Having a normal psychological response when you are an empath is hard. This is a time where you are constantly going and never take time to slow down and heal. People that are empaths often have big hearts and are very sensitive. They feel things that others are feeling and being this kind of person takes a toll on the body and mind and can cause compassion fatigue.
If you are overly empathetic or you find that it is constantly taking a toll on you, it can turn into you have no empathy for others. Too much can make you not have enough. Empathy is sometimes said to be an emotional resonance which means that you feel what other people are feeling.
The brain has neurons that are used for this purpose to help you know if you have someone in your life that are having strong feelings of sadness or anger. When we care about these things, we feel the feelings in our own bodies.
These neurons in our brains work all day long and cause us to feel stress, anger, fear, and sadness. It can be for people, animals and even objects. We can feel overwhelmed and feel like we are actually suffering. The emotions of others can be contagious, and it can cause our mental being to not have boundaries that we need.
We might not even be able to tell the difference between our own feelings and the feelings of others because we get so used to them.
The boundaries that we need are hard to find when we are empaths because there are always children that are not able to protect themselves, hurt animals, and other people that are not able to protect who or what they are. We have a hard time determining our voice from others and if we do not learn to be very attentive, our feelings will be identified as others and it can cause us to suffer.
If we are extremely empathetic, it can feel like your system is overworking. It can cause us to feel wounded. In order to protect who, we are, we have to learn to be numb or to shut down so we can survive.
If we have lost our abilities to be empathetic, we can actually start lacking empathy and this is a very common thing and is called compassion fatigue.
Empathy is something that can run out and is a normal response when you find yourself feeling what others are feeling and never taking a break.
We can hit the limits we have of being empathetic and if we do not learn to recharge ourselves then we will suffer and so will others. We will begin to tune out and become indifferent to how others feel.
Instead of feeling all feelings, we will get to the point where we feel nothing. When you are like a sponge and you find the sponge to be full, it will no longer work unless it is wrung out.
If you are new at being an empath, you might feel that you could never be anything but feeling but the truth is that when you are excessive in your feelings, you become stressed out and to the point where you have to become numb or else you will not survive.
You will possibly want to feel less, and you will struggle to find a healthy feeling where you can be empathetic without harming yourself.
You have to find a place where you can be compassionate but detached at times. This does not mean to be numb, but it means that you are not overwhelmed by pain and suffering. You might have a little bit of compassion and less empathy.
If you wonder if being numb is a bad thing, the problem is that when you lose your empathy, you lose the work that the universe has given you. Even though this can be a healthy way to cope, having strong emotions can be a hard part of your job and can cause you to always be detached.
When you are no longer empathetic, you will not care about what others are feeling and you will begin to minimize their pain and withdraw from people that need you.
You will also have negative emotions and they will be unpleasant to you. You might even build on hiding these emotions till they explode.
Work
You can find a way to work and to engage with others while being connected to your own body and emotions.
The healthiest empathetic response is to figure out what ways you can be flexible and where you can care and be warm without always having to take on the emotions of others as your own. You have to learn to have boundaries.
You can do this by coping and managing what you absorb each day. Learn to be kind to who you are and to take a break when you begin to feel overwhelmed.
Start breathing and doing meditation exercises to get rid of pain and suffering that you have been soaking up. Find someone that you can talk to so that you can express and release your feelings.
Another way to help yourself is to figure out practices that help you to be grounded in your body. You can figure out a way to cope with your life and to feel better such as yoga and meditation.
You will continue to feel pain of course, but instead of judging yourself over your pain, you can learn to be more compassionate with yourself. You have a lot of compassion to give but you have to give this compassion to yourself as well so that you can stay stable in your emotions and be there of rothers.
Being compassionate with yourself will help you to be an empath that is healthy and strong. You have to find help in your organization and stop doing tasks that are daunting and draining to you so that you do not have to suffer alone. Find a way to let out your feelings and go to support groups if you need to.
No matter where you are on the empathy level, you can take steps to form boundaries and to help to protect yourself, care for yourself and boost your empathetic immune system.
This is a hard road sometimes and the way that you express yourself and build your boundaries can allow you to find balance and still do your meaningful work that the universe has given you the gift to do.