Do you find your empathic nature—being to understand and share the feelings of another— often results in boundaries that are too open and porous to most situations?
You feel flooded. You perceive so much, and as a result, you feel compelled—perhaps even obligated—to fix the situation because you don’t want the other person to be in pain.
But frankly, often it is more about calming your own distress.
This is a challenge. You are built to connect. You feel the hurt of others, and you want it to be soothed.
What is often not acknowledged is how often we actually feel helpless to “make it better” for the other person.
Often it is the reality—we can’t make things substantially better for someone.
But really…the issue is that we empaths need to build our capacity to sit in “helplessness.”
Especially when the problem isn’t explicitly “ours.”
I know for me, too often I can jump into “fix-it” mode, not because it is what is called for, but because I am not comfortable truly “joining and sitting with” the other person in their pain.
If I were helping more skillfully, I would focus on settling my own nervous system.
Then I could tune into my own faith in the other person’s ability to generate solutions to try for themselves. They will empathically pick up my belief that they can help themself in their own space and time!
That is what having healthy boundaries would look like in most situations. More often that not, the other person’s issue is not literally life-and-death.
But my discomfort with their discomfort can trick me into acting like I must respond with utmost might and speed.
So, however well-meaning, I have in essence violated their space to generate their own empowerment. My boundaries have been too porous, unable to respect that the other person has a line that marks where I should not tread without explicit permission.
Porous boundaries are the recipe for a highly sensitive person to whip up a good batch of “empathic distress.” That is, the burnout and overwhelm that comes from “taking on” too much of others’ stress.
And the solution? Better boundaries on your end. Not jumping in where you really have not been invited. Taking care of yourself first—putting on your own proverbial oxygen mask before assisting others.
I think of it as making sure I am free of “infection” before I jump in to heal someone else–particularly when it was their infection that infected me!
When I am helping more skillfully, I focus on settling my own nervous system, tuning into the other person’s ability to generate solutions to try for themselves…and letting them get there in their own space and time!
That is what my having healthy boundaries can look like in most situations. It requires me to take good care of myself on a regular basis, be alert to the early warning signals (whoop, whoop, you’re starting to take responsibility FOR the other person), and continually clean up my own act here.
Interesting, eh…how others find they feel more supported by us when we’ve taken care of ourselves first. Then we actually can be present with them as they sift through their own powerful feelings and sensations to the point that their solutions can create themselves.
Then you BOTH get to be free of infection!
P.S. If this is a challenge you recognize, I do have a solution for you waiting in the wings. I have developed a course called “Build Better Boundaries” so that you build your own capacity to regulate your own nervous system before attempting to solve the distress of another.
When you sign up below, I will make sure to alert you when this class goes live.
And to get you started now, I will send you two free guided meditations and the explanation about why we doing what we are doing to help you turn down the distress, and create a sense of OK-ness for yourself fast. Quick, easy and effective!
Just click here and turn down your own anxiety and overwhelm:
