This one is for my empaths who can get all-consumed by the feelings of others.
You have to practice not taking on other people’s pain when someone behaves in a hurtful way. Otherwise, it can send you through a cycle of self-doubt and keep you from focusing on what you need to become your highest self.
Someone else’s hurtful behavior is almost always coming from a place of pain inside of them.
This pain is most likely related to feelings of shame, inadequacy, and insecurity developed in childhood when our primary belief system is formed.
Healing from this pain usually requires some guidance and inner child work. However, people have a really hard time looking at and taking on their own shit. Hence, they tend to project it onto others who have the same perceived inadequacies or have been perceived as overcoming those inadequacies.
It’s like the Richard Rohr quote: “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”
As you work through self-doubt, negative thinking, and self-sabotaging behaviors, you find yourself developing more compassion for others. You can have compassion for people who are demonstrating rude or disrespectful behavior, but you must set boundaries around your interaction with the person in order to maintain your own well-being.
Boundaries will help you love and accept a person from a distance while protecting yourself.
If a person does not respect your boundaries, you have the power to decide whether that person gets to stay in your life. You don’t have to believe, internalize or take on their hurtful behavior as something that is your fault or has anything to do with you.
I encourage you, however, to lead by example as you raise your levels of self-awareness.
Nothing that ever happens to a person in their childhood is their fault or responsibility. Still, adults are responsible for working through their emotions to become better humans to one another.
As Jen Sincero puts it, “It is not your fault that you’re fucked up, but it is your fault if you stay fucked up.”
So, I advise you to have patience and compassion for those stuck in lower levels of awareness but focus on you and your life first. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important.
Need help identifying what boundaries to set? Let’s connect with a FREE 90—minute Jump Start Session to your healing.
