February Mental Wellness Mantra: I release what is not mine to feel.
Empathy is a magical thing but it can also be the worst and here’s why. While empathy allows you to better connect with people, better understand people, and generally have a better relationship with people, you can fall into a pattern where you carry anothers’ emotions. Many of us out there absorb other people’s emotions like a dry sponge tossed into the ocean. When a loved one is having a bad day, it can spread to us so easily.
So while it’s important to show empathy, it’s equally important to ensure that you’re not absorbing the emotions of another person. For some of us, myself included, it’s so easy to get swept away into another person’s story, feelings, and beliefs. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in it that I can’t always tell which feelings are mine and which feelings I’ve borrowed. This is where I’m stuck right now. I’ve been extremely negative lately and I can tell it’s just from me absorbing others’ feelings around me.
January was truly a great month and you can read more about it in my January Mental Wellness Chat. I was coming down from the holiday stress of the month before and let my guard down I guess you could say. While normally I’m able to be empathetic without entangling my own feelings with another’s, I seem to have fallen into a pattern where I’m feeling others’ emotions. If I’m hanging out with a friend and they’re telling me about all of their stress and all of their anxious thoughts, I find that I start to feel stressed and anxious. It’s an easy pattern for me to fall into and thankfully an easy pattern for me to break.
So here’s my mantra for this month: I release what is not mine to feel. During this month, I will continue to be empathetic and listen to what other people have to say. However, I will remember that I do not have to feel what they are feeling. Empathy is not about absorbing and feeling what others feel, simply about understanding it.
I’ve already begun to implement this mantra by the end of January because I simply couldn’t wait. In my planner, I will write down that my feelings are my own to remind me to have a healthy detachment from others’ emotions. I find that this can be difficult to balance so I always err on the side of absorbing emotions too much. I don’t want to come off as detached or standoffish. However, just taking a moment for myself after having a conversation with someone else can help me clear my mind and center myself. I will continue taking these moments for myself and during these moments I will remind myself I release what is not mine to feel.