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Why you absorb people's feelings...
Often people that relate codependency with others also feel highly empathic and aware of other people's energy and emotions. This awareness often leads them to "absorb" or take ownership of those energies or emotions as their own.
Basically, if they're aware of it, they're responsible for it.
And this is not actually true.
You see, each person is sovereign. This means they're autonomous and whole unto themselves. Their physical body is theirs to manage and rule. Their emotional body is theirs to manage and rule.
This is CRITICAL to building emotional boundaries.
What does an emotional boundary look like?
Let's say I'm feeling sad and Sally is feeling happy.
An absorbing person will regulate their emotional state from happiness to sadness. They feel this is what empathy does. In this case, Sally becomes sad, feeling what she senses I am feeling. She's is now interpreting my emotions as HER emotions and she instinctively tries to regulate how I feel so she can also feel better (aka fixing).
But when Sally is emotionally autonomous from me, Sally recognizes my sadness and offers space and feeling towards that sadness. She empathizes with the situation, "It is very sad. I'm here to listen and be with you." Internally, she'll feel sadness with her friend about the situation - but it is HER sadness. She also is able to return to her happiness at her will. She doesn't displace herself emotionally.
Yep, I know how that sounds. But you can test this for yourself. Can you maintain your happy state even if the other is sad? Can you empathize with their sadness without having to displace how you feel too?
If you can't, then you're absorbing, not empathizing.
You can feel with a person while also having your own emotional set point to return to.
This is a function of emotional autonomy - the ability to feel what you do AND acknowledge how another feels and accommodate space for that when you want to (your empathy is not something anyone is entitled to! It is a gift!)
So, why do you absorb their energy and emotion?
It all deals with attachment and identity maturation.
As infants, babies, toddlers we mimicked and absorbed the reactions of our parents and those around us (think of a baby that starts crying because mom started crying). This is a normal part of brain and identity development.
As we mature and grow, our brains begin to differentiate itself from others. This includes discerning our feelings from other people's feelings.
But if in our development experience we are traumatized, neglected, or have parents that demand we parent them or they absorb us, this differentiation becomes stunted and inhibited.
Instead of discovering our emotional autonomy, we develop a hyperawareness of other people's emotional states and absorb those states as our responsibility. This is a function of the FAWN response the brain has to a threat it cannot defeat or escape (the threat is often being discarded, harmed, or hurt repeatedly). FAWNING is one's attempt to become appealing or useful to the threat so the threat will keep it.
This absorbing confuses us as to who we are. We confuse their feelings with our feelings. Where they end and you begin is blurry and uncertain. You FEEL empty and lost without a person and you feel swamped and drowning when you do have a person.
This absorption feels like a deep connection with the other person. You feel whole and alive at times, especially when they "need" you.
But when they don't need you and when they are gone or they leave your life, you are left gutted, empty, and rudderless in a turbulent and unknown sea. You don't know who you are.
Healing this is more about maturing in your emotional autonomy and your personal identity. It is all about differentiation.
This means you can identify your emotions and energy and discern it from others. This means you can safely leave someone's emotions in their yard. This means empathy becomes a consensual on your part and something you can do for a period of time without affecting your own state of wellness or well-being. It means you can be happy even though others are sad - and do it with respect to yourself and them (no guilt!).
The key to doing this is knowing your Innate Value first, then discerning your Voice, and following the vision that energies from that Innate Value and Voice.
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