Are You an Empath – or Emotionally Hijacked?

: Elysabeth Wolter | Lizzie’s Insights Coaching
 Website: lizziesinsightscoaching.com
Book: The Fairy Elephant Effect – Available now on Amazon
YouTube Tapping Video: “Staying on Your Side of the Street Emotionally”

Episode Summary:

In this week’s powerful episode of The Fairy Elephant Effect, Elysabeth dives into a topic that’s often misunderstood — the label of empath. While many people wear the word as a badge of honor, she gently challenges listeners to consider whether what they’re calling empathy might actually be emotional hypervigilance, people pleasing, or codependency in disguise.

Drawing from personal experience and her work with clients, Elysabeth explores how growing up in emotionally unpredictable environments can train us to tune in to others' needs at the expense of our own. What we think is empathy may actually be a learned survival response — one that disconnects us from our own body and boundaries.

The key takeaway? True empathy is not about absorbing others’ emotions. That’s entanglement. Real compassion — which includes the desire to help — comes from being anchored in your own energy. You can’t help anyone if you’re emotionally hijacked.

Elysabeth offers a new way forward: learning to stay on your own side of the street emotionally, building internal awareness, and reclaiming your energy from external drama.

She guides listeners through a powerful self-connection practice and reminds us that “You do not have to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.” This is a must-listen for anyone who identifies as sensitive, overwhelmed, or constantly drained by others’ emotions.

Transcript

Speaker 0:11

Welcome to the fairy Elephant Effect, a space for realignment self responsibility, and clarity I'm Elizabeth Walter. Life Coach, EFT Tapping Specialist and the author of the Fury Elephant Effect, and a Guide for People Ready to Stop Shrinking and Start Living From Truth. In this podcast, we explore emotional resilience, shifting the stories that no longer serve us living with more energy, not less as we grow. We have fantastic guests on the podcast that come along and share their fury, elephant effects, and when you get to choose your next chapter on your own terms. I speak from experience, not theory, and what I share has helped hundreds reclaim their power You won't find fluff or false promises, just real conversations. Grounded truth and honest encouragement, you matter because everything starts and ends with you. Let's begin.

Speaker 2 1:34

Welcome to this episode of the Fury Elephant Effect Podcast, this week we're going to talk about, a big subject, something that a lot of people use as a reason for not being able, to stand up because they're so emotionally tired or worn out. And that is being an empath. We've all heard it, we've all seen the posts about it. Are you an empath? Do you feel other people's feelings? I don't know if there is that as many empaths in the world as there seems to be lately. it's something I used to probably call myself or behaved in those ways, and it was because I hadn't learned some other stuff. So let's dive in. When you hear that word, empath, you hear, I'm an empath. I feel everybody's emotions. It is exhausting because I take on all the energies or I walk into a room and I'm overwhelmed I get it. It used to be me, but I have to tell you the truth, and I've seen this time and time again with my clients. I've experienced it as well, what people are actually calling empathy or being an empath. Is actually emotional hypervigilance, people pleasing and codependency in disguise. I talk about codependency in my book, the Very Elephant Effect. It's a really big narrative in our society. It isn't, just about people, like your partner or a parent. It is much, much bigger theme. And being an empath is often actually. Codependency in disguise. empathy is not absorption. That's not what it really means. And the ability, if you look at the Oxford Dictionary, it says the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. We share a meal together, but we are not eating exactly the same meal. it is not being so swept up in other piece of emotions that you forget your own needs. Because that will happen when we're overwhelmed, doesn't it? Because if we're doing that's not empathy, that's entanglement. And I just wanna introduce here in you word compassion. I think if we start saying, I'm a compassionate person and I have compassionate for others straight away, that's gonna make a difference in your body. Our words matter. They hold power Compassion means sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. accompanied by a desire to help. Empaths can't take action quite often because they're exhausted and not able to move away from the incident. They're entangled with it. I grew up in a home where other people's moods mattered to me more than my own because I was trying to find safety. Anticipating my parents' nudes, anticipating what was happening, how I was supposed to behave, how it was going to affect me. do I just stay under the radar? Am I supposed to do something? Action, non-action. All of that made me super sensitive to other people because other people had the power in my life and it made me, read people's bodies language like a hawk. And my survival depended on being needed or useful. that empathy might actually be a trauma what you are calling empathetic ability could also be the fact that you have learned to live over on someone else's street emotionally. I talk a lot about this with my clients. We are over there instead of on our side of the street emotionally. And then you become an expert at reading people. Not because you're special, but because you had to. So many people have had to do that in their lives it's not empathy. It is a learned skill when you are on your side of the street, emotionally, you've created a boundary. But if you have not been able to create a boundary and you are over that side of the street with that person experiencing the ups and downs, the emotional intensity, you lose the ability to help them. And that lack of boundary is not a superpower. if someone's around you who's anxious and you suddenly can't breathe'cause you're mirroring that because you are being an empath, if someone is depressed and your whole day falls into a black hole. If someone at work is in a mood and you feel like you've done something wrong all day, that's not being empathetic, that's being hijacked. Your emotions are being hijacked and you haven't got a boundary and you are not on your side of the street. You're not in your own body, you're not in your own lane, and you are not on your emotional street. You are living in Billy Bob's emotional house, trying to redecorate it, trying to clean up his mood, rearrange his furniture, fix the plumbing when your own home is sitting untouched and falling apart. That's not empathy, that's not compassion, that's depletion and distortion and disconnection from you and you are. You matter what. It all starts and end with you. You may have fallen into the people policing and the need to be needed as well when you don't'cause you don't know who you are. And you haven't been committed to getting to know your own inner world. You haven't learned what emotional regulation looks on inside your own nervous system, and then the only way you can live is by living in other people's emotional systems because you don't know how to connect with you. there are people who are empath, who really do feel emotions, but when they learn how to stay on their side of the street, when they learn some skills to have boundaries and come into themselves, they're far more effective. But there is one other little hook. when we become in that state, we're trying to predict what's happening. We're trying to foresee how someone's gonna feel so we can, adjust. We become the king or queen of assumptions. We assume how someone feels and then mirror it back to them like a sponge. assumption is often the start of judgment. And judgment is a barrier. It keeps you separated from yourself and from the truth about a situation about you and about them. So are you really an empathetic person? Could you perhaps be a compassionate person or are you a codependent person? Here is a quote about compassion. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and wounded. It is a relationship between equals. You can have compassion without collapsing into somebody else's suffering. You can offer kindness, support, and presence without making their pain, your identity. Empaths like to identify as empaths and feel all the emotions but are they really living? Are you really living your fullest life? So if your whole self feels like it needs to be the fixer, the feeler, and the one that always understands, then you're not practicing compassion. You might be practicing codependency. codependency is excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner or person that requires support in their life. You start living other people's life and losing your own in the process. And here's another quote. Codependency is often when you are responsible for other people's emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing, you've made it your job to carry that responsibility. when we do that, we disempower others. let's look at the path back home. Because if this has brought up any connection for you, have you heard anything in this? Then you can start building relationship with yourself. You can start to feel the inside of your own body. You pause before reacting and you can ask, is this mind to feel this? Mind to take action? where am I in this moment? You stop outsourcing your emotional energy to everybody else. You come home to you and start living your life instead of living out a supporting role in somebody else's emotional dramas. And there can be thousands of dramas happening. you might have a lot of people in your orbit, and you are carrying all those balls and you are being emotional, responsible, and over there. And you're not here, you matter. It all starts and ends with you. So here is a little thing I thought I might introduce. If you could spend five minutes a day, preferably in the morning, checking into your own feelings, not other people's, just your own, you can ask yourself what matters to me right now? It's often a good idea to put your hands on your heart and take a deep breath in. you can say to yourself, I return my energy back to me. I release what is not mine to carry remember, you are not broken, you are not too sensitive. You've just been trained to look outward instead of being anchored inward. you can change that. You can reclaim your side of the street, you can learn to live in your own lane. You can feel deeply without falling apart. That's compassion. You can often compassion without collapsing into someone else's pain. So maybe you're not an empath, maybe you're someone who's just never learned to live in your own body, right? So here is another thing that may be really good for you. before we finish, the session, we are going to do a little closing exercise called reclaiming your Emotional Energy. remember, you do not have to set yourself on fire to keep others warm. Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's yours. Reclaim your side of the street. The world needs you grounded and not drained. You are here to live a heart led life. Start with compassion for yourself. this is so important and people forget that. Now, there is a tapping video that goes along with this, which is in my YouTube channel. that is going to be how to stay on your own side of the street emotionally. Please check it out, and do the tapping. let's drop down into ourselves. If you are in a position where you can put your hands on your heart, if you're driving please do this later. close your eyes. Let your shoulders drop. Let your breath guide your gently in and out. One more time. In and out. Now with this breath, I would like you to go out just a little bit further. Go in and then go out, send your breath out, and then go in again, and then send your breath out to beyond your body. And then as do you breath in again, the next time you breathe out. I would like you to let your breath go out beyond your day. So then, and then let your breath go out beyond your day. Let it take your attention to the tension that needs attention. Now in your body, where do you feel the tightest? Where do you feel the most discomfort? This isn't about fixing, this isn't about achieving calm. This is just about noticing in your body. Just notice what you notice about your body and how it is feeling. And where it is, feeling tension or stress. And then after two or three minutes, no pressure, no performance, just presence, you're just in there, breathing in now out. Then when you are ready, gently open your eyes and write down what came up for you. Maybe your thoughts went straight to a discomfort in your body and you got stuck there. Maybe you were doing a to-do list'cause you weren't able to stay here in this place. Maybe you were thinking about somebody else's needs. Maybe you had fear or judgment. So what were those thoughts? What were about you? What were about other things, lists life and what were about other people? Were you pulled to your past or were you pulled to your present? Those. Questions at the end. This little exercise, if you did this every day, you would learn so much about yourself. the more uptight we are, the less we are connected, the more difficult it is and it can feel excruciatingly painful and really like, why am I doing this? There's no point to this. And I'm telling you there is big points to this. This is so important. If you cannot spend three or four minutes with yourself I want that for you because I know what that's like. On the other side of it, I have been there and now I am here and I'm grounded on my side of the street emotionally, and I'm living this life that I love and I work with people that are just brilliant. I just love the people that I work and move in the world with. I couldn't have done that if I hadn't changed how I felt about myself. You matter. It all starts and ends with you. Don't forget my fury elephant, book is on Amazon. You'll find it in the notes at the end of the podcast. Check out the tapping, staying on your side of the street, emotionally on my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for coming and supporting me today. Please let me know how this felt for you. did you hear about the difference between it being an empath and maybe it's codependence behavior or you really got the fact that it would be awesome to be more compassionate, and have more energy in your tank? At the end of the day, I really would look forward to hearing for you. Bye for now.