#375 – What can happen when you don't set limits to your empathy?

You may have heard it too: "I suffer too much, I'm an empath."

Well, I have news for you: that's not empathy but codependence, leaning towards "savior complex."

Feeling empathy requires that you understand other people's suffering––or joy, fear, anxiety... But when you yourself own those feelings, you're trespassing.

When that happens, you end up "colluding" with the other person's Ego and Ghosts. You believe what they're saying through the person's mouth, and reinforce their pernicious lies by interacting with them.

I've done that. Years ago, during a chemistry call with a potential client, in my eagerness to get the business, I started saying yes to everything she said. Instead of questioning her thoughts, obviously dictated by her Ego and Ghosts, I took them at face value.

If she said, "it's so difficult to be a single woman in this town," wanting to empathize (more accurately: please), I responded: "yes, I can imagine that." To, "I thought it'd be nice to live without a car but it's really difficult," I confirmed, "yes, it is!"

I wasn't at all helpful, since these are precisely the kinds of thoughts an effective coach would help a client get rid of so they could live a free, fulfilled life.

Because, most likely, those surface-level dissatisfactions were covering something more profound and painful––but what? (I'll never know because I didn't get the business.)

Real empathy entails a spontaneous mirroring of someone's feelings. Then, by asking with genuine curiosity, I'd have helped this client see her feelings with more equanimity. Once she could do that, she could decide what to believe and what to discard as an Ego/Ghosts product.

When did setting limits to your empathy help someone outgrow futile suffering?

Love,

Carolina