8 Trauma Healing Tips For Empaths
What is Empathy?
The word “empathy” is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”
To be an empath is both a blessing and a curse. Empaths feel everything very deeply. Empaths can feel subtle energy shifts in other people and the environment…having high empathy is like an extra spidey sense. At times it’s very handy, because as an empath, you may have a clear sense that a situation is not right for you, and at the same time, it can make you vulnerable to soaking up the energy of others like a sponge. This can make it very challenging to know what is yours and what is someone else’s since it all gets mixed in together. It’s truly a double-edged sword, and it is challenging to navigate well.
Judith Orloff, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, outlines 10 traits of an empath in her book The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies For Sensitive People:
“Empaths are highly sensitive.
Empaths absorb other people’s emotions.
Many empaths are introverted.
Empaths are highly intuitive.
Empaths need alone time.
Empaths can become overwhelmed in intimate relationships.
Empaths are targets for energy vampires.
Empaths become replenished in nature.
Empaths have highly tuned senses.
Empaths have huge hearts but sometimes give too much.”
Childhood Trauma as the Birthplace of the Empath
You may have been born with a genetic predisposition for high empathy, you may have come into it as a result of the trauma you experienced, or both.
There is an increasing amount of research that shows that there may be a big correlation between childhood trauma and high levels of empathy. This is because children who grow up in chaotic, unpredictable, dysfunctional households learn from a very young age how to sense what is happening around them. The ability to sense what might happen next is an adaptable survival skill that enables the child to react accordingly and protect themselves when necessary.
To take it a bit further, children who were raised by narcissists or addicted parents learn that they are responsible for the feelings and needs of those around them, and they learn early to shoulder the responsibility for the well-being of others. As a result, they learn early to ignore and deny their own needs in favor of their caregivers. They learn that love is transactional and that they must please others in any way necessary to have their needs met and to feel some semblance of love, even if it means betraying themselves in the process.
As a result of this high attunement to the needs of others, the child lives in a constant state of hypervigilance, or high alert, as they wait for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. This is usually the birth of the people pleaser and the codependent.
The Study of Empathy as a Trauma Response
In a study led by David M. Greenberg of the University of Cambridge, two groups of adults were tested using different empathy tests. In both groups, adults who reported experiencing childhood trauma, including abuse, divorce, neglect, sexual abuse, and death, scored with higher levels of affective empathy. This means that these participants were better equipped to understand the mental and emotional states of others and knew how to respond appropriately.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6169872/
A second study that was published in 2019 followed 84 children, half of whom had been exposed to trauma from a very early age, to measure their empathy responses when they became preadolescents. The study found that those children who had experienced strained mother-child relationships showed a higher amount of both cognitive and affective empathy.
8 Trauma Healing Tips
Create a sense of safety through nervous system regulation - You’ve heard me say this before, and I will say it again. Having a true sense of safety is a fundamental key to living a life unburdened by fear. Safety allows us to move through life in authentic ways, unbound from past traumas. The best way to create a sense of safety is to do somatic healing, like Somatic Experiencing, to learn to regulate your nervous system. This work can help you to move from a state of continuous hypervigilance to a state of emotional regulation. If you aren’t in a position to do this work, there are plenty of resources online that can help you learn.
Cultivate positive connections - Anything in your life that brings about positive, warm, happy, or calm feelings in you can assist you in cultivating a sense of safety. Some examples are time in nature, walking your dog, petting your cat, engaging in enjoyable hobbies, and spending time with supportive friends. Another thing that helps is to consider all of the times in the past when you succeeded at something or overcame an obstacle of some kind…this is a power that you can draw upon any time you need it.
Inner child healing - Much of the time, your inner child may not recognize that they are not still living in the situation you grew up in. This can result in emotional flashbacks in the present time, leading to emotional dysregulation. When this happens, you can envision or imagine that child part of you and tell them, “I am so sorry you are afraid, and that you are feeling hurt. I am here to protect you and care for you, and I will not let those things happen to you again.” You can let them know that you are, in fact, now a grown adult, that you are no longer living in that environment, and that they will never have to go back there, perhaps showing them the life you have now, and inviting them to live in the present moment with you.
Feel your feelings fully - In life, we experience a wide array of emotions and sensations, and yet our culture conditions us to expect to feel good and happy at all times, to the point where we may feel like something is truly wrong with us when we don’t feel well. This could not be further from the truth. To feel is to be human, When you are engaged with trauma healing, many uncomfortable emotions will rise to the surface to be felt and acknowledged. This is an important part of healing from trauma. When uncomfortable emotional states or physical sensations move through you, the best thing to do is to allow them to be there without resisting or trying to escape them. Think of them as visitors from times past who are now seeking the acknowledgment they never received before, and become open to these emotions and sensations moving through you. When you do this, they will come and go, like clouds in the sky.
Practice self-compassion - This one is on so many of my lists, and it should be at the top. Compassion has the power to transform all fear. Cultivating self-compassion is a process, and should be a regular practice. When you do, it has the power to work wonders in your life. Think of your young, innocent self who didn’t have the compassion and love they needed as a child. Tune into the sweetness, the innocence, and the light within yourself, and offer yourself as much kindness and care as you would to the person or animal that you love the most.
Focus on yourself - As an empath, you are likely overly attuned to the needs and desires of others and lack self-attunement. The noise from others can be deafening at times, and it may feel like there is no space for you and your needs anywhere. It’s important as an empath to take time alone so that you can tune into your needs and desires as an individual. Once you know what those needs and desires are, focus on fulfilling them as best you can so that you feel taken care of and loved. Remember that you are learning a new way to live and that you do not need to be perfect. Good enough is good enough.
Set boundaries - As an empath, you may find yourself saying yes to things that you may not always want to do. Since this habit likely originated in childhood, it can be a challenging one to break. One thing that can help is to pause to tune into how you feel about something before you give an answer or commit to something. When someone does or says something that hurts or upsets you, tell them. “When you say ____, it hurts me. I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that again.” This kind of boundary setting may be uncomfortable at first, but over time it gets much easier, and it feels much better than allowing things that don’t serve you.
Challenge Your Mindset - So much, or rather most of the time, trauma survivors and empaths believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Here’s the truth: there is nothing wrong with you, and there never was. You may tell yourself that you are too sensitive, too much, too needy, or even that you are not enough somehow. Empathy is not a weakness, and trauma is not a weakness. When healed and managed properly, both have the power to make you a stronger, more empowered version of yourself than you would have been without them. When limiting and fear-based thoughts arise, challenge them and offer yourself a positive, supporting message in their place, like “I am a strong and wonderful person. I love who I am.”
It can be helpful to have support when navigating the ups and downs of living as an empath. Please reach out if I can support you in any way.
