with our emotions while genuinely connecting with others. So yes, it will never stop us from crying in front of a movie. Why does Bambi's mom have to die? Why does Simba's dad have to be killed by his brother and make his son bear the guilt? What the hell is this all about?! It's still awful!!
But by cultivating balanced empathy, I transform my sensitivity into a superpower that makes me much more resilient, but also more compassionate. Rather than running away from my emotions, I am 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 true strength 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 toward a deeper understanding of myself and others. It is thanks to my sensitivity that I am guided toward 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 will be my next step?
(Be careful though, this ability can have side effects…mediumship, for example).
Thank you so much for your 4th inspiring article, Chloe!
Your words remind us that it is possible to transform our sensitivity into true inner strength, and that every emotion can become a starting point towards better well-being.
Chloe's Bio
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Chloé LESAGE
Leadership Coach and Project Facilitator
"A warrior at heart, that's often the conclusion I receive when I explain my life journey. After a difficult start on this earth, I sought inner balance and expansion through a 15-year journey of personal development where I tested all conventional and atypical practices.Since we never stop learning, I continually feed my thirst for understanding. High intellectual and emotional potential, I learned to put my abilities at the service of life so that it becomes a gift.
My method is at the junction between who I am, the reappropriation of my 2-year training in personal development coaching as well as all my life experiences.
It is a practice that puts into experience and intervenes, all at the same time, on the body, the emotions and the spiritual dimension. For me, it is out of the question to accompany for years what would cause, in my opinion, dependence. However, my work is to create the conditions for reappropriation of one's inner power to obtain immediate results in the materialization of one's objectives.
More information about his professional career
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