Empaths can quickly grasp the thoughts, feelings, and mood of other people, which is sometimes heartbreaking and painful. Coping as an empath must be daunting for you? Right?
The world would indeed have been a better place had more people known how to care for others. As Maya Angelou once said, “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” Most people are afraid of showing empathy. This is what makes kindness, generosity, and compassion rare and valued traits. Owing to the fact that these are the natural traits of empaths, they truly are marvelous people.
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However such empathic tendencies can also have acute negative impacts upon an empath. Spending too much energy and time on others might make the empath feel drained and tired at the end of the day. This might result in a feeling of defeat and frustration.
Following are the ways in which empaths can make things easier for themselves:
1) Know the difference between sacrifice and service.
For empaths, service and sacrifice are often synonymous. They think that being of service to others necessarily means giving up something for them. They are so caring about others that for them service entails self-sacrifice.
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But the case is not so. ‘Service’ on one hand means the value that other people might get from us and on the other ‘sacrifice’ means depriving oneself because of others.
If we are aware of our own limitations, we can be of service to others without hampering our own needs. This will help us realize that sacrificing our own needs might not always be the greatest way of helping others.
Since empathetic people are naturally inclined to feel for others it might be a little difficult for them to make this distinction. The first step for them would be to notice the difference between the two.
A very good example would be that if we smile at a person it would give some joy to that person but it does not mean that we need to give up something in order to smile.
When you sacrifice something for others you generally tend to feel stressed out and demotivated. This is harmful to us because we shall become disappointed and thus cannot live our lives with optimism.
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Whereas, when you have truly served others you will end up feeling happy. You’ll experience a feeling of personal growth and also love.
2) Learn managing polarities.
Learning how to manage polarities can help an empath achieving an inner sense of peace and balance. Polarities are binaries that are extreme opposites of each other but at the same time depend on each other as well.
One such polarity is other care and self-care. The important thing about this and all other polarities is that it is impossible to taking care of one and expecting things to run well.
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If we are only involved with other care we end up spending too little time for ourselves which would result in us feeling excited. Thus we cannot be of any help to others anymore.
Thus the proper method would be to help others and simultaneously devote a certain amount of time behind self-care. The more you indulge in self-care, the easier it is coping as an empath.
3) Learn to say a ‘no’.
Coping as an empath becomes easy when you learn to say no. We get a limited amount of time in a day. While we might love helping others we should also keep in mind that the hours of the day are limited and we have to keep some time for ourselves because there are certain necessary things that we all must take care of (such as sleeping).
Neglecting these tasks will often amount to neglecting one’s health which will not be helpful in the long run. Because if we end up being sick ourselves, helping others is out of the question.
Related: 22 Stages of Relationship Between An Empath and A Narcissist
We should always distinguish our priorities and try not to compromise with our most important tasks. The task here is to realize that we must say ‘no’ to something that would, in fact, be of harm to us and would affect the way we truly are.
4) Learn to receive from others
Most empathic people are averse towards taking from others. And subsequently, people who just ‘take’ repel them. But they should, in fact, realize that ‘receiving’ and ‘taking’ are two very different things.
While being only a ‘giver’ can be very noble but it is also a fact that one cannot always only give as it is unsustainable. If on the other hand if we also receive help and support from others we can reciprocate more effectively.
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This is why empathetic people should change from being only ‘givers’ to receivers as well.
While being empathic can be a great strength but like all other strengths, it has its fair share of challenges. But these challenges do not necessarily mean that we need to change ourselves in order to cope with these challenges.
We just need to learn certain lessons that shall help us in being truly what we are. And these lessons that we learn shall eventually help us evolve and grow and be better persons in the long run.
Are you ready to cope up as an empath? Share your thoughts in comments below.
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