046: 5 Signs You're Absorbing Everyone Else's Emotions (and What To Do About It) | Sacral Chakra Reflection

Do you walk into a room and instantly feel everyone else's energy — but struggle to name your own? Do you feel responsible for other people's emotions, happiness, or healing? If you've ever searched "empath meaning," looked up the codependency definition, or wondered why setting boundaries in relationships feels almost impossible for you — this episode is for you.

In this Sacral Chakra Reflection, Ananta Ripa Ajmera — 10-time award-winning bestselling author, Ayurveda teacher, and founder of The Ancient Way — shares the deeply personal story of how her own second chakra imbalance showed up as a strained relationship with food, and reveals the 5 signs that you're absorbing everyone else's emotions instead of feeling your own.

You'll learn the meaning of Svadhisthana, the sacral chakra — "your own sacred dwelling place" — and meet Brahmacharini, the second of the nine warrior mother goddess forms, whose teaching on sacred discipline has nothing to do with restriction and everything to do with freedom. Ananta unpacks the real difference between compassion and absorption, why healthy boundaries in relationships are what make deeper intimacy possible (not what block it), and how Ayurveda views the five senses as sacred doorways that shape your nervous system regulation, your energy, and your emotional health.

If you're an empath, caregiver, healer, or simply a deeply feeling human being who has lost touch with where you end and everyone else begins, this episode offers a gentle, honest path back to your own emotional center.

In this episode you'll discover:

• The 5 signs you're absorbing other people's emotions instead of feeling your own
• The real difference between empathic sensitivity and emotional absorption
• What Svadhisthana (the sacral chakra) means and why it governs the boundary between self and other
• The story of Goddess Brahmacharini and the true, freeing meaning of spiritual discipline
• Why "I feel responsible for fixing everyone's pain" is not the same as compassion
• How Ayurveda views the five senses as sacred doorways — and what prajnaparadha (acting against your own wisdom) has to do with emotional overwhelm
• Why numbness, disconnection, or "not knowing what I want" can be signs of a second chakra imbalance, not a spiritual failure
• One simple grounding practice — "Is this mine?" — to help you tell your emotions apart from everyone else's
• How the water element teaches us to stay open without drowning

This is the second stop on our nine-week Divine Feminine Hero's Journey through the chakra system. Next week, we move from Reflection into Ritual — exploring the Ayurvedic practices that restore emotional flow and reconnect you with your senses as sacred doorways.

Free resource: Download the free Chakra Healing Guide at chakrahealingguide.com for a full breakdown of all nine chakras — where your energy is flowing, where it's blocked, and how to restore balance.

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Ananta's books

The Way of the Goddess: Daily Rituals to Awaken Your Inner Warrior and Discover Your True Self
"A book we all desperately need. I plan to re-read it." — Dr. Deepak Chopra
→ amzn.to/4rQXYml

The Ayurveda Way: 108 Practices from the World's Oldest Healing System for Better Sleep, Less Stress, Optimal Digestion, and More  
→ amzn.to/4reaXyz

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More free resources

Living Liberated Newsletter: theancientway.kit.com
Chakra Healing Guide: chakrahealingguide.com
Digestion Healing Guide: theancientway.kit.com/digestive-healing

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Disclaimer: All resources are for educational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult your healthcare provider for medical concerns.

Transcript

Welcome to True to Yourself—your soulful companion on the journey home to yourself.

I'm so glad you're here.

Whatever you're carrying today, whatever season you find yourself in, you're in exactly the right place.

Let's begin.

— OPENING — The Empath Who Lost Herself in Everyone Else —

I want to begin today with something personal.

For years, I thought my relationship with food was the problem.

I thought that if I could just eat differently... have more discipline... develop more willpower... everything else in my life would finally settle.

But food wasn't the problem.

It was simply where the deeper imbalance was showing up.

At the beginning of my spiritual journey—before I had the language, before I had the tools, before I understood what was actually happening inside me—I wasn't eating to nourish myself.

I was eating to feel something.

Or to stop feeling something.

Sometimes both in the very same meal.

As an empath, I was constantly absorbing the emotions of the people around me. Their stress became my stress. Their anxiety became my anxiety. Their grief settled into my body as though it belonged there.

The hardest part wasn't that I felt so much.

It was that I slowly lost the ability to tell which emotions were actually mine.

I couldn't always find my own emotional center beneath the weight of everyone else's experience.

So I reached for food.

Sometimes to soothe.

Sometimes to numb.

Sometimes simply to create the feeling that I had control over something—anything—in a life that often felt like it was happening to me rather than flowing through me.

Looking back now, I can see that my eating wasn't a lack of discipline.

It wasn't a lack of willpower.

It wasn't a personal failure.

It was my nervous system asking for help in the only language it knew.

And underneath that...

it was a second chakra imbalance.

I'm sharing this because I have a feeling I'm not alone.

Maybe your story isn't about food.

Maybe it's about overworking.

Overgiving.

Scrolling endlessly.

People pleasing.

Shopping.

Relationships.

Or simply staying so busy that you never have to sit quietly with yourself.

The behavior is different.

But the longing underneath is often the same.

This week on True to Yourself, we're moving from the Root Chakra to the Sacral Chakra.

From earth...

to water.

From survival...

to feeling.

From stability...

to flow.

And if last week's Root Chakra journey helped you understand why your nervous system has been living in survival mode...

this week's journey is about something equally important.

Why so many deeply sensitive people lose themselves in everyone else's emotional world...

...and how we begin finding our way home again.

Because for many of us who identify as empaths, caregivers, healers, or simply deeply feeling human beings...

the greatest challenge isn't that we care too much.

It's that somewhere along the way...

we stopped knowing where we ended...

and everyone else began.

Let's explore that together.

Gently.

And honestly.

— VEDIC TEACHING — Svadhisthana: The Sacred Dwelling Place Within —

The second chakra is called Svadhisthana in Sanskrit.

Sva means self.

Adhisthana means dwelling place, abode, or seat.

Your own sacred dwelling place.

I want you to pause with that for a moment.

Because I believe this teaching is one of the most important and most misunderstood teachings of the chakra system.

Your body is not something separate from your spiritual path.

Your body is not an obstacle you have to transcend.

Your emotions are not distractions from awakening.

Your humanity is not something you have to overcome to become divine.

Your body is your dwelling place.

Your emotions are part of your sacred intelligence.

Your senses are doorways through which the Divine experiences this world through you.

And the second chakra is where we learn how to inhabit that sacred dwelling place consciously.

This is why the sacral chakra is such a profound place of healing for those of us who are sensitive, empathic, and spiritually devoted.

Because before we can truly merge with something greater than ourselves, we must first learn how to fully be ourselves.

Before we can dissolve into the ocean of consciousness, we must first learn how to honor the unique drop of water that we are.

The second of the nine Navadurga goddess forms — the Divine Feminine archetypes we are exploring throughout this nine-week journey — is Brahmacharini.

She is the goddess of devoted practice.

She walks barefoot, carrying a water vessel in one hand and a rosary in the other.

The water represents the flow of life.

The rosary represents devotion, discipline, and the power of consistent spiritual practice.

And I want to spend a moment here because this teaching is often misunderstood.

When many people hear words like discipline, devotion, or self-control, they associate them with restriction.

With punishment.

With forcing themselves to become something they are not.

But true spiritual discipline is not about denying yourself.

It is about freeing yourself.

This is the essence of Brahmacharya — one of the great teachings of the yogic tradition.

Often translated as celibacy or restraint, Brahmacharya is actually much deeper than that. At its root, it means living in alignment with the Divine. Conserving and directing your vital energy toward what truly serves your highest purpose.

It is the practice of asking:

Where am I placing my life force?

What am I giving my attention to?

What am I allowing to enter my sacred inner world?

What am I feeding through my thoughts, my senses, my relationships, and my choices?

This teaching has been one of the foundations of my own healing journey.

When I chose a monastic lifestyle and committed myself to years of study in Ayurveda, Yoga, and Vedanta, it was not because I wanted to reject the world.

It was because I wanted to learn how to meet the world without losing myself inside of it.

I wanted to understand the difference between compassion and carrying.

Between love and attachment.

Between being open-hearted and being energetically unprotected.

And this distinction is especially important for empaths.

Because many of us have been taught that absorbing someone else's pain is a sign of love.

That if we truly care, we should feel what others feel.

That if someone we love is suffering, we should suffer alongside them.

But that is not actually compassion.

Compassion says:

"I see your pain. I honor your experience. I walk beside you."

Absorption says:

"I feel your pain, and now I have made it mine."

One keeps your heart open.

The other slowly empties you.

And this is where the second chakra becomes so important.

Because Svadhisthana governs the sacred boundary between self and other.

Not a wall.

A boundary.

A healthy, fluid, intelligent boundary.

Like water.

Water knows how to flow around a stone without becoming the stone.

Water can touch everything without losing its own nature.

And this is the invitation of the sacral chakra:

Can you remain open without becoming overwhelmed?

Can you love without abandoning yourself?

Can you feel deeply without losing your own center?

This is the work.

In Ayurveda, the second chakra is governed by the water element — Jala.

And water teaches us something extraordinary.

Water is receptive.

Water is adaptable.

Water is nourishing.

But water also has wisdom.

It knows when to flow.

It knows when to pause.

It knows when to change form.

A river does not apologize for being a river.

It does not look at the ocean and say, "I should have been different."

It follows its own nature.

And this is what healing the sacral chakra ultimately asks us to do:

Return to our own nature.

Return to our own rhythm.

Return to our own emotional truth.

One of the reasons Ayurveda is so powerful here is because Ayurveda understands that our inner world is constantly shaped by what we allow through our senses.

The five senses are not just physical organs.

They are sacred doorways.

What you see.

What you hear.

What you taste.

What you smell.

What you touch.

All of it enters your inner world.

All of it influences your energy.

All of it becomes part of the environment in which your consciousness is living.

This is why Ayurveda considers sensory impressions one of the three foundational causes of health and disease.

Alongside food and lifestyle choices.

And what Ayurveda calls prajnaparadha — the moment when we act against our own wisdom.

When some deeper part of us knows:

"This does not nourish me."

"This does not honor me."

"This pulls me away from myself."

And yet we continue anyway.

Not because we are weak.

But because we have forgotten how to listen.

And that is what this week's sacral chakra journey is about.

Learning to listen again.

Learning to feel again.

Learning to come home to the sacred dwelling place that has always been within you.

Because the goal is not to become less sensitive.

The goal is not to shut down your heart.

The goal is not to stop caring.

The goal is to become so deeply rooted in yourself that you can love fully without disappearing.

You can feel deeply without drowning.

You can walk beside another person's pain without abandoning your own soul.

That is the gift of a healed second chakra.

And that is where we begin today.

— 5 SIGNS — You’re Absorbing Everyone Else’s Emotions —

So how do we know when the second chakra is asking for our attention?

How do we recognize when we have become so open to the emotional world around us that we have lost connection with our own?

As I share these five signs, I invite you to simply notice.

Not judge.

Not diagnose.

Not immediately try to fix.

Just notice.

Because awareness is always the beginning of healing.

And for those of us on a spiritual path, awareness is not just information.

It is an act of compassion toward ourselves.

Sign one: You walk into a room and immediately feel everyone else's energy — but struggle to feel your own.

This is one of the most common experiences I hear from empaths.

You enter a room and before anyone says a word, you know something is different.

You sense tension between two people.

You notice someone's sadness behind their smile.

You feel the anxiety underneath someone's words.

You can walk into a space and immediately begin adjusting yourself around what everyone else needs.

And this sensitivity can be a beautiful gift.

It is a sign of deep attunement.

It is part of what allows healers, caregivers, parents, teachers, and compassionate souls to connect so deeply with others.

But there is a difference between sensitivity and absorption.

Sensitivity says:

"I can feel what is happening around me."

Absorption says:

"What is happening around me becomes what is happening inside me."

And when absorption becomes our default, we can begin losing the ability to answer one of the most important questions:

What am I actually feeling?

Not what is my partner feeling.

Not what is my family feeling.

Not what is the collective feeling.

What is mine?

I know this place intimately.

For much of my early healing journey, I thought being deeply affected by others was simply proof that I had a big heart.

And in some ways, it was.

But I did not yet understand that a big heart also needs a strong center.

Without that center, compassion can become exhaustion.

Love can become self-abandonment.

Service can become depletion.

And eventually, you begin living from everyone else's emotional landscape except your own.

The second chakra teaches us that feeling is sacred.

But feeling does not mean merging.

The water element gives us the perfect metaphor.

A river can touch the banks around it.

It can nourish the trees growing beside it.

It can reflect the sky above it.

But it never forgets that it is a river.

It maintains its own movement.

Its own direction.

Its own nature.

This is the wisdom we are cultivating.

To remain open.

Without losing ourselves.

Sign two: You feel responsible for other people's emotions, happiness, or healing.

This is a particularly tender one.

And it is one I see often in deeply compassionate people.

Somewhere along the way, you learned that love meant taking responsibility.

If someone was upset, you needed to fix it.

If someone was disappointed, you needed to make it better.

If someone was suffering, you felt like you had failed somehow because you could not remove their pain.

And so you began carrying what was never yours to carry.

For many empaths, this pattern begins from a beautiful place.

You genuinely care.

You want people to feel safe.

You want people to feel loved.

You want to relieve suffering wherever you encounter it.

But there is a profound spiritual difference between supporting someone's healing and taking ownership of their healing.

One honors another person's soul journey.

The other quietly says:

"I know what is best for your path."

"I must rescue you from your lessons."

"I must carry this because you cannot."

And this is where Brahmacharya becomes such an important teaching.

Because your energy is sacred.

Your life force is sacred.

Your attention is sacred.

Every time you give your energy away from a place of fear, guilt, or obligation, you move further away from your own center.

But when you offer from fullness — when you give because your heart is overflowing rather than because you are afraid of what will happen if you don't — service becomes sacred.

The same action can come from two completely different places.

One drains you.

One expands you.

The difference is whether you have abandoned yourself in the process.

A question I often return to is:

"Am I offering love, or am I offering myself as a sacrifice?"

Because those are not the same thing.

Love does not require you to disappear.

Compassion does not require you to collapse.

And your soul's purpose does not require you to abandon your own sacred dwelling place.

Sign three: You use food, stimulation, or external experiences to escape feelings you do not know how to hold.

This sign is deeply personal for me.

Because this was one of the ways my own second chakra imbalance showed up.

When I was younger, I did not yet have the awareness or the tools to understand what was moving through me.

I did not know how to sit with grief.

I did not know how to process overwhelm.

I did not know how to distinguish my own emotions from what I was absorbing from everyone around me.

So I reached for external things.

Food became a way to comfort myself.

Restriction became a way to create a feeling of control.

The senses became a place where I searched for relief.

And this is something Ayurveda understands so beautifully.

The senses are not the problem.

The senses are gifts.

The problem is when we use the senses to disconnect from ourselves rather than deepen our connection with ourselves.

There is a profound difference between:

"I am enjoying this because it nourishes me."

and:

"I need this because I cannot be with what I am feeling right now."

One is conscious enjoyment.

The other is unconscious seeking.

Many spiritual seekers experience this in subtle ways.

Not only through food.

Through constant noise.

Always needing something playing in the background.

Always reaching for the next piece of information.

Always scrolling.

Always consuming.

Never allowing enough silence for your own inner wisdom to rise.

Because silence asks us to meet ourselves.

And sometimes, meeting ourselves is the very thing we have been avoiding.

But the beautiful truth is this:

The feeling underneath the behavior is not your enemy.

The emotion you are trying to escape is not trying to harm you.

It is trying to communicate with you.

Every feeling is carrying information.

Every emotion is asking for your presence.

And the healing of the second chakra begins when we learn to say:

"I am willing to feel this."

"I am willing to listen."

"I am willing to come back home to myself."

Sign four: You feel other people's emotions more strongly than your own.

This is one of the most confusing experiences for highly sensitive people.

Because from the outside, it can look like you are deeply connected to your emotions.

You cry easily.

You feel deeply moved by someone's story.

You sense subtle shifts in people's moods.

You are affected by the suffering of the world.

And yet, when someone asks you a simple question like:

"What are you feeling right now?"

You may pause.

You may not know.

Or you may immediately begin explaining what everyone else is feeling.

"My partner is stressed."

"My family is going through a lot."

"My friend needs me."

"The world feels heavy right now."

All of those things may be true.

But underneath all of that, there is another question waiting:

Where am I in all of this?

This was one of the greatest lessons of my own spiritual journey.

For many years, I thought my ability to sense others was the highest expression of compassion.

And it is a gift.

But I had not yet learned the other half of compassion:

The ability to remain connected to myself while I am connected to another.

Because if I leave myself in order to meet someone else, eventually I have no true presence left to offer.

I may still be physically there.

I may still be helping.

I may still be saying the right words.

But my own life force is no longer fully available.

The second chakra teaches us that true connection requires two whole beings.

Not one person disappearing into another.

Not one person becoming the emotional container for another.

But two souls meeting in their fullness.

This is why healthy boundaries are not walls.

They are actually what allow deeper intimacy.

A tree does not need to uproot itself to prove it loves the forest.

A river does not need to become the ocean to prove it belongs to water.

You can belong.

You can love.

You can serve.

And still remain yourself.

Sign five: You feel emotionally numb, disconnected, or unsure of what you truly desire.

This may seem like the opposite of being overwhelmed by emotions.

But these two experiences often come from the same place.

When the nervous system has spent too long absorbing, managing, and carrying, sometimes it protects itself by creating distance.

The water freezes.

The emotions become harder to access.

The desires become quieter.

The inner voice becomes harder to hear.

You may find yourself saying:

"I don't know what I want."

"I don't know what I enjoy anymore."

"I don't know what makes me happy."

"I feel disconnected from myself."

And this can be especially painful for spiritual seekers because we often believe we should be more connected.

We may wonder:

"Why can't I hear my intuition?"

"Why don't I feel aligned?"

"Why do I feel lost when I have done so much inner work?"

But I want you to hear this:

Disconnection is not a failure of your spiritual path.

It is often a sign that a deeper layer of healing is ready to happen.

Sometimes the soul creates distance because it has been overwhelmed.

Sometimes numbness is not the absence of feeling.

It is feeling that has been waiting for a safe enough space to return.

This is why the path back is not forcing yourself to feel everything all at once.

The path back is gentle.

It is devotional.

It is the practice of creating a relationship with yourself again.

Just as you would slowly rebuild trust with a dear friend who had been hurt.

You do not demand that they open immediately.

You show up.

You listen.

You become a safe place for them again.

And that is what the second chakra is asking you to do.

Become a safe place for yourself.

— MID-ROLL —

Before we continue, I want to remind you that our free Chakra Healing Guide is available for you at chakrahealingguide.com.

This guide walks you through the chakra system, helping you understand the unique gifts, challenges, and healing invitations of each energy center.

It is a beautiful companion as we move through this nine-week journey together.

You can download it anytime through the link in the show notes.

— WHAT TO DO — Returning to Your Sacred Center —

So if you recognized yourself in these signs…

If you realized:

"I absorb more than I realized."

"I have been carrying emotions that were never mine."

"I have forgotten how to hear my own feelings beneath everyone else's."

What is the first step back?

It is not to become less caring.

It is not to become less sensitive.

It is not to build walls around your heart.

It is to return to your own sacred center.

The second chakra's greatest teaching is this:

You can be connected without being consumed.

You can love without losing yourself.

You can feel deeply without drowning.

You can serve without sacrificing your own soul.

And this begins with a simple but profound practice:

Start asking yourself:

"Is this mine?"

When a strong emotion arises, pause.

Before you immediately act.

Before you immediately fix.

Before you immediately take responsibility.

Ask:

"Is this actually my feeling?"

"Did this begin inside of me?"

"Or did I pick this up from someone else?"

This question changed so much for me.

Because for years, I thought every emotion I felt required my attention.

Every sadness required my action.

Every discomfort required my fixing.

But sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do is simply witness.

To say:

"I see this."

"I honor this."

"But I do not need to carry this."

This is the wisdom of Brahmacharya.

The sacred conservation of your energy.

Not because your energy is limited.

But because your energy is precious.

Where your attention goes, your life force flows.

And your life force is one of the greatest gifts you have been given.

For those of you who are empaths, I want you to remember something:

Your sensitivity is not the problem.

Your open heart is not the problem.

Your ability to feel deeply is not the problem.

The invitation is simply to develop the roots strong enough that your openness does not become overwhelm.

This is the same lesson we learned in the root chakra.

Roots first.

Then branches.

Foundation first.

Then expansion.

The deeper your connection to yourself becomes, the more safely you can connect with everyone and everything around you.

— CLOSING — Returning Home to Yourself —

This week, as we begin our journey through the sacral chakra, I invite you to sit with one question:

"What feelings are truly mine to hold?"

And perhaps an even deeper one:

"Who am I when I am no longer carrying everyone else?"

Not the version of you who is needed.

Not the version of you who is pleasing.

Not the version of you who is constantly adapting.

But the you underneath all of that.

The you who was there before you learned to abandon yourself.

The you who has always been whole.

Next in our sacral chakra journey, we move from reflection into ritual.

We will explore the Ayurvedic practices that help restore flow, nourish the emotional body, and reconnect you with your senses as sacred doorways.

Because healing is not only about understanding ourselves.

It is about embodying what we have learned.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for trusting this journey.

Thank you for showing up for yourself.

Stay true to yourself.

Namaste. 🙏

— POST-ROLL —

If today's episode resonated with you, I invite you to save it and return whenever you feel yourself absorbing what belongs to others.

And if you feel called to go deeper into the work of releasing emotional patterns stored in the body and reconnecting with your own inner wisdom, you are welcome to explore a complimentary Sovereign Within introductory session.

You can find the link in the show notes.

Until next time.

Namaste. 🙏