I'm an Empath! : When Empathy Hurts

A client I will call Alice came into my office and let me know right away that she was an empath. She said it like it was a badge of honor. She was highly spiritual and could read other people’s energies. She had all these stories about who was negative and who was easy to be around. She loved to talk about how other people upset her and how hard it was to function in this dark world. 

Now I don’t doubt her perception. I think that that was her reality, but in buying into her story, she was solidifying a point of view that kept her separate from other people because she was so much more spiritually advanced, and it also separated her from physically being able to connect with people because she was so easily overwhelmed. If she accepted that, that box would become her prison.

Fortunately she was open enough to consider other options, and together we focused on the trauma that put her brain in fight or flight all the time. Because her brain was doing its job, it was always scanning for potential danger, she really was picking up on all kinds of things that other people didn’t notice. 

Hi, I’m Laura Giles with Let It Go Now, a podcast that focuses on letting go of the things that stand in the way of your health, happiness, wealth, and being your authentic, savage self, and today I am talking about Empaths. If you’ve been told that you’re an empath or you know someone who calls themselves an empath, please stay tuned and let me know what you think in the comments.

So, when we experience trauma, our brain goes into flight, flight, freeze, or fawn because the primary job of the brain is to keep us alive. So it’s always scanning for danger. We get good at what we practice so people who live in situations of physical danger or with someone that they have to walk on eggshells around gets really good at picking up micro signals for danger that other people ignore. 

And back to Alice’s situation - that same fight or flight response was making it hard for her to tell whether or not something actually was dangerous or not. See, here is what happens. The brain is super efficient. It’s amazing, but it doesn’t scan every bit of data that it comes across. It generalizes things. It takes short cuts. That’s how it’s able to work so fast.

Normally these generalizations and short cuts are accurate, but sometimes they are not. If you have ever done any brain teaser type of puzzles, you know what I mean. Have you seen the ones with whole sentences where words are spelled with no vowels? So whatever it written there doesn’t make sense, but we can still read it because we delete things  all the time. The vowels are not necessary. We can fill in the blanks and still get it.

Another brain teaser puzzle is those ones where you think you’re looking at circles, but if you look more closely, the circles aren’t closed at all. These are optical illusions. The brain wants completion, so it will fill in the blanks. We accept our conclusions are valid and logical, even if they aren’t.

Another way that the brain generalizes - especially when trauma is involved - is by grouping like things together. So if I experience a dog attack, I might generalize that to a fear of all dogs. big ones, small ones, black ones, white ones. It doesn’t matter.

If I get food poisoning when I eat spaghetti, I might avoid all pasta or all tomato based sauces. I might gag when I smell anything that resembles spaghetti. 

That’s actually what was going on with Alice. Her empathy or high sensitivity was a byproduct of an over active nervous system. As we healed her trauma, her ability to be in crowded places, tolerate unpleasant circumstances, and see other people act out without reacting herself increased. She became more functional, grounded, and able to live the life of a normal human being.

She was still highly sensitive because this was a skill that she had honed, but she was no longer reactive. And this is an important distinction when it comes to the whole idea that empaths are spiritually superior beings. 

So let me break it down, okay? Sensitive means that you can detect things that others don’t notice. If you are setting a meter’s sensitivity, you are setting the threshold at which you want it to go off. Too much and it’s going off all the time. Too little and it’s not picking up enough of whatever you are monitoring. So sensitivity is just the ability to notice something.

Reactivity is just what it sounds like. It’s whether to react to what you notice. People can be sensitive and not reactive, sensitive and reactive, or not sensitive nor reactive. They don’t always go together.

For example, I use neurofeedback in my practice and I test for this beforehand to avoid any unpleasant surprises. I need to have an educated guess about how someone will respond so I don’t overstimulate them. It won’t cause any lasting harm, but why have an unpleasant response when you can avoid it, right?

So, I had this client who was not sensitive or reactive. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he needs a lot of stimulation. It just means that I might have to ask someone else how he responded afterward because he could be a poor reporter of his own experience.

He might say that he noticed nothing, but his roommates would say that he was incredibly chill for the last week. See what I mean?

When we’re talking about empaths, we’re talking about people who tend to be very sensitive and highly reactive. 

Now if you like being above us all and feel that that’s the price to pay to be highly spiritual, you can keep that definition and label, but if you want to be able to be a healthy human who can feel emotions without becoming overwhelmed, deal with conflict without dissolving into tears, and go shopping where there are fluorescent lights and crowds, keep listening.

I’m not saying that those are ideal conditions upon which to live. I don’t like crowds or fluorescent lights either but I don’t spend the day in bed when I am subjected to them. 

So, if you are an empath and want to live in a place where your environment isn’t a threat to you, your first step really should be to check in with a trauma therapist who specializes in body based, or somatic therapies. The brain and body are connected. Talk therapy won’t heal this. I speak as a trauma therapist not just somebody who has read some articles on Psychology Today. Talking about it might help you to feel seen, heard, and make sense of what happened, but it won’t heal your brain.

An over active, sensitive nervous system is often caused by trauma. It can also be caused by blows to the head - so if you’ve been active in sports, had a car accident, been in a domestic violence situation or have just taken a fall, you might consider that. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. You could have done it ten years ago, felt fine afterward, forgotten about it, and it’s slowly changing the way you respond to the world. Because it’s gradual, you don’t notice the changes until they are big enough to detect.

Another thing that can cause this sensitivity is exposure to toxins. This could be like a truck that goes by spraying pesticide, living near a factory that discharges stuff into the air or water, or it come come from the accumulation of every day toxins that are found in food, drinking water, textiles, make up, bath and body products, or cleaning products. 

Our bodies are good at getting rid of toxins, but once it’s overloaded, it may just tank. If you have ever known anyone with a story that starts, “Everything was fine until”… and then they talk about the day when it all changed for good. It’s usually a stressful event like they got sick, but it could even be positive stress like getting prepared for a wedding or running a marathon. 

We all have a reserve of energy, and we also have energy that we acquire through food. Most Americans use more energy than we create. We’re dipping into that savings account every time we use coffee for energy production rather than refreshing ourselves by going to sleep. If we lead stressful lives, we’re borrowing from our future health. When our detoxifying organs can’t keep up anymore, we can tank and have a really hard time recovering. This can also create the symptoms associated with highly sensitive people.

So, i guess now is a good time to talk about what those are in case this is a new idea for you. There are three ways to be sensitive, and you may not have sensitivity in all areas. These are sensitivity about yourself, the environment, and others.

1. you often have difficulty letting go of negative thoughts and emotions.
2. you can’t tell whether the energy in the room comes from your emotions or someone else’s  - so you don’t know where you end and they begin
3. frequently manifesting physical symptoms like headaches when something unpleasant happens
4. often having bad days that impact eating or sleeping, for example you will eat or sleep too much or too little
5. frequent anxiety or tension
6. beating yourself up a lot when you don’t do as well as you would have liked
7. fear of rejection, even in situations where it doesn’t matter or nothing is really at stake
8. negatively comparing yourself to others and feeing unhappy because of it
9. feeling anger and resentment about things that feel unfair
10. spending a lot of time thinking about what other people are thinking
11. taking things personally
12. being triggered by small things and having a hard time letting them go
13. feeling hurt easily
14. hiding your negative feelings because you think they are too much
15. sharing your drama with others
16. having a hard time accepting criticism, even when it’s constructive
17. feeling judged even when there is no evidence that this is true
18. overreacting to real or perceived slights
19. feeling awkward and unable to be authentic in groups
20. feeling self conscious in romantic situations
21. feeling uncomfortable in crowds
22. feeling uncomfortable when exposed to lights, sound, or scent
23. you are easily startled by sudden or unexpected things like sounds
24. can’t watch negative shows because they are too upsetting
25. you’re easily overwhelmed
26. you feel like you know what other people are thinking and feeling
27. other people tell you their problems
28. you can’t see someone in pain without wanting to help

These are trauma symptoms. Neurofeedback helps a ton with these things. So does trauma therapy. This is not something that you have to live with because you were blessed or cursed with being more spiritually connected than other people. 

If you learn healthy boundaries, a lot of these things will go away. 

Cultivating a healthy lifestyle can also help a lot. I often talk to people who say they have a healthy lifestyle, then when we talk about specifics, it all goes sideways. They eat a healthy diet except for the stash of chocolate bars that are in their desk drawer that they munch on throughout the day. Or the one meal a day that they do eat is healthy, but they don’t eat until ten pm. at night when they are watching tv just before bed. 

Life’s holistic, guys. We have to pay attention to the whole thing. Everything matters. Empathy is only about being able to feel and understand what other people are feeling. It’s not about all the other stuff like taking on their feelings. That's a boundary issue. It’s not about feeling uncomfortable in crowds or being easily overwhelmed. That’s a case of overgeneralizing. We can have empathy without experiencing all the rest of those things. Being empathetic without being reactive doesn’t make you less than. It means you’re in healthy balance. Health is about balance. Dis-ease is about too much or too little of something, so imbalance.

I wanted to talk about empaths today because I see so many people adopting this label like it’s a badge of honor. If you do that, you may accept that these symptoms are things you have to live with. They are definitely not. You can function better and feel better. 

The other thing is that when “coaches” or spiritual advisors, and even mental health professionals frame these symptoms like you’re special and a highly delicate flower and the rest of us are beastly, this is a sign of low emotional and social intelligence that encourages people to be dysfunctional instead of learning skills to be resilient and learn how to cope in a healthy way.

Please do not buy into this. Life is so much better when you can stand in your own power and cope with whatever life throws your way. Life is challenging. If you don’t develop tough skin to live in it, you will not make it far. 

What these “coaches” and spiritual advisors do is deal with this is first to put you on a pedestal because why? Because nobody wants to come down and lose their status. As long as you’re special and highly spiritual, you have status. It’s the emperor’s new clothes guys. I’m here to tell you that you’re naked. It’s a sham. 

Everybody likes feeling special and this is like the narcissistic love bombing that makes you keep going to them for your fix. Don’t buy into it. Keep your feet on the ground. 

The second thing that they do is encourage you to change your environment rather than change yourself. You can do this by forcing your agenda on people to make them accept your version of reality and conform to your needs. 

We do this a lot in our society actually because taking personal responsibility is hard, but even when it succeeds, it’s a superficial change that makes us feel good without doing anything to really impact the problem. For example, let’s say that the problem is teenage drinking. We want to save lives so we put up a memorial where someone died. This makes us feel good but does it really change behavior? Probably not long term.

Or we want to combat racism so we place a sign in our yard. Both of these are an attempt to control someone else’s behavior, which doesn’t work so well. I want you to stop drinking so I feel better, or I want you to stop doing things that I think are racist so I can feel better. 

It’s far more effective to manage your own stuff. If you’re clear on who you are and what you want, you are less bothered by what other people are doing, and can influence others more because you’re better able to listen to them and have meaningful conversations about issues rather than either overtly or covertly telling them what they are doing wrong. 

I mean, how do you like it when someone does that to you? It doesn’t feel so good to be judged and told that you’re wrong, does it? But if you’re having a conversation with a friend or a friendly stranger and you’re just sharing ideas, well, now your ideas might get in, right? You’re more willing to consider a new idea too because it comes from a neutral person, and you’re having a heart to heart, right? 

People can feel that. 

The third thing about buying into this empath thing - and this is the most important - is that it perpetuates the helplessness. If you aren’t actually doing anything to heal, what’s the point of being on the pedestal and trying to get other people to do what will make you more comfortable? 

If you take control for your healing and learn better boundaries, develop social and emotional intelligence, learn coping skills to deal with frustration, heal your trauma, and learn how to have healthy relationships, you may still be sensitive, but you won’t be as reactive. And it’s not the sensitive part that creates issues for most of us, it’s the reactivity. 

We’re reactive because we’re triggered. If you’re not triggered, you’re not overly reactive.

You’ll also have healthier relationships. A long time ago someone asked me something like, “how can you find the right person?” I think looking for the right person is a collosal waste of time. I think we’re all much better served by being the right person. There’s that personal responsibility thing again.

If you have healthy skills, you can get along with just about anybody, and being in a healthy relationship becomes a choice and a commitment. Now compatibility matters. You will have a lot happier time of it if you choose a partner who has similar values and interests so you have pleasurable things to share and things to talk about. But as far as spending an afternoon with anyone, I can hang out with just about anybody. In fact, if you look at my social circle, you would know what I am saying is true. 

Everybody is interesting. Everybody has a story to tell and a gift to share. I couldn’t do the job I do for as long as I have if I didn’t believe that. And as long as you’re good, stable, and grounded, it doesn’t matter too much what the other person is doing. And you don’t have to stand out and be above others to have worth. Lao Tzu said, “If light is in your heart, you will find your way home.” Follow that.

If you are connected, how you show up will impact how the other person shows up. I was with a client who I could tell was used to acting out. So, he acted out in my presence and I witnessed. I didn’t get excited, defensive, or try to calm him down. I let him do him. When he was done, he settled down and we went on with the session and he didn’t do it again.

You can set the tone if you are grounded and stable. If you are reactive and all over the place when the lights come on, you aren’t going to be able to do that. So, it’s worth learning how.

I don’t say that lightly. This has been studied. I hope this information circulates quickly because it would help our society tremendously, but studies show that when we are not able to connect because we’re emotionally dysregulated, don’t know how, can’t read facial expressions, don’t know what to do, and can’t really relate to other people, it impacts our happiness, results in relationship issues, we make less money, we’re less successful in all facets of our lives, and feel less capable in life.

Now, our childhood is focused on preparing us to make money. That’s what school is about. It teaches us stuff that the government thinks prepares us for college so we can be productive members of society, right? 

And parents think this too. Lots of parents don’t ask their kids to participate in chores so they can focus on education, sports, and activities that will help them get into a good school. But social and emotional intelligence is far more important than intellect when it comes to overall happiness and success in life. That’s research, y’all. 

So when we have no bullying rules and punish the bully and the one who is bullied, it doesn’t prepare us for real life. We don’t learn how to solve our own problems. When we have sports where everyone wins, we don’t learn how to struggle, fail, and improve. We don’t face the adversity that we need to develop healthy boundaries, good communication skills, problem solving, and emotional intelligence.

So, in my opinion, any formal or informal instruction, meaning schools, managing employees, parenting, mentoring, and that kind of thing- that doesn’t include demonstrating and teaching social intelligence is lacking in effectiveness. And this is really at the core of the whole empath thing.

Lots of people who identify as empaths grew up in households without boundaries. They learned to put other people’s feelings ahead of their own. They learned how to read the emotional temperature of a room so they could do what they needed to do to stay safe. Maybe that meant they got out, hid, placated someone, took care of someone, or put on a happy face. It was about survival. And in most cases, you’re not there anymore. So you don’t have to do that anymore, but it’s what you know, so you continue. 

Some self-identified empaths grew up in soft households were they weren’t allowed to see violent movies or tv shows. Their parents were overly attentive to them so they never felt lonely, frustrated, hurt, or disappointed. They painted life as a place of rainbows and kindness. Their lives were over scheduled with play dates, birthday parties, and sports because their parents wanted them to be happy and successful, but in doing so, they kept out all the disappointments and challenges that help us develop tough skin to survive in the world.

My brother is a teacher and he tells me that kindergartners have a tough time saying what their favorite color is. It’s not that they don’t know. In some cases, it’s because they are told that everything is beautiful and it’s not fair to favor one thing over another. In other cases it’s because they are being reared with perfectionistic parents and are afraid of having an opinion in case it’s the wrong one. 

So there are a lot of reasons why someone may have trouble in regulating emotions and being super in tune with the people and environment around them that have nothing to do with being ultra spiritual.

Now that you know, you can choose something different. You can let that go. Adopting labels and identities that put you above people is a trap that separates you from other people and from life. We like pedestals and feeling like we’re above it all, but there is a price to pay for that, and that’s isolation and loneliness. Don’t do that to yourself. Studies have shown that the way to happiness is through connection. One real, true, deep connection to another person makes a profound difference in our quality of life. People who have five or more connections are the happiest.

Empathy is something that almost all of us have. I say “almost” because people with Autism, antisocial personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder struggle with this or lack empathy completely. 

But for the most part, empathy is not something that only special people have. 

Empathy is the ability to understand what others are going through or put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. This happens because we share the human experience. It also happens because we have these things called mirror neurons in our brains. When we see someone do something, our brain goes through imitation so it’s like we do it too and feel what they feel. infants even do this.

Now if your caregiver wasn’t a balanced, stable, or attentive person, you may have learned to express in ways that aren’t healthy. You may suppress emotion, be all over the place, have no control, or be overly expressive. That’s learned. That’s not something to be ashamed of. If you didn’t get it when you were young, you can get it now.

This doesn’t make you any less spiritual. We’re all spiritual. It’s like saying I’m more human than you. You can’t quantify a thing like that, and even if you could, think about the big picture goal. If you want happiness, success, and healthy relationships, remember what I said about emotional and social intelligence? Yeah, they lead to all those things, and putting yourself above other people creates separation, not connection. So, maybe that’s not the way to go. 

Letting go is about letting go of what doesn’t serve you. It’s the trauma and dysfunction that doesn’t serve you. Being ultra sensitive and reactive are byproducts of that. 

If you are newly into alternative spirituality, you might be stumbling upon new ideas like being intuitive and having access to information that you wouldn’t get from the intellect. That’s real. I would call it spiritual, but that’s because my spiritual beliefs is that everything is spiritual. Spirit is not separate from the rest of life. The mind, body, and spirit aren’t separate. They weave in and out of each other, but having an awareness of this doesn’t, in my opinion, make you or me more highly evolved or special than anyone else.

To me, it’s like some people are better musicians than other people. Some are better athletes. We all have things that come easier to us when the are new, but those are all skills too. Those are all things that anyone can learn. 

The growth mindset says that the person who perseveres ends up better in the long run than the one who gets it easier in the beginning because the one who is talented will typically give up and not put the time in to learn it once it starts getting harder and learning requires discipline. So think about that before you accept that empath is a gift from the gods as a sign of your spiritual advancement. 

Yeah, there are two types of mindsets. The growth mindset is basically the “yes, I can” attitude that gets out there and keeps trying. This person thinks of everything as a skill that can be acquired and keeps plugging until they’ve acquired mastery and the skills come second nature. The fixed mindset says that things are as they are and they don’t change. This is the person who believes that stars are born, and if they don’t seem to be one, they don’t even try. Can you see the vast difference that that can make over a lifetime?

Now, we might have a fixed mindset in some areas and a growth mindset in others, so it’s not necessarily black and white, but if you notice that you’re on the edge of some fixed mindset ideas, challenge yourself. Say “what if” and entertain new ideas. This is one of the hallmarks of emotional intelligence actually, it’s the ability to consider new ideas and engage in new things. Whatever grows your brain grows your life.

So the podcast is about letting go of things that stand in the way of happiness, health, wealth, and authenticity. I believe that the empath movement is one of those things. You can decide if you think so. I won’t be mad if you see it differently. 

I think that if something is not uplifting you, healing you, growing you, and bringing happiness to you and others, maybe we need to let it go. I actually am pretty sensitive, but I am not reactive. I walked into an antique mall recently and had to turn around and walk right out. Antiques give off a lot of energy that is overstimulating to me, so I am not on the outside looking in. I get what it’s like to have a lot of feels. I also understand what it’s like to have healthy boundaries and not let that destabilize me or make it someone else’s problem. 

Now if you have a growth mindset, or want to develop one, and want to learn how to be sensitive and not reactive, my online Let It Go community can help with that. It’s not a substitute for trauma treatment, but it can help you develop better emotional and social intelligence. It’s not about rules though.

If you think about how you learned how to relate to people, nobody sat you down and said, “When Mommy is clenching her teeth, using more effort necessary to move or speak, and her voice has an edge to it, respond by becoming anxious. Find ways to distract her from her mood. You could try being pleasant, helping out, being funny, or even being bad. When she either calms down or blows up, you can relax because you will know that the uncertainty will end. Now, let’s practice each of these steps.”

No. You learned it through experience, right? This program is the same. It’s all about playing and interacting with each other to have experiences that expose you to thoughts and feelings. They give you the experience of using skills. And then you can decide whether or not to develop them and incorporate them into your being.

I want you to be the best version of you. I want you to be authentic, and to do that, you have to have control over your emotions and be able to relate to others. Being dysregulated by the environment and other people is a huge barrier to that. 

That’s my take. I’ve love to hear yours in the comments. If you want to check out the Let It Go Now Community, we’re at letitgonow.org. I’d love to see you there. It’s a fun time. Until next week, thanks for tuning in and see you then. Ciao!