Do you feel as though you are a human sponge for other people’s emotions? Do you tend to absorb the energies of co-workers, family, and friends to the point it can leave you drained for days?
I know that all you really want is to help others feel better and that desire comes from a beautiful giving heart. While this is a loving gesture, when you continually take on the emotions and feelings of others it can leave you feeling exhausted with no energy of your own.
This leaves you feeling like an emotional human sponge and is one of the signs of being an Empath. You can check out if you exhibit some of the signs of an empath here.
When you get to the point of exhaustion, what you are experiencing is something called overactive empathy.
What Is Empathy?
Empathy is the ability to understand, experience, and share the feelings of another soul. This is a beautiful state of opening up our hearts and connecting deeply with another. It comes from a place of true giving and understanding.
Overactive Empathy – The Human Sponge Effect
There is another side to empathy that many of you are all too familiar with and that is when your gift of empathy gets turned on 24-7 and begins to overtake far too many areas of your life.
Your beautiful gift of empathy goes into overdrive and pretty soon you can think that empathy is more of a curse rather than a gift. Somewhere along the line there has been a lynch pin or a turning point. What once was a beautiful soul level gift has turned into a source of pain and isolation for you.
When your empathy is in overdrive, you often find yourself feeling like a victim of other people’s energy. This can affect you whether you consider yourself a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), an Empath, or if are simply compassionate and sympathetic.
Overactive empathy is taking on someone else’s physical or emotional pain to the point that you are energetically drained.
When your empathy radio is constantly turned up to full volume, you end up suffering emotionally. In some cases it also manifests into physical symptoms such as headaches, migraines, and more.
The Complete Empath Toolkit
Can you look at someone and just ‘know’ what they are going through?
Do you cry easily? Do you find yourself listening with ease to other people’s problems? Have complete strangers easily shared their intimate secrets with you? Have you found yourself drained by other people’s energy?
If so, you might be an empath, and you probably have gone through life being more affected by other people’s energies than you realize.
I have found a great resource for you to help you understand your empathy. It is called The Complete Empath Toolkit.
More Articles On Overactive Empathy
Find Out If Your Empathy Is Out Of Control
How To Know If You Are An Empath
Do You Suffer From Overactive Empathy?
I left my comment in the “Is Your Empathy in Overdrive?” topic. My bad lol.
Second thought I am going to have to re-listen to the recording, seems like I get this clear feeling and now I am getting hit again, I understand it takes practice and such but give me a break already lol. I wrote the rest as I stated above. Thanks again.
I can relate to this…people who know me, work with me, etc…see this trait as a fact despite mainstream concepts haven’t accepted this tendency we have in different ways.
My job accepted this as fact and arranged my workload around it. They actually limted my home visits to clients because they felt that being “grounded” in our supportive office would offset my absorbtion of client’s emotional states (I worked with the poorest and sickest disabled, homeless, and/or senior clients). They said they valued my manner with clients and were afraid that my ability to keep my psych boundaries intact were overwhelmed when in the client’s turf, so to speak. I’m not trying to brag about what a great worker I was, I wasn’t…I have terrible health issues despite my appearance. I’ve been disabled with chronic, intractable migraines since a car accident 8 yrs ago…the pain is finally resolving, so I’m in the grateful process of going off heavy pain meds (they saved my life when I needed them, but they really shut down the brain) and am both excited and frightened about re-entering the human race if things continue to improve.
Also for my mate…lol..he’s MORE empathic than me. Truth…I cannot lie to the man about anything because the fact I’m lying gives him “sinking feeling” in his gut.
Since we’re both sponges, we actually have a duplex and our own apts. and share a common area. This may sound like lack of commitment to some, but actually it’s what allows us to be the best partners we can FOR each other by allow ourselves the huge amount of “psych space” we each seem to need like breathing and eating.
I’m so glad I found him :))
Anyway, I’m really enjoying your articles. Hope my “wordiness” isn’t annoying anyone and apologies if so!
🙂