BSB Ep: 69 Empathy
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Bite-Size Brilliance podcast. I'm your host, Dr. April Darley, and I wanna talk about extreme empathy today. Early on in my practice as a MINDBODY practitioner, and when I opened my first office as a physician, I worked with empaths a lot. Why? Because I did classify myself as an empath and that particular population needed a lot of support mentally, physically, energetically. And if you're listening to this as a highly sensitive person or you classify yourself as an empath, then you know what I'm talking about. There are certain sensitivities that can just drain you in a lot of these ways. And I went on eventually to write my book, Empath Armor: How to Ground, Cleanse, and Protect Your Energy as a Sensitive Person.
It's over on Amazon and I'll drop the link in the show notes if you're interested. But I wrote that book as a very quick manual on how to stabilize yourself mentally, [00:01:00] physically, emotionally, when you're dealing with the weight of the world. And empaths are a lot like sponges, energetic sponges. They tend to unconsciously take on things that don't belong to them.
That could be thought programming, that could be someone else's emotions, even their physical pain. Now, in Empath Armor, I spent very little time explaining what is an empath, because honestly, there are way better books out there than mine on that, and my clients came to me and they said, "You know what? I already know I'm an empath.
I just don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to help myself." And that's where I focus the book on these different strategies. And these are energetic strategies. So if you're looking for a lot of psychology and science in that book, you're not gonna find it. That is one of my woo woo books. We are talking crystals, flower, essences, incense, sage,
meditation, all of the things that you could do [00:02:00] mind buddy spirit, to try to realign that have nothing to do with science and neuroscience. So my practice has obviously evolved since I wrote that book many years ago, and I do combine the woo, the Science and the Psychology, the Neuroscience, all of that has morphed into what I do today, which is my Bespoke Brain System.
Helping you rebalance the survival, the emotion, and the logic to make your life better in every way, The concept of extreme empathy, I'm going to use a recent example from a client, and this was a domestic violence situation where my client did not have any children. But had been in a long-term relationship, we're talking four or five years with a person who was very emotionally abusive and on occasion physically abusive. If you know anyone who has had difficulties leaving a domestic violence [00:03:00] situation, especially as an empath, there is this feeling of I am supposed to help them. They wouldn't be okay without me, and there's this worry of what's going to happen to them if I'm not around. And to some people who are not familiar, like you don't know about domestic violence, you didn't grow up in that, you don't have any close family or friends that are in that situation, the psychology of that can be very difficult to understand.
I grew up in a home where there was domestic violence, and I understand the psychology of it, and I look at every person who's in that situation with so much compassion because it is not a simple answer. And people who aren't in that situation, it's very easy for them to go, "Why don't you just leave?
What is wrong with you?" The victim blame you type stuff. Because they don't understand the depth of the psychology and feeling that goes along when [00:04:00] someone is in that situation. And if you're an empath, there's other things to consider emotionally, spiritually, you're very wiring of your brain. It can be a people pleasing tendency.
You're staying because it can be a trauma response. You're staying because of programming. You're staying because of stories sometimes of what you tell yourself, or you have believed stories that other people have told you. Maybe your partner's a narcissist and they've gaslit you and you've lost your sense of discernment and worth.
All of these things make these situations very complicated, but when you have extreme empathy, we have to look at empathy as a good thing until everything in moderation, right? Extreme empathy can cause you to stay in situations that are very harmful to you. Mind, body, spirit. And you can be staying because you have an inborn sense of responsibility, or you have
[00:05:00] programming that's telling you bad things will happen if I change the environment. So if I were to leave or they were to leave, then bad things were going to happen. This is survival based programming. So what I do with my clients is I'm gonna split all of this apart and we're gonna look at the scenario and help you identify which pieces of you may be staying because of survival. Which pieces of you might be staying for subconscious, emotional based reasons. Which pieces of you may be staying for logical reasons, like I don't have a job, and if I left, how would I support my children? How would I feed us? How would I clothe us? We have to take these things in account and go through them, but when you have extreme empathy.
It can be very harmful, even toxic to you and the cure is to be less empathetic. I know that may sound impossible if you're a sensitive person or an empath. You're like, how can I [00:06:00] shut it out? Or How can I just turn it off and quit? You may feel that I can't do that. Empathy is who I am. I think we're all connected. We all have a purpose and the danger can come in when you say someone is more valuable than me. And I have worked with a ton of empaths who unconsciously have that programming. Other people are more valuable than me.
What other people want, need or do is more valuable than my contribution or even my own life. And I have seen empaths hurt themselves either through cutting. , emotional eating, staying in violent situations, staying with toxic people in toxic friendships, staying in jobs that they absolutely can't stand or that are terrible for them because of these types of things. This is what I want to help Unwire for you, is to help you look at your situation and go, yes, I'm an empath, or, [00:07:00] yes, I'm a sensitive. Empathy is a good thing. But what you may need to do is turn that dial over to sympathy. Sympathy and empathy are different. Sympathy is like, I have compassion for you. I understand what you're going through.
Empathy tends to stray into the category of, let me take that from you. Let me take that on for you. Let me take that burden to make your life better. And this is where we toe the line into destructive paths. Learning to recognize the difference between sympathy and empathy, learning to turn down the volume and move away from extreme empathy to an average dollop of empathy is going to make your life better.
And it involves these three things. There is a mindset component because we do need to look at your. programming. We need to look at your response, your nervous system. It is your emotions. We also need to look at [00:08:00] where are you feeling things can or cannot change? How are your emotions informing your programming for better or worse, helpful or harmful?
And then what actions are you taking to improve your life, not just the lives of others, because I want you to be a little selfish here. I want you to learn to think and value yourself equally as others, and you may think you are equal. But if your subconscious or unconscious programming or feelings or beliefs or stories are putting you one step below someone, you'll still put their needs above your own in a people pleasing or a trauma response way, and this isn't going to help you and I wanna help you.
I wanna help you have an easier, smoother, better life. And it all starts with splitting these things apart and putting them back together again in a way that everybody wins. And whenever I have [00:09:00] someone that comes to me with relationship issues, one of the first questions I will ask them is, do you want my help to stay in this or do you want my help to leave it?
Because how I approach the situation is different depending on which pathway you choose. The choice is yours, but if you are in a physically, emotionally abusive situation, you cannot change the other person. And if they are unwilling to do the work to change themselves, the answer is in the long run, it's not an easy answer, but you are only going to flourish outside of that environment.
And that's just hard facts. I have had many clients who initially answered that question of, I want help to stay in this until we get further enough in our work, and then they realize, oh, I'm doing these destructive, empathic things. I am operating from a place of extreme [00:10:00] empathy where I'm not valuing myself.
My self-worth has been low. I'm putting up with bad behavior. My boundaries have been weak, non-existent, or trampled on, and that's not fair to me. Then when they start to see these things and they start to practice self-love, self-worth, boundaries, then they realize, oh, I can't stay. I have to go. And then we switch tracks, okay, let's go. So it's a very complicated situation when anyone has extreme empathy. And you have my sympathy if you are listening to this right now with extreme empathy, but that doesn't have to be your end all, be all. Empathy can be turned on, it can be dialed down. It's a part of who you are, but it doesn't have to be the thing that makes you suffer.
That's really what I wanted you to get as a big takeaway is that suffering is a choice. Pain is inevitable. You can [00:11:00] make things easier by sometimes doing something that's a little harder at first. Doesn't make sense, but that's the way the brain works. If you need some help with that, let me know. Over at aprildarley.com, I do free consultations by phone. It's about 20 minutes. We're gonna talk about what's going on in your world. What are you struggling with? What are your challenges? Plus, what are your goals? Where do you wanna be? What do you want your life to be like instead? And then we're gonna talk about how my bespoke brain system can help you get there. One of the things I love about that system is it helps people make sense of the world. It helps people make sense of what's going on in their thoughts, their emotions, and their behavior. And it gives them a plan. to get where they want to be instead of being reactive, they're proactive, and that makes all the difference.
It's very unique. It's customized to you because no one in the world is going to think, believe, or act just like you. So this is not a cookie cutter system. [00:12:00] This is targeted exactly where you need it, how you need it, when you need it, where you need it. All right, I'll see you next week, my friends. Goodbye.
