The assumptions that are causing you empathic burnout
Empaths have a completely different operating system from the rest of the world. They process things primarily through the right, creative, emotional brain whereas the dominant system on Earth up until now has been the opposite left-brained, strategic, less emotional thinking. (Remember, empaths only make up approximately 15-20% of the population).
People who are empathic also operate under different assumptions than the rest of the world. We expect the best from others, get disappointed when they don’t live up to our expectations, desire compassion, seek to help, believe intention is more valuable than visible actions alone, want to meet others’ needs, and process information through our bodies and hearts rather than just the mind. While these are positive traits, they also cause empaths to run a high risk for burnout, fatigue, methylation problems (stress uses up nutrients), hormonal imbalances, and immune dysregulation.
This is because empaths are constantly draining their own energy to send to others, even if others are not able to reciprocate, and even if others are not energetically sensitive and therefore cannot feel our good intentions. We are stubborn and think if we just keep trying, someone will get it.
In fact, many empaths have a servant energy archetype in which they have learned from early on that the way to love others (and hopefully get that love reciprocated) is to constantly be of service to them, in denial of their own needs.
An unawakened empath may spend an entire lifetime doing this without realizing they have another option. Take, for example, the mother who primarily shows her love through cooking the meals, dishing out the hugs and words of encouragement, cleaning up the messes, and doing the emotional labor to constantly mentally prepare for what could come next, keeping lists of what needs to be done, and keeping things afloat because she knows no one else will step up. How many mothers, grandmothers, and caretakers in your life come to mind?
While beautiful, it is a one-sided energy trap that we need to get out of for our health and healing. Because deep down, even that mother sometimes gets resentful that no one offered to help. Or she sometimes gets overwhelmed with so many responsibilities. Sometimes she would like to sit down and take a break, but that isn’t an option because the assumption has always been that she is the reliable one, she is independent enough to do it on her own, no one else can do what she does, and she can handle this by herself.
My job as a coach is to encourage you but it is also to tell you the truth so you can stop the cycles of stress and sickness that you didn’t know were affecting you. So here’s the truth: your assumptions are burning you out. Your assumptions are draining your energy — figuratively and quite literally. I see it over and over again with clients.
In order to keep your energy for yourself, in your body and soul where it belongs so you can find total healing, you have to make peace with these assumptions. This doesn’t mean that because someone doesn’t reciprocate their energy that they’re a terrible person and you cut them off. It means you accept that you two operate differently and stop expecting them to “get it” or send the good energy back. It means you may need to stop wanting to go deeper with this person, or find boundaries in your life. You deserve to give to others because it feels good to you, but also to find people who are capable of allowing you to receive. If one person cannot do this, it’s okay and the sooner you make peace with that, the quicker you’ll stop the energy drain and find people who understand the basics of energy.
The biggest assumptions that are causing empathic burnout:
- “They will see my good intentions”. Though we all communicate through the written word and spoken language, empaths also infuse unseen energetic intention into these two forms of communication. In other words, empaths often communicate in a third way — hidden, less-than-precise, or less-than-direct. We intrinsically understand someone else’s intention even when they do not actually communicate it. So we believe others are doing the same for us. This just isn’t true. Remember that others may not be able to get gut instincts about your intention so you have to literally say or do these things so they get it. You have to be very clear with what you say in important situations because your good intentions may not be picked up by the receiving party, which can leave you frustrated, questioning yourself, and disheartened. Be clear, be direct, be honest. Other people need this just as much as you do. I believe this is one reason empaths have largely been resigned to a subordinate role — we have to actually show people our worth because they won’t feel it. This will help you feel less misunderstood or overlooked which will save you tons of stress.
- “I sent my good energy so they will reciprocate.” This is very similar to the above. For example, I was an acquaintance of a very left-brained logical woman who was also very friendly. Every time we tried to speak, however, it seemed like we were speaking two different languages. She dyed her hair, and I noticed and liked it a lot and told her, “I like your hair! It’s different!” To which she replied with a snippy condescending defense, “Different is good, right?” The irony was, the color she dyed her hair was close to my natural hair color — surely she would see I wasn’t being catty, right? But I realized she couldn’t read my good energy and to a left-brained logical thinker, telling them something is “different” is a really bad thing. For me as a right-brained creative thinker, I thought I was giving her the highest compliment but it wasn’t received that way. There was too much left up for interpretation because she couldn’t read energy, and that caused tension in the relationship. My assumption was good energy for good energy but that isn’t always the case. Instead of internalizing that, I made peace with it because I know I had good energy towards her. Let go of the expectation for reciprocated energy because you may never get that from people and until you do, you’ll stay stressed, resentful, and frustrated.
- “Someone will come to my rescue.” Because many empaths have an attachment wound, in which they have been taught they have to work hard to get love from external sources, they do not believe they are capable of rescuing themselves. When times get tough, we continue to seek external sources of support and love. You are fully capable of helping yourself, no matter what comes your way. The expectation that someone else will save you in your time of need is not helpful because many people will not. They lack the attentiveness or compassion. Some people will, though, especially if you are surrounded by great people. But you have to release the expectation because first, it prevents you from doing the “life lessons” yourself (which you are here to do), and secondly, it generates anger towards others which will keep you sick. One day we will all be able to act in a community-oriented mindset and see what is good for one is good for the whole, but until that time, let it go.
- “I am the only one who can do this.” Because empaths often have a servant mentality, we take the brunt of the load in life by ourselves and get trapped under huge amounts of stress as a result. You want so desperately to help and save everyone because you see how much you have needed it yourself. As I said above, there may not be anyone coming to rescue you from the problems. In some cases, this is necessary so you can learn the lesson fully. But, that doesn’t mean you have to take the burden of responsibility for other people’s concerns by yourself. If it is not your own obligation, let it go. If you are already overwhelmed, sick, or stressed, remember that if others need something, they are capable of taking some of the responsibility for themselves. You can still help if they want it, but you don’t have to do it all for them.
- “If I explain myself, they will understand.” As I said above, empaths and left-brained thinkers communicate and understand the world in entirely different ways. Empaths infuse their unspoken energy and intention into every interaction, whether in person or through the written word. Because of this, we often feel there is an assumption that we have to do our own P.R. work to explain how we work to others. It becomes exhausting to try to get people to understand us. Here’s what you want to remember: those who are interested will ask, listen, and process. Those who are not will jump to conclusions, take things the wrong way, or dismiss you. Do not chase them when they show you their intention here. Understanding can only come from a desire from within. You cannot make someone have a desire to understand.
How to access your full potential as an empath
Are you one of the 15-20% of the population worldwide who is a true empath? Empaths are people who feel the pain of others very deeply, have a complex inner world, are interested in metaphysical or esoteric phenomena, feel overwhelmed by certain stimuli, have a certain loving naivete’ about them, instinctively understand the truth even if it has been withheld, and are here to help us transition into a new paradigm — one of love, peace, and equality.
Because this personality type is rare, empaths often go their entire lives feeling weird, different, and strange. They sometimes describe feeling like aliens on a planet they do not understand. They may try to fit in but ultimately are only partially able to do so because fitting in requires forgoing their true nature, which over time, causes physical and emotional disease. It’s an unfortunate trade off in which they can either be socially successful or personally successful.
The truth is, empaths weren’t born to fit in and go along, they are here to usher in an era of change and show the world what true love and compassion looks like. And we’re on the dawn of this age. They are here to use an entirely different section of the brain — the free-thinking, emotionally attentive right hemisphere — in a world full of left-brained systems, designs, structures, rules, and punishments.
In order to reach your highest potential as an empath, here’s what you need to know: you cannot become a fully self-actualized person while you are choosing the easy route. Your life has been hard on purpose — and I do mean hard. Empaths have exceptionally difficult life lessons because it is the experiences that develop your compassionate nature, help you build a fierceness that you were punished for or talked out of as a child, and become intuitive enough to recognize injustices when they are happening and actually do something about it.
For example, you likely have never received confirmation of your feelings and experiences (which empaths desperately need to prevent them from ongoing states of cognitive dissonance), you were spanked/gaslighted/emotionally neglected as a child because you were different and had a certain natural wisdom about you that threatened authority figures, and you have also been subject to extremely toxic relationships in which you were paired with at least one narcissistic personality in order to reveal your shadow side and understand how the narcissistic systems work.
But often because empaths are so sensitive to pain, they choose to avoid it, ignore it, and pretend it isn’t there. They play along like life is great or just retreat when things get rough. They feel addressing the pain would be too hard, and let’s face it — we also live in a world where talking about problems is still largely taboo and complicates your social life. Maybe you were even punished for doing so when you were younger. It’s simply easier to pretend you’re okay. Until you’re not — or can’t.
Ultimately your body and soul will reach a breaking point. There is only so much stuffing down you can do before your body is going to revolt and physical disease states will ensue. Ignoring the problems generates intense stress responses that will affect your stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, your thyroid hormones, your immune system (which becomes dysregulated in the presence of high cortisol), your gut (which also becomes dysfunctional in the presence of high cortisol and causes leaky gut syndrome and alters your gut microbiome), blood pressure, heart, kidneys, blood sugar, and more.
The time to do the soul work is now, empaths. The world is changing and as societal systems are restructured, we need to be ready to take the helm or at least take our equal seat at the table. If you’ve always wanted to help others and the world, now is your chance. But before you can do that, you have to delve into the hard work to overcome whatever is holding you back and keeping you stressed and sick.
Here’s how to access your full potential as an empath:
- Identify where the narcissistic personalities are in your life and chart out the problems in those relationships. The reality is, every empath who is not aware is going to have attracted many spiritual narcissists that are flat out draining you. If the other person is willing to work through the problems, great and that says a lot about their soul maturity. If they are not, they are holding back your soul’s growth and you need to make the brave decision to distance yourself. As you start peeling back the layers, so to speak, you may be amazed at just how many narcissistic personalities you are surrounded by. (Again, please don’t diagnose people — just use this information for yourself to understand what is going on around you and free yourself).
- Give in to your life lessons. The pain in your life is the signal that something needs to change or be worked through. As an Intuitive, in Energy Reading sessions, I easily recognize the patterns in one’s life and this tells us the overarching theme of your life lessons. Once you understand your life lessons, you can go forward with this knowledge and be able to recognize what to do in each future difficulty you encounter. It’s not just a random problem, it is a message and call to action.
- Stop living the attachment wound. An attachment wound is usually something you acquired in childhood by being told you weren’t good enough or worthy of love (in so many words, or based on the actions of your caregivers). Real love is unconditional and you do not have to be on the proverbial hamster wheel seeking love your whole life, worrying you will never get it because there is something wrong with you. Tell yourself everyday that you deserve love, there is nothing you can do to earn it, and people who lord love over you are not acting in love. Real love is unconditional with no strings attached and contains elements of true forgiveness despite any imperfections.
- Get out from under the “nice” spell and start being fierce. Chances are you feel conflicted about being loving and also standing up for yourself when necessary. You want to avoid confrontation at all costs so when you are put in situations where you have to tell the truth even if it is inconvenient and difficult, you internalize it as you are bad, wrong, hateful, imperfect, etc. Remember that love isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Love is hard truth when necessary and standing up for yourself and others in the presence of evil and injustice. Just like a parent who reminds their child of the correct path to take — or problems to look out for — so too are empaths who are awakened: they tell the truth even when it is not convenient, because they know they lying and pretending is not real love and only perpetuates problems in the long run.
- Stop caring about what other people think. You have likely been trying to please people your entire life because empaths easily recognize the needs of others, want to meet them, and because you naturally have a servant energy archetype where the underlying assumption is that you will serve others interests while forsaking your own. People who only wanted you to serve their needs, or who expect you to be a diminutive version of yourself for their comfort are not your real allies. Trying to please them the rest of your life will get you nowhere but drained, overwhelmed, and sick. And it’s certainly not going to help the world if you’re not living out your true passions.
- Identify what you are good at, then pursue it hardcore. What you are good at is why you are here. The interests, skills, talents, and hobbies you have held back because they perhaps couldn’t support you 100% financially, because you didn’t think you had the time for, or thought others wouldn’t like it, are what the world desperately needs. Empaths aren’t just here to feel, they are here to do. That thing you have always wanted to contribute to the world — do it. Now. Even if you can’t get out of your day job, find ways to integrate your skills into your everyday life.
- Hack your “operating system”. Think of your body like a computer. You get a virus, you slow down, get sick, and use anti-virals. Something crashes and you have to reboot. A key or screen gets broken and you get it replaced. So too is your physical body: you have to upgrade your operating system in order to overcome physical illness. This includes knowing what your common gene mutations are and finding proper diet or supplements to support them, figuring out what your food sensitivities are and avoiding them, healing your gut health, reinoculating your G.I. tract with healthy bacteria and yeasts, identifying nutrient deficiencies, balancing hormones, doing chelation therapy with the help of a trained doctor, and more. This is much of what I do for clients in Nutrition Consultations.
- Fix your fascia. The mysofascial system is the literal, tangible mind-body connection that is visible to the naked eye. The fascia is the connective tissue that sits under your skin and on top of your muscles. If you have lived in states of chronic acidity, have deep-rooted infections (especially viral infections and Lyme co-infections), are mineral or protein deficient, you will have dysfunctional fascia called fascial adhesions. The way you move your body, your posture, spinal subluxations, and wearing tight clothing will also cause the development of adhesions. Typically the fascia should be a thin, flat structure that supports your movement and muscles. Due to the above reasons, thick adhesions form which cuts off blood flow, nutrients, oxygen, and range of mobility. In other words, it’s like you become mummified and calcified while you are still alive. It affects your hormones, causes pain, and keeps you chronically infected much to the detriment of your immune system. There are ways to reverse this and I highly recommend identifying your fascial adhesions in a Body Reading session, and then pursuing myofascial release in order to restore the fascia to its healthy state.
Remember, you are here to bring about change. Unfortunately, change is often scary and difficult. Empaths can access their full potential — 100% — but it will be challenging. The choice is yours if you prefer to remain quiet and just go along, or you choose to be brave and bold and confront the problems. If you choose to be brave, you will find healing and uncover the truth and power of who you actually are.
How to transition from your stressed-out “lizard” brain to your prefrontal cortex
Every single one of us has been a recipient of the trauma someone else imposed on us — every single one, whether you realize it or not.
Often, clients come to me with so much grief and negative energy affecting their every move, every thought, every decision about life. They want to feel happy, but they actually feel quite sad. They want to feel motivated but they instead feel fatigued beyond belief and don’t think their efforts will amount to much. They want to like themselves but they can’t stop the self-deprecating tape playing in their mind: “you aren’t good enough”, “you’ll never be pretty enough”, “you’re dirty”, “you’re not smart enough”, “you need to atone for the sin that is you”, “things will never work out in your favor”. Or they feel they are going at life alone because no one is on the same page as them.
They don’t understand why they are feeling this way because they’ve had a “good” life, or they have a “good” spouse, or they are doing their best to change their diet for the better.
Here’s the thing: it’s not your fault.
We are players in a bigger system that we have not had control over until this moment in time. Our current reality is the sum total of what has happened to others before us and how the cycle has repeated to this day. Last October was a huge “breaking of the dam” watershed moment in time and we are being given the option to stop the secrets and the culture of silent pain. It is an unraveling and undoing of the way things have always been done and it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to confront the problems so they no longer make your body and spirit sick.
Unhealthy cycles are not broken until someone consciously chooses to break them. Until someone says something about the problems, or until someone does something radically different from what was done to them, the toxic cycle will continue.
Breaking unhealthy cycles is one of the hardest things you will ever do because other people may actively work to prevent the change since it feels too scary to them. Pain is all they have known and it is familiar; unacknowledged pain allows them to maintain power or control; it allows them to keep pretending the choices they made were okay; it keeps them from the pain of regret or guilt. It prevents you from being able to rise into the shining being you really are. And it makes you consistently strengthen activity in certain regions of the brain that make this cycle worse over time.
Here’s what you need to know for your health: because of trauma you are operating out of your “lizard” brain or Amygdala. The Amygdalae which are so primitive, they’re often called the “lizard” remnants of the brain, are two almond-shaped sections of nervous tissue located in the temporal lobe. Amygdalae are part of the limbic system which is responsible for emotions, survival, instincts, mood, sexuality, addictions, and memory. It’s function has been linked to neuropsychiatric disorders that involve anxiety and fears.
You will have dominant Amygdala function whether your trauma has been acknowledged thus far, or whether it still remains in the subconscious corners of your mind. The Amygdala is the fight-or-flight, reactivity, fear center of the brain. It remembers most every misdeed others have done to us so that we can constantly be on the defense in order to protect ourselves. It is a coping mechanism and survival tactic that, while once essential, has overstayed it’s welcome. In large part, we’re not hunter-gatherers needing to protect ourselves from apex predators or starvation. It’s making us sick from the stress.
Sounds a bit like adrenal fatigue or hypothyroidism, right?: frazzled, stressed, broken, in states of heightened awareness, in the red, on the defense constantly because we need to protect ourselves from perceived threats. If you are operating out of the Amygdala as a fear center every day, imagine the repercussions for your hormonal health – constantly in a state of flux, constantly swinging from high to low, or just getting so burnt out that your T4, T3, TSH, cortisol, estrogen, and testosterone and completely out of whack. Imagine the repercussions for your immune health – chronically infected with yeast, bacteria, parasites, or your body may be engaged in an autoimmune response where it is attacking anything and everything that is a non-existent threat (food proteins, your own tissues, etc).
There is a solution.
The solution is learning to tap into a vastly different area of your brain that, instead of relying on old bad memories to create our future reality, it relies on problem-solving, solution-seeking, future-oriented goal setting, and personal behavioral modification. It’s called the prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortex is located in the frontal lobe — right where the sixth chakra or intuitive “third eye” is located — at the front of the forehead. There is a scientific link between your will to live, personality, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, processing, updating, redirecting, and moderating social behavior. Activity in this brain region is in large part a collection of thoughts and actions in accordance with your internal goals. It also helps one differentiate between various thoughts in order to come to reasonable conclusions that will benefit you in the future and are not based in reactivity and fear. In other words, it helps us plan and seek future, positive experiences instead of constantly reacting to old problems.
Here’s how to tap into your prefrontal cortex:
- identify your subconscious triggers (I do this for clients in Energy Reading sessions)
- work through your problems/sin/karma (what you choose to call it doesn’t matter)
- learn cause and effect – how your actions affect others and how others actions affect you
- enact the laws of cause and effect in your life
- stop the negative cycles you have inherited from others
- map out and visualize the future that you want for yourself
- find solutions to get the future health and self you desire, then pursue them hardcore until you get the results you want
- strengthen your own energy through prayer, positive affirmations, meditation, Energy Readings, reiki, acupuncture, yoga or gentle forms of exercise, close friendships with people who know how to reciprocate, doing hobbies you enjoy, etc.
- figure out which diet you should be eating for your unique gene mutations and health problems
- get rid of toxic people or energy vampires in your life (relationships that drain you or in which there are strings attached for purposes of power, control, and manipulation)
- learn about or discover your true personality, apart from what others expect or demand of you
- stand your ground and do not be moved – remember that no one deserves to elicit your stress response
Remember, we are not lizards. We are mammals with a spiritual lineage and the fear center that was once essential for survival is overreacting to your detriment. It doesn’t jive with our modern world. While there may be legitimate threats to your well-being (car accidents, money troubles, relationship problems), you are more than a reptilian stalking prey or finding ways to prevent becoming the prey. You are more than that. You have to remember this essential part of your soul in order to stop the cyclical fear patterns that are making you stressed and sick. You can transition to a new thought process, it is possible. When you do, watch how your health and life improve dramatically for the better.
The healing you seek is right in front of you
Until you understand yourself, you will never understand your health. I have found this to be true time and time again both for myself and my clients over the last seven years. I will tell you the truth: your body is a metaphor for all you have lived, all you have experienced (the good and bad), and all of the trauma you have suppressed or internalized. The answers you seek are right in front of you.
That ache in your back, the tightness in your throat, the gait with which you walk, the way you carry your shoulders, the food allergies, the stomach bloat, the chronic fatigue, the brain fog — it is all a cue and clue as to the greater analogy of who you are, what you have been through, and how your body handled it all.
Think of your health as a poem. A left-brained critical thinker (aka: doctor) may take a look at the words (aka: your body) and assume prescriptions are the solution for any and everything that ails you. That is all they have been trained to do and they do not function outside of these boundaries because it feels scary to them. It is a trek into unknown, uncharted waters. To them, you are black and white, cut and cry, no gray area or room for discussion. Anything else would imply they don’t have all the answers.
Modern medicine has relegated health and wellness into the realm of the left-brained scientist: “Only they can be trusted, only they can be believed, only they have the answers I seek.” This just isn’t true. It takes a right-brained creative thinker that knows no bounds, is comfortable with free thought, and understands you are a limitless individual with limitless solutions available to you to find the answers to your pressing, painful health complaints. It takes a poet, an artist, an inventor to say, “there is more to the story. I know this because I can read between the lines.” Yes, we’ve been doing it all wrong.
What if instead of medicating (which never gets to the root of why you are experiencing the health problem in the first place) we began to “read” you to deconstruct the meaning behind it all? What if we unraveled, line by line, symptom by symptom, the meaning of you? What if we went so deep into you that we solved the mysteries?
Chronic illness does not have one cause. Yet thyroid diseases and autoimmune conditions are diagnosed and treated as though they do come from a singular cause. Medication, testing, adjusting of dosage, more testing, more adjusting. Round and round we go on this hamster wheel. You end up so frustrated or defeated that you give up trying to improve things altogether. Let me tell you this: it is not you, it is them.
I think of each client as a unique mystery begging to be solved. How did they get here? What is their potential for healing? What do we need to do to get them there quickly? I know there are always solutions because I healed my Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and put it into unmedicated remission despite medical professionals telling me it wasn’t possible. They couldn’t read between the lines, but I could. And I did.
I have worked with clients at the end of their rope with their health. I have seen women with Graves’ disease go medication-free and keep their labs in check with specific, tailored nutrition and deep mind-body work; Graves’ Disease! — an illness that can literally kill someone. They came to me eating a gluten-free and dairy-free diet because that’s what they’d read big-name left-brained doctors and internet stars say they had to do. It wasn’t getting them anywhere. You see, diseases happen for “cluster” reasons. Once we understand the cluster, we deconstruct it to stop it.
This means they didn’t just have a genetic predisposition to autoimmunity or hyperthyroidism — they had 10 or more issues that were compounding to create the Graves’ disease state:
- histamine intolerance
- large consumption of thyroid-stimulating foods (coconut, avocado, and brazil nuts, for example)
- leaky gut syndrome
- Epstein-Barr infections
- Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)
- adrenal fatigue or high/low cortisol
- erratic blood sugar
- too little cholesterol in their diet and way too much plant-based saturated fat (thanks to big name doctors promoting a low-cholesterol, high saturated fat Paleo diet)
- nervous system dysregulation
- stored chaotic energy
- abuse or neglect
- little to no self-care
- “screaming” to be heard their entire lives
What happens when you deconstruct and remedy the cluster? You stop the disease state.
But keep in mind, this is only a template. It’s like the stanzas in a poem. The words will be unique to you, despite the outline of the rhythm being the same. Until you understand your unique cluster, you will never halt the health problems.
The answers you seek are literally and figuratively right in front of you. You must find someone to help you deconstruct the metaphor that is you.
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