Taking On Others’ Emotions: An HSP Survival Guide

By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how to not take on others’ emotions, even when you’re sensitive.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover what’s actually going on when you take on others’ emotions, how to maintain balance even when you’re highly sensitive to others’ emotions, and why being sensitive and being stressed are two different things. This is an edition of Strategy Fridays, where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person.

One of the challenges that HSPs face is the tendency to take on other people’s emotions. This can happen in any number of situations, and just like noise or other things around us, it draws us in. Emotions have an even stronger drawing capacity, so it’s very easy to get overwhelmed when others around you are going through some kind of strong emotions.

So what’s actually going on when you take on other people’s emotions? Basically, what it means is that you start feeling what they’re feeling. If someone is feeling frustrated, then you feel frustrated. If someone’s feeling sad, then you feel sad. It’s like you’re putting yourself in their shoes.

Now, of course, you’re not exactly in their shoes, but you’re imagining what it’s like to be in their shoes, and you’re getting a lot of cues from their expression that is allowing you to go there. Basically, what happens is we start identifying with the person. We actually are literally putting ourselves in their shoes in our mind.

So we see ourselves in their position, and whatever’s happening to them, it feels like it’s happening to us because we’ve shifted our identity over to that person and are experiencing it from their point of view, as best we can see. Then what happens is we get swept along with their drama. So when they’re up, they’re up. When they’re down, they’re down, and it feels like you can’t break away from that because it’s so strong. It just draws you in.

What also accentuates this is that if I’m identifying with the other person and I’m experiencing this, say, frustration they’re feeling, I’m also touching in on past experiences from my own life. That’s what builds that experience for me. I can’t be that other person, but I do bring a lot of things to the table from my own experience, and this fuels the fire, which can make it even stronger of an experience.

Then on top of that, I may be wanting them to be happy or wanting them to be out of this little trouble, and it’s usually something that I can’t control. I mean, literally, I can’t control how somebody feels, and that can be frustrating in itself. I can get angry, frustrated, sad, or fearful when they’re not happy. It’s like I need them to change in order for me to be okay. So this adds more stickiness to the situation.

Another component is that I often believe that I can’t handle negative emotions in myself or others. If I believe that, then I need them to be harmonious in order for me to be harmonious, and so I’m dependent on them changing again in order to be okay. So this is a little taste of what goes on. I’m sure there’s more if you think about it as well, but there’s sort of a shift of identity and I’m moving into their world and maybe even wanting or needing them to change while at the same time bringing up past experiences for myself.

So, how do you maintain balance even when you’re highly sensitive to others’ emotions? Sensitivity is not the problem. We’re sensitive by nature, and it’s not really what’s causing the stress in us. If you really listen closely to someone’s pain, there’s actually nuance there. There’s communication happening there, there’s a human being in there. There’s even deep connection and vulnerability. There are some beautiful characteristics hidden within that pain or wrapped up with that pain.

And these little hidden things are actually like food for highly sensitive people because it allows us to connect on a deep level. It allows us to see something going on on a deep level. It’s where life is taking place. There’s something real happening there. There’s honesty, there’s vulnerability.

It actually is an amazing thing to witness somebody having a negative experience as long as I’m not caught up in it and lost in it myself. So it’s not the sensitivity to the experience, the negativity that is the problem. It’s actually quite possible to see even beauty in a situation like that, depending on how you hold it.

One of the issues, as I mentioned a second ago, is that if I can’t handle negativity in myself, then I can’t handle it in other people. And so negativity has a bad reputation because it can be terrible. But as you gain the ability to work through any kind of negativity, and that’s why I love the work of Byron Katie, but also why meditation is so helpful, is that it starts to give a little bit of healthy distance and perspective on any kind of negative situation.

And if I have that perspective, then even if it is really rocky, it doesn’t overwhelm me. And that’s the difference. We’re looking for how can we be not overwhelmed even when we’re sensitive. And this is really the key for me. As I gain the ability to handle negativity, to have that healthy separation through practice—it doesn’t just happen by thinking about it—then my capacity to be in situations is that much stronger.

So, what are some of the ways that you can increase your ability to handle negativity? I mentioned doing the work of Byron Katie. I find that so powerful. Other forms of inner work are also powerful. Therapy can be super helpful. Dealing with your past traumas and working those through. When you’re no longer bringing those into a stressful situation, then there’s that much less baggage going on, and you can end up being so much more present for somebody else or for yourself.

Meditation is powerful. And here’s a key one. I got this from the work of Byron Katie, but it’s such a powerful idea: the difference between what is my business and what is their business. And if you can really see the difference, like, “Oh, that’s their business, and my business is this,” and it’s different. There’s a natural healthy separation that happens, and the negativity of someone else is much less overwhelming.

Basically, I trust them to find their way, and so if I’m allowing that, then I’m okay. I know they’re going to work it out, and I’m here for them in any way I can be, but I’m not necessarily needing them to change in order for me to be okay. So that keeps me from being too involved and from getting pulled into their rabbit hole and getting stressed myself.

Another point is that being sensitive and being stressed are two very different things. For example, a surgeon is a very sensitive kind of person when they’re performing a surgery. They’re focused on details and subtleties, and they’re working on a lot of subtle things in that situation. The focus is on the surgery, but they’re also in a situation where they’re surrounded by gore and blood and all kinds of, you know, they’re cutting into flesh. And you might say there’s this negative component to it, but their focus is on that delicate surgery that they’re performing.

If you can be a friend who listens with deep attention to someone you care about, then, even if they’re stressed or negative, it’s like you’re focused on the subtle part of that situation, not on the gross part. The gross part is scary, is loud, is overwhelming, and can carry you away so quickly. But within that is this subtle, sensitive viewpoint. With the ability of having a sensitive nervous system, you can focus on some very subtle things that are going on with that person that may actually be inspiring to you, that may open your heart, that make you breathe in and feel connected.

Sometimes people just need to vent. Sometimes they just need to get something off their chest. And they’re going to work it out. We don’t have to take on their problem. That’s their business. My business may be just to be a friend, just to simply listen, and there’s not much else that I need to do. Whenever I think that I need to do something, or I need to help them, that’s when I get hooked in, and that’s when it becomes stressful. Sometimes my job is just very simple: just to be there and to love that person.

Now, the extreme test of all this is when somebody’s negativity is pointed at you. Now this is harder, but the same principles apply. If you can keep clarity between what is my business and what is their business, they can be ranting and raving, even at me, and I’m not fazed by that. It’s something I’ve experienced many times, something that has grown out of my practice of doing the work of Byron Katie as well as my practice of meditation. And it’s the most amazing experience if you can see the difference, like, “Oh, this person is having a terrible experience. They’re going through a lot right now. They’re just full of emotion, and that’s okay.” It doesn’t have to do with me.

Even though they’re naming me, I mean, that takes a lot of clarity. So you may have to do a lot of work with this before that starts to happen, but it’s totally possible. I remember a situation not that long ago where my partner had asked me repeatedly not to put a pot on a counter. We were renting a house, and this was like a cheap kind of Formica counter or laminate or I don’t know what it’s called. And it could burn easily, and he had been warned by the landlord, and he’d warned me, and sure enough, I did it anyway. I put the pot on the counter, and it burned it.

And he was really angry, and rightfully so, and it was just coming at me full bore, and for some reason, I was just seeing, “This is his business, and not my business,” and I was just listening to him. I was not defensive. I was understanding that he was right, and I was even apologizing, and I didn’t get triggered by that.

So, this is just an example. I’m still sensitive—that’s never changing. But how I see the situation, how I see the other person, and how I maintain my own space separate from theirs, will make all the difference on whether I get overwhelmed by someone’s negativity or whether I can stand with clarity and perspective and act in a supportive way that doesn’t aggravate the situation.

In this episode, we looked at what’s actually going on when you take on others’ emotions. We saw that we start to identify with that person, and we get swept along with their drama, often wanting them to be happy while at the same time wrestling with our own internal past experiences, like trauma.

Secondly, we looked at how to maintain balance even when you’re highly sensitive to others’ emotions. We saw that sensitivity is not the problem, but it’s how you see the situation and where you put your attention. There’s always depth, there’s always interest, there’s always something beautiful, even within a negative experience, if you look for it.

And finally, we looked at why being sensitive and being stressed are really two different things. Being sensitive means you’re aware of things; being stressed means that you’ve gotten overwhelmed by them. If you can maintain a distinction between your business and the other person’s business, you may be able to experience the same “negativity” without feeling negative yourself.

So thanks for joining me. It’s always interesting and enjoyable to think about the challenges that HSPs face and to think through how we can become more resilient as we grow together. In the meantime, have a great rest of your day.

If you haven’t already, go to TrueInnerFreedom.com and take the HSP Stress Survey. Understanding the stresses you face will help me cover the topics you’re most interested in for this podcast. As a thank you for helping me, you’ll get free access to my January 3-day stress management training, designed especially for highly sensitive people.

You’ll also get free access to the True Inner Freedom community, where you will enjoy connecting with kind, understanding, and compassionate HSP members to support you on your journey. And finally, you’ll get an individual 15-minute inner freedom call with me to help you find clarity around your experience as an HSP and begin finding true inner freedom in your life.