Protecting Yourself from Other People’s Emotions
Set boundaries to prevent yourself from owning others’ emotions. Emotional boundaries can help you maintain healthy, balanced relationships while taking care of your mental health and keeping your identity intact. To create healthy boundaries, try to: Determine what your needs are and communicate them openly. If you need an hour to recharge after work before talking to anyone, tell your family or partner. Figure out what you won’t compromise on, and be clear about it. You might say “no” to certain activities because of your health, your children, or other valued priorities. Plan your responses to difficult situations in advance to stop from relaxing your boundaries. If your coworker always asks you to help them out, you might say “I’m sorry, but I have my own work to complete and I can’t help you right now.” Set time limits on visits with people who overwhelm you. If you have a friend who always wants to call you to complain about work, you might say “I am happy to listen, but I only have 10 minutes to talk today.”
Check in with your feelings and needs. When you’re constantly taking on the emotions of other people, your emotions might get lost in the process. When you’re in your own space away from others, try to ask yourself what feelings you’re having, how you might label them (like “anger” or “sadness”), and when you became aware of them. Journaling can be a great way to describe your thoughts and feelings in a space where others can’t interfere. Pay attention to the places where you absorb others’ emotions most often, like in crowds, at work, or at a party, and practice checking in with your feelings in those situations. Once you know how you feel when you’re away from others, you can better identify when you’re picking up on someone else’s energy. When you get into a situation where you’re overwhelmed with emotions, check in with your feelings and ask yourself if they’re yours or someone else’s.
Visualize a bubble or glass wall between yourself and other people. Highly sensitive people tend to be emotional sponges for all kinds of energy, both positive and negative. To stay centered in social situations, try to visualize a bubble, a glass wall, or a circle of white light around you, separating your thoughts and feelings from other people’s. If you’re around toxic people or energy vampires, you can also visualize a black jaguar encircling and protecting you.
Practice mindfulness and grounding techniques. You might take deep breaths, visualize a place where you feel calm like a beach or a quiet bookstore, or imagine “turning the volume down” on your emotions. Visualize negativity as a gray fog lifting from your body, and positivity as a golden light entering your mind. Try using yoga to practice breathing, lower your stress hormones, and reduce emotional reactivity when dealing with stressful situations. Try a somatosensory technique like wiggling your toes or feeling the texture of an object to bring you back to reality when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Give yourself physical space when you’re feeling overstimulated. Empaths and highly sensitive people don’t just pick up on the energy of other people, but the entire space. If you’re feeling suffocated while in public, try to move to a quiet, clean location where you don’t feel as overstimulated. If you’re unable to change locations, try to make yourself feel more comfortable. If you’re at a restaurant, sit at a table with your back against the wall so you can ground yourself better.
Create a ritual to cleanse yourself of energy you may have picked up. Performing a simple ritual after a stressful social situation might help reduce your anxiety, increase your confidence, and alleviate any negative emotions. For example, you may clean your house after a guest leaves to “cleanse” it of their energy and emotions. Other rituals might be taking a long bath after being in a crowd, putting on different clothes after work, or imagining yourself “shutting out” others’ emotions when you close your front door.
Carve out your own space and do activities that relax you. Taking time to unwind and practice self-care techniques that make you feel rejuvenated can be difficult if you live in a space with others. Find a place you associate with peace, like your bedroom or a backyard, and ask others to leave you to relax for at least 15 minutes. Activities might include reading a book, meditating, doing a hobby you enjoy, taking a walk, listening to music, laying in a hammock, or sitting quietly. Alone time not only allows you to rest and unwind, but it can also improve your concentration, increase your productivity, and provide time to think deeply and creatively.
Spend time in nature when taking a break from social interactions. Spending time outdoors can increase your happiness, well-being, positive social interactions, and a sense of meaning and purpose in life. Since HSPs and empaths both get overstimulated easily, decompressing in nature can give you time to process, rest, and recover. Decorate your indoor spaces with live plants, take a walk or eat a meal outdoors, plant flowers or herbs, visit a nearby park or stream, or plan a weekend at a national park. One study found that a majority of HSPs value spending time in nature to rejuvenate.
Process your feelings with a therapist. Talking with a counselor or therapist might give you a supportive space where you can talk about your feelings. They might also give you tools to set up boundaries, increase your self-acceptance and self-esteem, and feel stronger when faced with challenges. If you aren’t an HSP or an empath, a mental health professional might be able to help you tackle why you might be absorbing others’ emotions.
Why do you absorb other people’s emotions?
You might be a highly sensitive person. Everyone feels other people’s emotions from time to time, but if it happens constantly, you might have an inherited trait called sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). Highly sensitive people (HSP) tend to have SPS, and sometimes people use the two terms interchangeably. Signs of SPS: Processing information deeper than usual, being highly sensitive to sensory stressors like bright lights or loud noise, and increased empathy. Traits of HSP: Avoiding violent media, deeply appreciating art or nature, feeling overstimulated by noises or bright lights, feeling anxious, and having a rich inner life. If you have an anxious attachment style or low self-esteem, you might try to be as emotionally close to others as you can, causing you to absorb how they’re feeling.
You might be an empath. While most people can separate themselves from the world and the people around them, empaths absorb other people’s physical and emotional pain because of their high sensitivity. If you identify with HSP traits and the traits below, you might be an empath, but not all empaths are HSPs. You might be an empath if you: Have a difficult time intellectualizing (or thinking through) your feelings. Avoid violent or emotionally-impactful media. Prefer one-on-one contact or small groups, or limit how much time you spend in a crowd. Experience the world through your intuition or your “gut feelings.” Are naturally the person everyone comes to when they need advice. Become overwhelmed and fear losing yourself in close intimate relationships. Get anxious easily when there’s excessive talking, noise, or smells. Experience emotions without really knowing why.
Embracing Your Highly Sensitive Nature
Cultivate positive emotions to boost your inner strength. While you might not be able to completely turn off your sensitivity to other people’s emotions, you can choose to surround yourself with positive people and situations that make you feel good. Engage in hobbies you enjoy, practice gratitude, and shift your attention from negative thoughts. Research shows that positive emotions can increase your resilience to tough situations and your satisfaction with life. Try to smile and laugh frequently. When you smile, your brain releases chemicals that fight off stress, increase your happiness, and lift the mood of the people around you.
Embrace your inner creativity. High sensitivity is believed to be linked to higher levels of creativity and a greater appreciation for beauty. In turn, creativity can increase your well-being and reduce stress. Try doing an activity like painting, writing, daydreaming, or doing crafts. You can also sculpt clay, dance, write poetry, role-play, make a collage, take photos, make a short film, or play a musical instrument.
Turn your empathy into positive action by helping others. High empathy can feel overwhelming, but it can also be a great motivator to help others and do good deeds. On the flip side, people who regularly help others experience less depression, better health, and a greater sense of calm. No act of kindness is too small. You might: Work at a local hospital or clinic. Serve your partner or spouse breakfast in bed. Volunteer at an organization you care about, like a homeless shelter. Call a friend to see how they’re doing. Hold open a door for others walking inside.
Be compassionate with yourself. Highly sensitive people might have difficulty feeling compassion for themselves the same way they do for others. Try to accept whatever feelings you may experience, good or bad, and give yourself room to be imperfect. When you stop trying to judge or evaluate yourself, you feel less pressure to “be good enough” and are more open to just “be.” Try treating yourself like you would a small child—when a child is hurt, you don’t dismiss their feelings, but instead you hug or comfort them.
Recognize and avoid emotional or energy vampires. Emotional and energy vampires can suck the optimism out of highly sensitive people, leaving you feeling drained. Emotional or energy vampires might have narcissistic traits, constantly victimize themselves, try to control you, always talk over others, or have ongoing drama in their lives. Vampires might also use guilt to get what they want, expect you to take responsibility for them, ask uncomfortably personal questions in group settings, or ignore social cues and boundaries. To stop someone from draining your energy, assert your boundaries with them, ask them for space if you can’t avoid them, and say “no” if you don’t want to spend time with them.
Benefits of High Sensitivity
High sensitivity can help you feel positive emotions more deeply. Although there are some negatives to being an HSP or empath, there are also a lot of positives. Not only can high sensitivity make you feel joy more fully, but it can also help you: Be more observant, aware, and insightful. Embrace new ideas and concepts. Notice patterns and use them to predict outcomes and make smart decisions. Tap into your inner creativity. Listen to multiple perspectives and find common ground.
When is absorbing emotions unhealthy?
Absorbing emotions can be unhealthy if it affects your quality of life. Empathy has an important role to play in how we experience the world. The ability to see things from another’s perspective and feel their emotions can strengthen your relationships and promote a feeling of connection. However, feeling others’ emotions might cross a line if you: Always feel overwhelmed and depleted after social interactions. Stay in relationships with people who drain your energy or treat you badly. Avoid interacting with other people because it feels like too much work. Regularly put the needs of others above your own, making you feel isolated or empty. Start to develop anxiety or low-level depression.
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