Taking things personally can be tough for empaths and HSPs if you weren’t ever taught strategies and methods to help you hone it into a gift instead of a curse. One of the things I see often develop in HSPs and empaths is becoming emotionally unavailable after years of struggles and challenges. Previously, I discussed some of the common challenges empaths and HSPs face. This post focuses on how we tend to take things too seriously or too personally because, well—it certainly feels that way, doesn’t it?
It’s Personal
We have all at some point taken things way too personally, but as empaths and HSPs, we tend to make a habit of it. As an empath or HSP, we FEEL it all. So when others around us are feeling unpleasant things, we are there, soaking it up. One of the biggest challenges I’ve noticed is that it usually starts when we are really young and lack a full grasp of what is going on, so we end up thinking that it’s somehow our fault or responsibility for their feelings. Usually, we struggle with discerning if it’s our feelings or someone else’s, which just adds more confusion.
Over the years, as we grow, we begin to falsely learn that their feelings are our responsibility or our fault, leading us to adapt other behaviors to attempt to avoid such unpleasantness. Let’s be honest here—letting others stew in their negative emotions can be REALLY uncomfortable for us. As we attempt to navigate it, we end up adopting behaviors and beliefs that allow us to try to ‘fix’ it and give us the illusion of control over the discomfort. This can lead to many other problems, such as dating disasters, self-sabotage, people-pleasing, social anxiety, emotional unavailability, or chronic fixing. By taking things personally, we put undue stress on ourselves and our relationships.
The Impact of Fixing Behavior
Hi, my name is Ashley, and I am a recovering empathic and HSP fixer. I ended up becoming emotionally unavailable after years of dating people who needed fixing and took them on as my personal projects. This gave me a sense of worth and usefulness, only to feel unappreciated, taken advantage of, used, etc., and tell myself stories about how I wasn’t ‘good enough’. If you’re low-key thinking to yourself “Same, girl,” then this one is for you.
Question: How has taking things personally impacted your past relationships and your sense of worth?
Do you have a tendency to try to ‘fix’ people when they are struggling with unpleasant emotions? If not, how else might you have adapted coping mechanisms to deal with this?
You’re an Emotion Reader, Not a Mind Reader
I was talking to a fellow empath a few weeks ago about how they like to help others but can’t read minds, so you have to ask them what they need help with. This set off a huge AHA! moment in my brain. I realized that as empaths and HSPs, we like to pretend that we can read minds, but we actually can’t. We read emotions, and emotions are for feeling and motion/motivation, not for thinking or explaining. Sensing others’ emotions can be helpful, but we can’t presume the reasons for those emotions in others. When we do, we are mind-reading, and we start taking things personally.
Mind reading is when we presume to know what someone is thinking, feeling, or what their intentions are. How often have you heard yourself or someone you know say something like, “Well, they didn’t call me back so that means they don’t actually care about me!”? A ‘that means’ statement is a huge indication of us mind reading and presuming to know someone’s intentions and inner thoughts. The truth is—you are an emotion reader, not a mind reader.
Question: What common statements do you find yourself creating when you are attempting to mind read and taking things personally?
Emotional Discernment and Internalizing vs. Externalizing
Recognizing when we are mind reading and explaining others’ feelings to ourselves is critical to breaking this cycle. If you lack emotional discernment and are identifying with others’ emotions as your own, you need to first learn to address that before you can dig into where you are mind-reading. By doing so, you can avoid taking things personally.
Emotional discernment comes before anything else you can do. If the wires get crossed, you might be picking up on both yours and the other person’s emotions and associating both to you, or associating both as something that you caused, depending on if you have the habit of externalizing or internalizing. Internalizing is when we take responsibility or blame for all emotions around us and create the narratives, whereas externalizing is when we reject all of those emotions and push the blame or responsibility on to others.
Connecting Back Into the Body
If you are struggling with discernment, an easy way to begin identifying whose emotions you are feeling is to start by connecting back in with your body and noticing the sensations within it. Where is that emotion in your body right now? Describe the feelings of it. Then ask, is this mine? Is it someone else’s? This can help you stop taking things personally.
One of the simple tricks I teach in intuition development courses and empath mastery courses is to simply let your body language answer your yes/no questions. If it’s a yes, it’s leaning forward; if it’s a no, it’s pulling backward. Our bodies are naturally attuned to this, and if we allow it by letting go of a specific outcome and just being curious, you will find that your body will respond to your question in one of the two ways.
The Role of Kindness and Self-Compassion
I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to mind-read someone else’s emotions and ended up hurting my own feelings because of it. I’ve told myself so many mean things in the past. From things like, “They aren’t interested in me because they aren’t responding,” which usually leads me to question why I wasn’t good enough, to things like, “They’re angry because I put down a boundary; they must not actually respect me or care about how I feel.” Sometimes it’s even worse, and I end up mind reading myself out of a relationship, pulling out before they have even had the chance to show me who they actually are. By stopping taking things personally, you can prevent this self-sabotage.
One day it hit me. I heard my Higher Self say to me, “You’re so busy rejecting yourself that you haven’t even given other people the opportunity to accept you.” That was like an internal slap across the face when that realization hit me. It was 100% true too. I realized just how much I was the problem in a lot of my relationships because I was so guarded with my emotions and ready to run the moment that I found a reason to tell myself some crazy story about how I wasn’t enough or that they didn’t care, all of it through my attempts at mind reading.
Question: How does filling the void within ourselves lead to more purposeful and compassionate relationships?
Healing and Finding Fulfillment
Breaking that mind-reading cycle can be challenging, but we have to start by practicing self-compassion and self-kindness. When we begin being kind to ourselves and stop telling ourselves stories that hurt our own feelings, we are able to be more open, vulnerable, and curious with others. This gives them the chance to accept us, to elaborate on what they meant or what their intentions were in different scenarios. This also helps in stopping taking things personally.
It all starts with how we speak to ourselves and how we tell ourselves those stories. If you catch yourself mind-reading and creating a hurtful narrative, try to flip perspectives instead and come up with as many counterpoints as you can. This will help you break the neurological connections in your brain that make the negative behavior your default setting.
You can also make a point to never make assumptions and always ask for clarification, even if it is annoyingly so. I was probably pretty irritating for some when I first started practicing this skill. As I got better at understanding the true thoughts and motives behind those in my circle, I had to ask less and less. It sparked a lot of necessary conversations while I was at it, allowing us both to share and be vulnerable without the fear of rejection too.
Question: What steps have you taken to heal past relationship trauma and how has this influenced your current relationships?
Navigating Relationships as a Spiritually Sensitive Person
Years ago, I read an article where a therapist spoke about her relationship with her partner and the challenges they had to navigate. One part has stuck with me ever since. She said that when she was beginning to have a conflict with her partner, she would start the conversation with this simple line: “The story I am telling myself is…”. Then she would go on to tell her partner what story she was creating about the situation. This helped both gain clarity and understanding, as well as diffuse any tension so that they could get on the same page. This approach can help in stopping taking things personally.
To this day, I still use this approach in all of my relationships if I catch myself in a mind-reading story and need to seek clarification from someone about their emotions I’m sensing or their actions I may be misinterpreting.
Question: As a spiritually sensitive person, what unique challenges do you face in navigating relationships?
Question: How can being kind to ourselves help us not take things too seriously and enjoy more fulfilling relationships?
Opportunities for Personal Growth
If you find yourself struggling to navigate healthy relationships as an empath or HSP, sign up for the waitlist for my “Empath Mastery: From Surviving to Thriving” course. I will be releasing the dates and details soon! You can also set up a consultation call with me to discuss other options such as one-on-one coaching or even an Akashic Records reading to help you see where your challenges and blocks are that are impacting your relationships.