So welcome everyone and thank you Thank you for listening So let me describe an experience and see if you recognize it You walk into a room Could be a party,
A family gathering,
A work meeting and before you even sit down you've already scanned every face You know who is stressed,
You know who is upset you know who is pretending to be fine and you have mapped the emotional landscape of the entire room in about 4 seconds and now whether you want it or not you feel responsible for it Welcome to the life of someone who has taken responsibility for everyone else's feelings It is exhausting and most people who do it do not even know they are doing it Maybe you are the person everyone calls when they need to vent at 2am on your birthday during their own crisis because you are so good at holding space or maybe you spend more time thinking about other people's problems than your own In fact you might not even know what your problems are because there has never been space for them Maybe you feel guilty when someone is unhappy even if you had nothing to do with it even if you just met them even if they are unhappy about something that happened before you were born Maybe you are just tired bone tired the kind of tired that sleep does not fix because you have been carrying emotional weight that was never used to carry So if any of this sounds familiar to you this session is for you Today I want to explore why you feel responsible for everyone's feelings where it comes from how it lives in your body what it looks like in your family system and most importantly how to finally put it down Let us address something first because there is a whole cultural narrative around this You may have heard or used the word empath I am an empath I feel everything I absorb other people's emotions and there is a version of that that is true some people are more sensitive some nervous systems are more attuned to emotional information and this is real but I want to say something now that might be uncomfortable A lot of what gets called being an empath is actually a trauma response wearing a spiritual costume A lot of what gets called being an empath is actually a trauma response wearing a spiritual costume The Instagram version of empath is you are special you are gifted you feel things others cannot feel your sensitivity is your superpower and look I understand why this narrative is appealing it takes something painful and reframes it as a gift it makes exhaustion feel meaningful but here is the truth if you are constantly absorbing other people's emotions feeling responsible for their well-being unable to be in a room without tracking everyone's mood that is not a superpower that is hyper-vigilance that is a nervous system that learned very early that your safety depended on managing other people's emotional states so you did not choose this it was not a gift you were given it was a survival adaptation you developed probably in childhood because you had to so here is the difference I want to draw empathy is feeling with someone as a capacity to understand and share another's emotional experience while remaining in your own body,
In your own self so emotional caretaking is completely different that's feeling responsible for someone it is taking on their emotions as your own trying to manage or fix how they feel and losing yourself in the process one is capacity other is a wound and many people have confused the wound for the gift because it is the only way they have ever known how to connect so let us go back now to the child that you once were remember this children are not born feeling responsible for their parents' emotions this is learned and it is usually learned very young maybe you had a parent who was depressed anxious,
Overwhelmed or emotionally volatile and you discovered not consciously but in your bones that when they were okay you were safe and when they were not okay something bad might happen so you became an expert at reading them at anticipating their needs at adjusting yourself to keep them stable not because you were selfish but because you were surviving there is a term for this also parentification it is when a child takes on emotional or sometimes practical responsibilities of a parent when the roles get reversed the child becomes the emotional regulator of the household the one who manages mum's moods the one who notices when dad is about to explode the one who keeps the peace between parents the one who looks after younger siblings emotionally not just practically this child grows up very capable very attuned and very very good at reading people and absolutely exhausted because they never got to be a child so here is what gets installed when this happens I am responsible for how other people feel if someone is upset it is my job to fix it if I do not manage the emotional atmosphere something bad will happen love means taking care of others love means taking care of others' feelings my feelings are not important or there is no room for them at all this becomes the operating system you then carry it forward into every relationship every friendship every workplace the child is still running the program even though you are now an adult I want to be clear if this is you it is not your fault you were just a child you did what you had to do to survive to be loved and to keep the family together but you are not a child anymore and the strategy that kept you safe then is now keeping you stuck and now I want to widen the lens here a little bit because this pattern does not usually start with you it often runs in families in family constellations the systemic work I offer,
I do we see that patterns get passed down through generations not just through parenting but through something deeper what we call the family soul or the family system so the question is not just why do I feel responsible for everyone's feelings the question is also who felt this before me who did I learn this from and whose burdens am I actually carrying often not always but often emotional caretaking is inherited directly from the mother so if your mother was the emotional manager of her family if she carried everyone regulated everyone and had no space for herself you may have absorbed this as the template for how to be a woman or how to be loved or how to simply exist in relationships so you are not just doing your pattern you are doing her pattern and maybe her mother's pattern before that sometimes a child gets recruited into a specific role into the family system the peacekeeper,
The mediator the one who holds it together the emotional glue this role may serve the system it may keep the family from falling apart but it sacrifices the child's development their freedom their right to have their own feelings now here is something important from the constellation's perspective when you feel responsible for someone else's feelings you are actually taking something that belongs to them their sadness their anxiety their anger is theirs so by carrying it you are not helping them you are actually preventing them from carrying what is theirs now this might sound strange because we have been told that taking on others' burdens is loving but in the systemic view it is actually a confusion of boundaries so it is standing in someone else's place real love systemic love says I see your pain I honour your pain but it is yours to carry I cannot carry it for you and I will not and this is not cold,
Remember this is actually the deepest respect and honour it says I trust you to carry what is yours and I will not diminish you by taking it away from you and this frees you to finally put down what was never yours to begin with now let's talk about the body because emotional caretaking is not just a mental pattern it lives in your flesh so if you have spent your life scanning for other people's emotions your body reflects this the neck and the shoulders are often tense always up,
Always alert the jaw is always tight the ears are listening for tone for shifts and for danger signals so your body has literally shaped itself around vigilance the chest often holds vigilance too shallow breathing the heart is guarded but also reaching out always ready to respond and never fully at rest so some people feel this as anxiety some feel this as tiredness and some do not feel it at all anymore they have normalised it so completely that chronic tension just feels like being alive to them then the area around your stomach let's call it it's called the solar plexus when you look at it from the lens of the energy body is often where we absorb others' emotions so if you have ever walked into a room and immediately felt someone else's anxiety in your gut you might know what I mean so this is not imaginary at all the gut has more nerve endings actually than almost any other part of your body and the gut is deeply connected to the emotional centres of the brain so when we take on others' feelings we often feel them there first and then there is the exhaustion the bone deep tiredness that comes from never being off duty because if your nervous system is always tracking others always monitoring always prepared to respond it never fully rests even when you are alone even when you are asleep some part of you is still listening many emotional caretakers swing between the two states hyper vigilance when around others and they collapse when they are alone the body finally gets to let go and it crashes exhaustion,
Numbness and sometimes a wanting to just disappear so this is not laziness or depression this is the nervous system finally getting a break from a job it was never meant to do now let us also talk about what the wellness world gets wrong here because there is a lot of advice out there especially on tiktok and some of it is not helpful so you have probably been told just set boundaries someone whose life looks perfect they have told you just set boundaries just learn to say no just put yourself first and you have probably tried as well and it has probably felt somewhere between uncomfortable and impossible because you cannot just decide to stop feeling responsible for everyone the pattern is not in your thoughts it is your nervous system,
Your inner child and your family system telling someone with deep emotional caretaking patterns just to set boundaries is like telling someone with a broken leg just to walk it off it's technically accurate but it's practically useless then there is self-care take a bath light a candle buy some sea salt and do a face mask and look baths are nice but if your nervous system is wired for vigilance no amount of bubble bath is going to rewire it you will be in the bath relaxing and also somehow scanning for whether anyone in your household needs anything so the reframe here is the point here is what actually helps is not surface level strategies it is understanding where this comes from meeting the child who learned to caretake seeing the family pattern and feeling what is held in your body and then slowly gently at your own pace putting down what is not yours so this is what we are going to do in a guided journey not a quick fix quick fixes never work but a beginning so what does healing actually look like here?
Let me paint a picture here for you healing looks like walking into a room and noticing who is stressed because you are still sensitive but then you are not feeling compelled to fix it so if I say noticing without absorbing that's healing that's a realistic picture that's a realistic outcome it looks like feeling someone's distress and being able to stay in your own body present compassionate but separate it also looks like your friend calling you to vent you being able to genuinely listen without taking their problem onto your chest your gut or having a sleepless night so boundaries come from the inside healing is not building walls it is having a felt sense of where you are it is also having a felt sense of where you end and where others begin so when you heal this pattern boundaries are not something you have to enforce they are just natural because you know what is yours and you also know what is not yours healing looks like finally having space for your own feelings for your own needs for your own life so many emotional caretakers do not even know what they feel they have been so focused outwards that inwards is a foreign country to them and healing means coming home to yourself healing looks like rest that actually rests because you are no longer on duty you can finally truly let go this does not happen overnight but it does happen,
It can happen one moment of awareness at a time one boundary that actually holds or one night of sleep where you are not carrying the world with you so in a moment now I am going to guide you through a practice we are going to do something powerful we are going to feel what you are carrying and begin to put down what is not yours so this work it draws on somatic work which is coming into the body feeling where the burden lives inner child work acknowledging the part of you,
The version of you the child in you that took this on and also family constellations giving back what belongs to others so this is not about becoming cold or uncaring it is about finding the boundary between compassion and absorption between feeling with and feeling responsible for you can still love people deeply you just do not have to carry their feelings anymore now find a comfortable position for yourself and just let yourself arrive here in this moment in this body feel the surface beneath you the support the ground you do not need to carry anything right now just be here just let your breath be natural not controlled just notice it now with each exhale let something soften the shoulders the jaw the belly let the breath remind you you are here in your body in your life now let's make an inquiry gently I want you to notice something notice if you are carrying anything that is not yours other people's feelings other people's problems the emotional weight of your family,
Your friends or anybody in your world where do you feel it?
In your chest your shoulders or your gut feel it you do not need to name it just notice there is weight here some of it is not mine now gently call to mind the child you once were the one who learned to carry everyone else's feelings maybe you see them clearly maybe you just sense them either is fine this child did something remarkable they figured out how to keep the family together how to manage the emotional landscape and how to survive now say this I see you I see what you carried you did what you had to do but you do not have to carry it anymore I see you I see what you carried you did what you had to do but you do not have to carry it anymore now imagine all the feelings you've been carrying now that belong to others your mother's sadness your father's anxiety your friends' problems your co-workers' issues your partner's moods maybe the world's pain now all the feelings you've been carrying that belong to others those are not yours you have been holding these taking them in and making them yours but they are not yours now slowly,
Gently whatever you are aware of now in your body your sadness imagine gently placing these down you can visualize just putting something down your body has already received the signal that anything that doesn't belong to you can now slowly,
Gently return to their rightful owners this is not mine to carry I give it back with love I trust you to carry what is yours feel the weight lifting now even if it's a little even just the beginning of this putting down notice what remains now when you put down what is not yours what is left this is you your feelings your body your life maybe it feels unfamiliar today maybe it also feels a bit vulnerable today or maybe it feels spacious today stay with it I am allowed to be here I am allowed to have my own feelings I am allowed to take up space in my own life now for the next few seconds just rest rest in your own body your own breath and your own life this is what it feels not to carry everyone this is what it feels like just to be you gently,
Slowly now begin to return hands,
Feet,
Breath body the room around you,
The sounds,
The temperature and taking one last breath now coming back if your eyes were closed you can open them so you've just done something profound you began to put weight down that you might have been carrying for years this is not a one time fix this pattern is deep it will come back you will catch yourself absorbing again caretaking again feeling responsible again that is ok each time you notice you have a choice you can pick it back up or you can put it down again as you move through life remember this you can be loving without carrying you can be sensitive without absorbing you can care deeply and still have boundaries the child in you that learned to care take did a remarkable thing they survived and they kept the family together and they loved in the only way they knew how you are not that child anymore you can love differently now you can love others and still be in your own body your own life and your own feelings you are not responsible for everyone's feelings you never were let yourself rest let yourself put it down and let yourself finally finally finally just be you thank you for being here and until next time Namaste
