Empathic Response – it Doesn’t Need to Overwhelm

By ChaNan Bonser

I find some of the articles and videos I read and see on empathy quite frustrating; to me there  is sometimes a feeling of disempowerment, of being told that being an empath or a highly sensitive person is a negative thing, and that one has to protect oneself from everything and everyone around. On reading these articles, there is a sense that the empathic response of overwhelm, of being bombarded, of feeling sponge like, of needing to cut off in order to protect, is how it is. That there is little that can be done to change the empathic response other than protecting the self.

However, in my work I have found that being sensitive to external influences – whether these are people, situations, or places has often been developed as a defence pattern.

How so? I guess that might be a bit challenging to read……