10 Self-Care Ideas to Prevent Empathic Overload
Do you feel like an emotional sponge? If you absorb others’ emotions around you or in the collective, you may struggle to determine what is yours and what belongs to others. Leaving you feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, while trying to process what doesn’t belong to you.
So, how do you stay connected to others without overprotecting yourself? Many teachers would tell you to invest in protective jewelry or put up energetic shields. These may be helpful to some, but they may leave you feeling disempowered by your sensitivities.
To feel empowered and connected, learn what to shift to support your health, well-being, and relationships. In this article, we will explore the difference between empathy and compassion, the signs of empathic overload, and ways to prevent getting taken out by your empathic parts.
Explore the Different Meanings of Empath
First, let’s unpack the meaning and definition of empathy and the related terms:
Empathy is the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation. (Source: Cambridge Dictionary)
An empath feels the other person’s pain and/or emotions in their own body.
Compassion is offering understanding and kindness to the person experiencing suffering (including ourselves).
The empathic part is the part of you with the greatest access to empathy for others.
The Self is the core of who we are as human beings. Self has access to compassion and other healing qualities. (Watch a 3-minute video to learn more about Self from Dr. Richard Swartz, the Founder of IFS, Internal Family Systems)
When I last wrote on emotional boundaries for empaths, I conceptualized being an empath as describing the whole person. After experiencing empathic overload several times this year and witnessing others’ experiences with their empathic parts, it became clear that my thinking had to catch up to my lived experience. That is, many experience empathy through an empathic part of themselves. And this part can eclipse and over-shadow our access to compassion for ourselves and others.
Understand Empathic Overload
At the same time, I wouldn’t want to be in a world without empathy, or the ability to sense what it would be like for someone else in a different situation. If you have an empathic part, it’s one of the parts that helps you connect with others.
On the other hand, the empathic part of us can become overloaded when witnessing others’ pain and suffering. Empathic overload is real and it can feel like you’ve absorbed others emotions or pain into your system. When you are in empathic distress, you may have trouble sleeping and eating, experience exhaustion, an exacerbation of physical symptoms, the desire to socially isolate, and more. Have you experienced this before?
Learn to Become a Compassionate Witness
You don’t have to live in fear of having empathic and/or merging parts, because you can learn how to access compassion. Our empathic parts usually stir are fixer parts and we want to act to calm the other person (or ourselves).
When we let the empathic part cue us that someone is hurting, we can lean back and access compassion for other’s suffering. In doing so, we stay in our body and the other in their body.
For example, I feel compassion in my heart center, so putting a hand on my heart is a compassionate gesture that helps me connect to myself while witnessing others’ pain. Over time, not merging or fixing others leads to less holding and processing others’ pain within our own bodies and systems.
Extending compassion to someone is more healing than fixing their feelings. Verbally compassion can look like letting someone know you see, hear, and witness their pain. Meeting them exactly where they are at without trying to get them to be or do something different.
10 Self-Care Ideas to Prevent Empathic Overload
If you find it challenging to extend compassion, several parts may be eclipsing your access to compassion. Or you may be experiencing empathic overload or distress. Either way, here are some of my favorite self-care practices to help you reverse or prevent burnout and empathic overload. Use them as prevention, or when feel like you’ve merged with others and lost yourself.
Reflect in Your Journal: Writing down what you are feeling and experiencing can help you sort out what is yours and what belongs to someone else. (Read this article for ideas on starting a journaling practice.)
Practice Spacious Silence: Leave open time in your calendar, so you have space to process and digest your day. We are constantly interacting, doing, and consuming more. Titrate up how much silence you can tolerate. One of my favorite places to do this is in my car or in a candlelit bathtub.
Explore Intuitive Movement: Trust and listen to your body. Does your body want to move vigorously or gently? Then, move with intention. If you feel too full of others' emotions and/or problems, shake or move in a way that lets the emotion or energy move through you (instead of staying stagnant in you).
Make Humming Noises: Vibrating your lips, mouth, and face helps move the energy and relaxes your nervous system. Try humming “mmmmm” or “hmmmm” and notice how your body responds.
Use Soothing Touch: Offer a soothing touch to your arms, face, chest, or legs. Doing so lets your system know you are here to tend to and befriend it, even when you’re in distress.
Create Something: Make something you enjoy - art, photography, cooking, crafting, sewing, woodworking, writing, etc. And make it just for you!
Engage a Spiritual Practice: Connect with what helps you remember hope, joy, and/or love. Find a spiritual community that feels nourishing to you. Light a candle. Say a blessing to others. Listen to uplifting music. Contemplate what you’re grateful for today.
Be in Nature: Spending time in nature can be soothing, grounding, and awe-inspiring. Take your shoes off and put your feet on the ground. Gaze out your window. Lay in the grass. Ask what lessons nature is trying to teach you in this season.
Do Energy Clearing: Work with an energy practitioner who teaches you how to do your own energy clearing and cultivating. (I recommend Katherine Bird’s QiGong Activation and/or Psychic Protection self-study courses.)
Work with a Therapist: If you want to learn more about the different parts of you to relieve the emotional load you carry, find an IFS therapist (or parts work) near you. Parts of you may connect deeply to the pain of others because there is a part of you in pain and trying to get your attention.
You may notice that this isn’t a long list of what not to do. While I believe boundaries are important for all of us, I also know that increasing our capacity to be with and process our emotions, thoughts, sensations, and wounds helps us in many ways. In my lived experience, focusing on caring for myself and expanding my capacity helps me communicate more clearly, access my intuition, connect with others easefully, and retain energy for myself.
Self-Care to Heal & Empower Empaths
Lastly, I invite you to listen to an interview I did with Katherine Bird, one of my wisdom and practice teachers, on this topic in 2023. While my thinking has shifted since this interview, I’m excited to share Kat with you!
While we may differ in our unique perspectives based on our own study and lived experience, my wish is that our ability to discern what we need to care for ourselves expands. So that we can show up in our relationships and in the world more fully expressed and connected.
How are you feeling called to uplevel your self-care or healing journey?
Marci Payne, MA, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor, Kansas City, Missouri
Marci Payne, MA, LPC offers individual therapy in Missouri for adults struggling with people-pleasing, perfectionism, and challenging relationships. Visit here for more information on her trauma-informed, IFS-inspired, and liberation-focused therapy services.