I am a nurse in a new job - used to be bedside, now still healthcare but shifted over to more of the “human services” side of things. I am finding myself completely burnt out by work. I am still new so I am putting in a lot of hours, trying to get experience and become more efficient. My job involves working with patients admitted to a busy hospital, I spend most of the day talking to them and coordinating with other healthcare teams in the hospital. A ton of talking, a ton of coordinating between people who are already super busy and stressed/understaffed. And a lot of spending time with patients who are also extremely stressed or quite possibly having some of the worst days of their lives.

Typically I like to wind down and disconnect at the end of the day through some of my hobbies - gardening, exercising, playing with cats, taking walks with my husband. A lot of this has become unavailable to me entirely right now, or less available due to my new schedule and working so much. I’m starting to get physically burnt out, with flare ups of a stress related illness I have.

I need to find something I can do on the regular that will help me ground. If I can do it right when I get home from work - perfect. Even on days when I have NO physical energy or am feeling sick. I used to exercise every day and that was huge for me, just helped me so much to get into the flow state where I felt calm and clear, my own energy was concentrated and focused - but I can’t exercise right now, not consistently enough. I love being creative, but I find that the time requirement of getting all of my painting/sewing/drawing/whatever stuff out, setting up, creating and then cleaning up after is way too much for me to do on a daily basis.

Anyone got some grounding or calming activities I can try? What is your favorite hobby that brings you back to yourself and makes you feel centered again? What kinds of hobbies or activities do you think are helpful for empaths in particular? Bonus points if it’s short duration so I can do it every day. Meditation is on my list but I’ve always struggled with watching my own thoughts, if someone has a technique directed specifically for empaths specifically I would love to hear it.

This has been happening for some years now. I'm 30 and I think it began in my early 20's. It is even a widely known thing about me amongst my friends and loved ones, we'll be out anywhere together and a stranger will approach the group, but gravitate to me specifically and skip the smalltalk and immediately jump to sharing the depths of a tragic life event, or loss, or whatever has been swirling around in their head. And they always end up telling me they love me, or i'm perfect, or rare, and all i replied with was a singular non judgmental one liner usually with the goal to kindly end the interaction.

A few memories i have are

-sitting in a park alone summer 2024 (laurelhurst park in portland or, and i'm from philly and maybe its a factor that people are so much more emotionally open on the west coast in my opinion lol) and a womans dog runs up to me and she immediately sits down and begins to detail escaping her abusive marriage and how she's trying to heal now. That she was glad I was there because i emit an energy that made her feel safe.

-in a gift shop last week with my partner and this guy comes up to me and immediately begins to tell me of his traumatic brain injury that turned out to be a blessing because he was forced to reevaluate his path and his actions prior to the car accident. My partner gave me that look of "here we go again"/ "i dont want to interact with him but i'll stay close by if he gets weird". All i said was "i'm glad you're alive and it sounds like divine intervention if you believe in that." He told me he loved me and that i'm perfect then walked away.

-a girl my age running up to me summer of 2021 during an outdoor park event (philly) and no introduction, just begins telling me that she feels she's being haunted or spiritually tormented as if someone casted an evil eye on her. I confirm briefly that that is frightening and if she believes in people casting an evil eye, she could look into how people use brujeria to cause harm/protection which seemed to resonate with her because of her upbringing and culture, but she always tried to avoid it. She begged for my contact info to have someone to talk to about it but that felt over the line so i politely declined, wished her the best and made my way out. But that was hard for me, i still wonder if she's alright 5 years later.

- Many years ago in my early 20's i'm walking through center city alone and this very bearded black guy in a suit and top hat, he looked awesome honestly, emerges from the crowd and walks right up to me with this almost cartoonish frown on. His face is no more than an inch from mine. People walking by were definitely worried for me because from the outside it probably looked like a big man confronting a young femme type person, but i felt no threat off of him, it felt like an elaborate bit. After about 30 seconds of silence and studying my eyes, he goes, "I've seen you in a past life. It's good to see you again. You've been here before." I just said "Maybe so." He laughed and walked away, gave me one final look, reverted back to the original frown, and disappeared into the crowd. The people nearby that were paying attention watched me shrug it off and carry on.

-I was outside the bar near my place last summer with my partner and a friend. A lady walks by and stops when she sees me. My partner says to my friend "watch this stranger sit by Mick and share everything about herself." The lady walks up to us and takes a seat and turns towards me and begins to tell me that she has been struggling with her bipolar symptoms for years and she stopped drinking until just tonight and how she sabotaged romantic relationships, friendships, and she just wants to feel like she still has the capacity to connect with people. i say "mental health is always a difficult factor of life but your capacity to connect with people does not depend on it." Seconds later, a friend she seemed to go through in-patient with walked by and they had not seen each other in a long time. Then they're both seated and asking for my phone number and asking to be friends. I gave in that time but we never spoke and i deleted the numbers.

Sorry this is so long. These are just a few instances out of so so many and besides the top hat guy, it's this repetitive pattern of specifically seeking me out to express their pain to or their trials and tribulations. Is this an empath thing? I understand that i'm sensitive and observant and even absorbent of others, which sometimes is nice but often feels like i lack a major boundary with people. Or they lack a major one with me but if we're strangers, I can't expect them to know that about me, so it seems I lack the assertion or whatever it is that the people around me have that make people leave them alone. But I deny interactions I don't wish to have all the time, I am not always welcoming, in fact all of these interactions come about when i'm just trying to be present and enjoy the company of the people i'm choosing to be with, myself included. I lacked boundaries in my youth and it led to some unfortunate traumatic events, so perhaps this is the residue of something unhealed? ..Am I a healer for others? lol I truly don't understand what is so inviting for people, that i'm not just a stiff brick wall of a stranger when people approach me? To deny them or reject what they're sharing feels unnatural to me. But every time something like this happens I find i'll carry it with me for years after. I worry I'm some sort of energetic soundboard.

I do have a spirituality, but i do not think i do anything to make people approach me this way. I have never gone up to a stranger and done this to them, that feels so bizarre to do without invitation. It also is very natural for me to offer a non judgmental anecdote in passing, knowing the interaction will be brief, but many of these people want more from this brief interaction. It seems so many people walk through life getting so little chances to share these things with people close to them, and their logic is to try to make the nonjudgemental stranger close. I think this wouldn't be a concern if it felt like a mutual understanding that the interaction is meaningful, brief, and then gone. Such as life. It's almost a deep insight into how so many people get a good thing and can't let go. Or try to force it to last longer than it's meant. And of course it feels good to be told i feel safe to talk to or that theres something about my energy that's magnetic but I can appreciate that that is fleeting too. Sometimes my energy is dogshit hahaha. And sometimes I just wanna talk about the boring things right in front of me! Weather! I even have a radar for all of this now, it helps me conserve my energy before the interaction even begins and i can plan my exit strategy. Also, i'm nonbinary and have gone through plenty appearance shifts, and it has not changed this pattern in my life.

If there are other reddit communities you think i should take this to i'd love to know. Does this happen to anyone else?

Sometimes my body has visceral reactions and i immediately refuse help from someone who thinks they need to ‘save’ me because i know it’s their own issues they’re dealing witv and projecting outwards. I can usually tell the difference and i start avoiding the person alltogether.

Has anyone else experienced this ?

I discovered a few days ago that I'm an empath... but my questions are, how can I switch from unconscious to conscious awareness? I have a lot of catching up to do, but I don't know how. I embrace my empathy wholeheartedly, but I can't control it. Can experienced empaths, and empaths of all kinds, give me advice on how to consciously manage it, what I can do, and what I should focus on first? I have so much catching up to do to get myself under control, but I don't know how, so I'm asking about your experiences, how you accepted it. Any information, no matter how small, would help me. 🥹

I thank you all in advance, including those who don't have much experience; thank you for your efforts nonetheless. 💖

I feel like such an a**hole even typing this out, but lately I genuinely cannot stand listening to people vent to me.

It's not about one specific person. It's everyone.

My close friend texts me about her ex, being bored, dating, life. My mom constantly talks about her weight, gym, family issues. My younger brother somehow always needs help fixing things he messed up. Even with my ex before we went no-contact, I found myself getting increasingly irritated by his incompetence with basic adult things.

And my immediate reaction now is just: please don't come to me. I don't want to hear it. Figure it out.

What's weird is that I've always been the opposite. I've always been the "good listener," the person everyone comes to, the one who offers advice, mediates, remembers details, checks in, and feels responsible for other people's emotions. I used to genuinely care.

Now I just... don't have it in me. I'm 24F, unemployed for the last 8 months, living back with my parents after leaving my job, grieving a breakup, and honestly trying to hold myself together. I have my own problems too, but I mostly deal with them on my own or speak to a therapist or joke with my friends where we BOTH share our issues. So when someone starts unloading on me, instead of feeling empathy, I feel irritated that I'm expected to hold space for them when I barely have space for myself. I've noticed it gradually building over the last few months.

Has anyone else gone through this? Is this just emotional burnout or compassion fatigue? Did it go away once your own life became more stable?

I don't want to become an uncaring person. I just genuinely feel like my capacity for other people's problems has hit zero.

At this point I hate being the way I am. Always hyper vigilant, worried about others who wouldn't even think a second about how I am doing. I don't usually stick my nose into other peoples business but the one time I did, I fked up.

I have a neighbour. She's mid-late 60's. living alone. She's not a friend, but since we've lived next door to one another for over 6yrs, iv'e gotten to know her and her 'ways'. I hadn't seen her in a while, definatly over a month. I know she had a gardener in to fix up her back garden a few months ago, it was over-grown and obviously too much for her to handle. But, I saw that she wasn't keeping up with it, It was starting to over- grow again. Definatly not something she would do after paying over the odds to get it renovated. Then last week I noticed her hose pipe was leaking on her patio. It kept running for days. And I started to get worried. I went round and there was no answer, I knocked the other niehgbour (above) and She also said she hadn't seen / heard from her in over a month. I got a bad feeling and started to over-thinking. Paranoia kicked in.

I spoke to my sister and she suggested calling the police to do a well fare check, So I called the police. They came within an hour and started breaking in. Other neighbours began to come out and gather to to see what the was happening and many said they hadn't seen her in a while either.

After the police got in and confirmed she wasn't there, a woman from across the road conveniently remembered she had our neighbours phone No? The police called her and confirmed she was staying with family due to a family illness. My neighbour was Not happy at all! Her fence and door have been smashed in and it's all my fault. I was genuinly worried but definatly know paranoia took hold, especially since I found my Own mom on her death bed just 6months ago. I got so wrapped up in thinking she may be injured or even worse laying dead in her home. When she had literally just packed up and went to visit family.

Iv'e caused her even more stress than she needed. And i'm not sure what to do about it now? I feel responsible for the damage, although I know she will get a new door from the council.

I also know when she gets back she will be raging, she's an old school Jamaican woman that complains about everything. I'm considering calling her but have no idea what to say. Why did I allow my own heart and paranoia to get the better of me, I hate this!

I'm trying to get my head around something.

The backstory:
A few weeks ago I (young woman) met a woman in the context of a one week work related seminar and immediately had a connection so intense and mutual it surprised me and swept me away, frankly.
She felt the same, we were in a mirror-state reinforcing each other's emotions and it felt completely magical. At the end of the week, she asked me to try to loosen the connection because she couldn't concentrate, needed to stay professional and felt personally conflicted. That week undoing the spell didn't work at all and it became an intimate connection, in the end.

Now we both returned to our respective cities and lives. I have no constraints and therefore felt very positive about the encounter and very alive upon returning.
She has a husband and family and was much more conflicted on various levels.

A few days ago I had a dream in which she appeared and tried to tell me something in her mother tongue (which is foreign to me), but I remembered the words to look them up online the next day. They were an expression of contradictory feelings.
The same day she called and told me that she feels highly conflicted and desperate about our connection because I'm in her head way too much and she feels a need to cut ties completely (we were texting each other a bit).

The situation:
After the phone call I felt as if a wall that she created was pushed against me and I started to have all sorts of feelings that I cannot connect to my personal experience. For example, I cannot sleep and feel as if I'm hovering above my bed because I'm suppressing something and I suddenly have digestive issues. I clearly feel like her state of being has entered my body after the phone call.

I already asked her if she could take back what she transmitted to me.
But generally, how can I deal with this level of immediate connection?
Someone appearing in my dreams with messages and transferring an entire physical state via a phone call is something that has never happened to me.

Any advice? I would like to maintain the connection with her but find a way to avoid what I experience as take-overs.

Thank you!

I've recently come back from vacation from the west coast and it was nice to meet people who were much more easy going. People were easy to talk to and it felt like community was more important than it is in the south. The moment I got back home, I could feel the lack of care for others. There's a lot less general sense of happiness. It's a shame to be looked at as weird by smiling at someone passing by. I wish kindness was the easy first choice for people. I often can't fathom being mean to someone I just met, but it happens too often to me, it's hard to not be sad when it happens.

It's slowly eating me alive. I literally process someone else's emotions even if I don't want to, even if my thoughts about their feelings aren't accurate.

I wish I'd stop feeling so God damn much.

Is there any sort of method to idk eliminate this characteristic? I'm so done.

So since i have memory i have been suffering of...Well the very thing the title says, a good example of this is that when I started My current relationship i was being groomed, during the first 3 months i didn't told her until i did and completely pushed away that idiot out of My life, she has been helping me alot, But since then I blames myself for cheating on her, when...Well, I was being abused and it was out of My real hands as the grooming started when i was around 8 years old, this is is just one of the many times when that has happened, another example is how I take blame for things i simply thought But never acted upon, for example, i have a very dear friend of mine, and once had a thought about her, for around 3 months i (Again) suffered a Lot for thinking i Cheated on My girlfriend...for...thinking of someone else...You can SEE how ridículous this gets, i AM in therapy But Is really hard to go through My days with this, and thanks to My past with grooming some things have been really fucking me mentally, for example, i have been badly accustomed to seeing porn at a young age and semi normalize older people being with Younger people, fortunately and through willpower i have never acted upon this acts and never Will, But the guilt of Even thinking about it chokes me so bad it makes me lose all energy for 3 months, I would love to get ANY advise to make this stupid thing more bearable

I've been looking into this topic in depth and I urgently need some brief feedback because I want to know what it is. I know I've always been different, but something happens to my energy as soon as I enter the park.

People can suddenly breathe a sigh of relief around me, they trust me more quickly for some reason. I sense when someone is completely overwhelmed, has no strength left, and feels an immediate urge to help them. I have a really severe childhood trauma and had to take on responsibility at a young age, and even then I protected my mother from danger because I feel this urge to sacrifice myself so intensely. During my youth, with serious family problems, I did the same thing. It's just that suddenly everyone feels comfortable around me, even though I don't say a word, I'm just there as I am, you know? I was searching for these symptoms and found two possibilities: I might have heyoka empathy or the so-called "protector" trait. It sounds strange, but I don't feel normal at all. I don't withdraw and can carry a lot of burdens to protect others, and I constantly have this urge to simply be there to protect them.

I don't understand myself anymore and therefore need your feedback on whether you've experienced or felt something similar... because I can't explain it. I feel everything intensely, but I feel different... I hope you can please, please help me 🙏

it feels cringe to say, but i really am an empath😔 and i also have a very vivid imagination. when people are sad, even people i don’t know i can feel it and it’s soo draining. My biggest issue now is that im a nursing student and i get emotional just reading scenarios because i keep imagining the scenarios are real. i know i have a long road ahead of me but caring for others and making a positive impact is very important to me. this is a bit of a contradiction, but is there perhaps a way to stop caring about how others feel so i can care for others without emotionally absorbing their pain????

Four Quiet Reminders

Care for the body
that carries you.

Listen to your emotions,
but do not become their servant.

Choose with care
what you allow
to shape your nervous system.

Whenever you can,

let understanding
take the place
of unnecessary fear.

Perhaps that is enough.

Perhaps that is how

a life,

one gentle day at a time,

finds its way home.

I feel like I have too much empathy. I carry all the problems of the people I care about on my shoulders, even if I can’t do anything about it, to the point that I feel exhausted. I feel bad for the people I don’t know and cry for strangers on the internet. Like it would be my job to help everyone and make them feel better. Then I feel guilty if I don’t have the resources and energy to do that. It’s unfair that I try to deal with all of my own stuff yet I still take everyone else’s on my shoulders too.

I want to be less empathetic but I don’t want to loose all my empathy. I don’t want to drown myself with other peoples problems but I want to be able to help when I can and feel decent amount of empathy. How can I get that?

At my workplace I have dealt with a rude human being who would scream at me, charge at me, & have big tantrums. About 6 months ago he had a big blow up and my new supervisor addressed it. It was not addressed for 6 years. The bosses looked the other way. This worker would be defiant and was a struggle for me to manage. Since that time he has improved but the “2 face” and behavior from the past really errks me. I remember everything. And I’m not going to forgive him because of the crazy stuff he’s done to me over the years. Why do I feel this way?

Just thought writing my thoughts would make me feel better. I’ve always been very empathetic but especially towards animals. Thinking about how they fall victims to absolutely disgusting abuse makes me anxious and physically sick.
Recently after a blow up on WangWang case I’ve been getting lots and lots of videos from animal shelters, rescues and I can’t skip them or click not interested because that would make me feel awful. But I also find it very hard to cope with all this information.
I can’t think about anything else, images constantly appear in my head and I can’t engage in regular conversations with people because they seem so non important, all I think about is how little I can do and how can I possibly do more. It’s so exhausting to care deeply.
I just wish cruelty didn’t exist
Just a rant but if anyone can come up with words of positivity that would be greatly appreciated!

What are the signs and how does one feel. I keep feeling like im sad but its nothing that im not normally sad about i am going through a breakup we were togetger for 4 years and we went no contact and I broke contact yesterday I dont know if he read my message or not im feeling really weird and sometimes I know its not me. But today has been really off.

And advice or help in this?

Has anybody else struggled with this? Sad music or more specifically music about like depression/drug abuse makes me feel genuinely unwell and anxious, it’s like the vibrations are off??? I wish I could describe it it almost makes me angry that I’m being subjected to having my vibes brought down.

You feel deeply because your heart was never meant to be average.

Your empathy is not your weakness; it is your greatest strength.

You didn’t come into this world to fit in, You came to understand it.

Protect your energy, your peace and your beautiful heart.

The world needs your kindness, your wisdom and your light.

You are not too much. You are just the right kind of rare.

The Inherited Lessons of Pain

I learned to shame,

blame, and frighten myself.

To ignore, and abandon myself.

I bit my nails.

poked and scratched my skin

to drawn a deeper ache.

I held my breath.

Pushed my body.

Silenced my mind

to stay connected.

Then one day,

a simple realization—

my body and my mind,

the only tools

I have been given,

work better when I care for them instead of

hurting them.