Empathy vs. Absorption: The Hidden Reason You're Emotionally Exhausted

Empathy vs. Absorption: The Hidden Reason You're Emotionally Exhausted 

Have you ever walked into a room and instantly felt the tension? Do you find yourself worrying about everyone else's problems, carrying emotional weight that doesn't belong to you, and ending each day completely drained?

In this deeply personal episode of Star Women Rising, Melinda explores the powerful difference between empathy and absorption—and how confusing the two can quietly steal your peace, your energy, and even your health. 

Drawing from her own journey of childhood hypervigilance, people-pleasing, peacekeeping, and emotional exhaustion, Melinda shares a life-changing realization: being compassionate doesn't require carrying everyone else's pain.

This conversation dives into the hidden survival mechanisms many of us develop early in life, how they follow us into adulthood, and why learning to separate your emotions from someone else's can be one of the most liberating acts of self-love.

✨ In this episode, you'll discover:

•  The difference between empathy and emotional absorption 
•  How childhood experiences can create lifelong hypervigilance 
•  Why people-pleasers often become emotionally exhausted 
•  The hidden connection between stress, trauma, and physical burnout 
•  How to stop carrying emotions that aren't yours 
•  Why walking away can sometimes be the most compassionate choice 
•  Practical ways to protect your energy without losing your compassion 

If you've ever felt responsible for fixing everyone, calming every conflict, or preventing every disaster, this episode may help you finally put down a burden that was never yours to carry.

Because true empathy doesn't require self-sacrifice.

Sometimes healing begins when you stop absorbing the world and start honoring your own peace.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Star Women Rising, where cosmic roots meet earthly power. I'm Melinda, and together we'll awaken the fire within and above, exploring intuition, soul wisdom, and the ancient truths written in the stars. This isn't about escaping the world. It's about remembering who you are and rising stronger in it. Star Women Rising is part of the Chicology Podcast Collective. Real women, real stories, rising together. Before we jump in, if you haven't already checked out some of the other podcasts from the Chicology Collective, I'd like to invite you to do so. Some really powerful women with some really powerful insight in their journeys. A journey to Loveland, Miranda is what happens when a woman survives everything she wasn't supposed to and comes back with a Bible in one hand, boundaries in the other, and just enough attitude left to keep things interesting. She's not your soft-spoken sit in the corner kind of healed. No, Miranda is the God delivered me, but don't get it twisted. I remember everything, kind of healed. The kind that will pray over you, hug you, wipe your tears, and then gently remind you that you're the one who keeps answering texts you shouldn't. Her life, it's not a journey. It's a whole renovation project. We're talking demolition level heartbreak, seasons of what in the actual hell is happening, a few questionable choices, her words, not mine, and a whole lot of late night conversations with God where she probably said, Okay, but seriously, what are we doing here? And somehow she turned it all. She turned all of it into purpose. Miranda doesn't just speak life, she drags it out of the depths, dusts it off, and hands it back to you like here, you drop this version of yourself somewhere between that bad decision and that man who had no business being in your life. She's equal part scripture and side-eye grace and girl, stand up. Healing, and we're not doing this again. If you come to her for comfort, you'll get it. If you come to her for truth, buckle up because Miranda is not here to play with your feelings. She's here to set you free, even if it means calling you out, praying you through it, and loving you hard enough that you can't go back to who you used to be. Proceed with caution, or better yet, proceed ready. Check out Miranda. Great insights. Today I wanted to talk about empathy versus absorption. Absorption. Uh I've been going kind of through these stages of reflecting on my journey and reflecting on some of these last episode. I talked about manifestation and how I'm kind of noticing some of the strange aspects of manifestation and what we're taught and what we're told, and realizing that there's far more to the story and there's a lot of it that I just don't think applies. So yesterday I had one of those epiphany moments, you know, sitting around just sort of pondering my journey. And I came across empathy. I was actually at a doctor's appointment with my dad. He had a procedure, and I was reflecting on how, in a different place and time, probably not so long ago, I would have been on pins and needles, I would have been sucking gas, you know, unable to breathe, unable to function with worry about my dad, you know, just completely anxious and unraveled. But yesterday was different. I was not in that space. And it it was notable. It it I was aware of it, like, wow, this is this is different from me. I'm usually, you know, freaking out, just not good, not good dealing with these situations, no matter how big or how small. I mean, really the procedure was nothing major, but it was, you know, my dad's almost 80 years old. So I, you know, wanting him to come through it okay. But there was a time where that would have just completely collapsed me and I would have just made myself sick with worry. And and yesterday I was I was totally fine. So I started really thinking about this this shift in me. And empathy is one of those things that comes up a lot if you're on this spiritual path, and maybe if even if you're not, we talk a lot about being empathetic. Oh, I'm an empath, right? You hear a lot of people say, Oh, I'm an empath. And I have certainly felt that way about myself. I really feel a lot, you know. People walk into a room and I I feel like I can read a lot that's going on, just you know, the energy, body language, the real subtle things, the unspoken things. And I absolutely am in tune to that. So I started thinking, you know, where what exactly is this this empathy? Where does this where does this come from? And I I feel like there is this aspect, you know, we are these energetic beings and there is this energy, but I started to kind of ponder the difference between maybe empathy and being hyper-vigilant. And I started reflecting on my childhood and thinking, I remember distinctly as a child, and there was probably a level of empathy where, you know, when you're you live in a family dynamic and things aren't going well, you can you can discern that as a even as a child, but how much of that was kind of learned, this picking up on facial expressions or behaviors, the vibe, and how I learned that if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, kind of that saying, but in a broader sense that in the family dynamic, if things were tense, I felt it. And then you start picking up on cues that tell you stuff is not, stuff isn't going well right now, things aren't going well. And this is no judgment, it's you know, family dynamics, but I learned at a very early age to read the cues, to feel the energy. And many times I didn't enjoy it. And I think at some point I crossed from empathy into absorbing. I didn't like how it felt. And as a child, you don't really have the option to just get out of a situation. As an adult, you can say, Yeah, I don't like how this feels. You can walk away. And I do that quite often now as an adult. Perfect example yesterday at my dad's procedure. My husband sat in the waiting room and I went and sat out in the car because I just didn't like how it felt in there. You know, people are having things done and there's a level of anxiety, and I just didn't want to be in that. So I went and sat out in the car, and I was perfectly happy and content and comfortable in the warm car with my own field, with my own emotions. And I and I felt really good. But this is where I really started to ponder this idea of empathy versus absorption. And like I said, at a young age, I think I crossed over from empathy to absorbing. I I started to identify with kind of the chaos. And like I said, no judgment. Every family has difficulties, but I did not enjoy the feeling of that chaos. And I started to try to compensate for that. And in that, I think I became the maybe the the peacekeeper. Uh maybe it became a a survival mechanism. I really have vivid memories of just not not enjoying it, and then learning that I needed to try to fix it. And I carried that on through my through my adult years, you know, reading moods and the tension, listening to the tone. Um and then I began to stay alert to prevent conflicts and chaos. I I was hyper-vigilant, I'm constantly scanning, really trying to to keep from having the explosions. And I'll tell you what, that has left me exhausted. You know, I talk about uh having dealt with some some health issues for several years where I was I was depleted, had nothing left. I was like, where did this come from? You know, your your adrenals are fried. Well, because I spent my entire life being empathetic, but also on some level hyper-vigilant. I think a lot of people are probably having this experience of you know, exhaustion, completely emotionally drained and not really, not really knowing exactly where that where that comes from. And then to top it off, I went into a profession that required hypervigilance. Always gotta be watching your back. Keep your head on a swivel. You're there's you know, there could be some some danger around the corner. So this this was a 40 some odd year in the making disaster for me. But it it it definitely started in childhood. As a child, I I didn't really have the option to to just walk away. So what I did was I learned how to scan constantly, read read the vibe, and try to adjust. I was really sacrificing myself to try to circumvent the impending disaster or what I felt was going to be an impending disaster. Uh and then I I realized too yesterday that being empathetic and this hyper-vigilance was I was really trying to prevent my own emotional fallout. I just don't want to be traumatized. I don't know where that comes from, but but it's in my it's in my everyday life. I don't I don't want to watch a violent movie because I don't want to be traumatized. I don't want to um, you know, I don't want to deal with situations because I don't want to experience the my own emotional fallout. And that was that was a really deep realization for me. I mean, that that hit me to my core that I wasn't necessarily trying to prevent everybody else from, you know, dealing with whatever it is they have to deal with. You know, we as we go through life, we all have to deal with our own stuff. I was I was really trying to protect myself from feeling the trauma, the fallout, being emotionally destroyed, emotionally distraught. And these are these are my own thought processes, not whether or not that's really what's gonna happen. But I have been trying to prevent myself from feeling horrible behind whatever else is is going on. And man, that's that has been a very, very exhausting experience. Seeing other people hurting, seeing other people dealing with chaos, you know, whatever the case may be, that I I would absorb that. I would take that on and I would I would make it mine. So I've I crossed from empathy to absorption that and and entanglement. So there's empathy where you can stand on the outside and you can you can not collapse into somebody else's drama or pain. And then there's the entanglement where you collapse into it and you make it your own. And all these years I was making it my own, and I was trying to fix and I was trying to prevent, and I was trying to uh carry everybody else's baggage to prevent my own, you know, destructive, chaotic feelings. And it ended up really backfiring. I it did the exact opposite. This this entanglement wore me out. It, I mean, literally, my body was shutting down. So this I think is something that that a lot of people can relate to, but you don't necessarily have the frame of reference for what it is that you are experiencing. And how do you, you know, how do you how do you know? How do you know that you're doing this? And that I think that's the the tricky thing. Took me 50 some odd years, 55 to be exact, to really kind of get clear on what has been happening all these years. If you have children, you know, a perfect example. I I have a child that that really traumatized me. Maybe she was teaching me about this idea of not wanting to be traumatized, but I felt like raising her was a very traumatic experience. And this is this is not on her. I don't say this to throw her under the bus. I'm I'm really trying to be deeply honest with where where I am with this. That you know, I've watched a pretty free-spirited person, but I could see these areas that had potential to be disastrous and had and sometimes because of my work, deadly. You know, I saw how some of these behaviors lead to really dangerous situations. And I spent a lot of energy trying to redirect, you know, trying to set up roadblocks for this really this terrible road and you know, try to circumvent disaster. And it was constant. Everywhere I turned, I feel like I was trying to prevent some sort of disaster, some sort of traumatic situation, catastrophic event. And in my mind, I was trying to keep her from experiencing that. But in reality, I was trying to keep myself from experiencing that. Like you don't want to see your child suffer. And I felt like I was trying to keep her from suffering. I was trying to keep myself from suffering as well. Like I just did not want to be traumatized. Time and time again, I found myself being traumatized, dealing with emotions, uh, situations that were deeply traumatic that I did not want to be involved in, I didn't want to be a part of. But no matter how hard I tried to prevent it, I was still there. I was still in the middle of it. I was still collapsed into it, and I suffered dearly. It has taken such a toll on my mind, my body, my mind, my spirit. This is this was a a long time in the making. This was since childhood learning to circumvent disaster. That's the that's the best way I can I can put it. Try to spare my own emotional well-being by trying to fix everybody else's emotional well-being or doing things or trying to trying to keep from having to deal with that. I just noticed that at very early on, the line, the line of being empathy or being empathetic and noticing emotions and and taking them on, the line between them disappeared. And I started feeling responsible for the emotional field. And I was carrying the tension of these interactions long after, long after they happened. You know, they if you're you know, you can think maybe to yourself, a time where you have an interaction with somebody, and you know, two, three months later, you're still mulling it over and you're still you're still carrying the weight of it. And you know, what happened here? Why did you know what's where did I go wrong? What, you know, whatever the case, you carry this this tension with you. And it's there's this difficulty in separating what's actually your own emotions from what are other people's. When I finally started kind of cutting away at everything I was carrying, I realized a lot of it wasn't even mine. But that that wasn't even enough. I mean, it was it was a good start, this realization that I'm carrying other people's this other people's baggage, but I didn't quite touch on the root of it. And literally that that that happened yesterday. So this this journey has been quite interesting. You know, I I know that I still walk into rooms and I'm scanning, I'm assessing, I'm assessing danger, I'm assessing moods, I'm assessing facial expressions, and then there's definitely a vibe. You know, there is an energetic aspect. That's what gets peaked first is this energetic feeling of walking into a space or in a situation. And then my mind, my brain immediately starts scanning. I'm looking at, you know, facial expressions, physical posture, tones, people's tones of voice. And my mind is going, uh okay, this is happening, this is going on, this is this is not a good situation. And what I'm learning is to not, I can scan, I can read the room, and then I can exit. And even if I can't exit, I can breathe and I can be very intentional about this is not mine to carry. I am not going to absorb this. I am not here to absorb. I see the situation. I have empathy. I have empathy for the situation because a lot of times it's stuff I can personally relate to. I can hold two truths about things. I can, I can see the conflict, I can see the chaos that's happening, but I don't have to collapse into it. I don't have to involve myself. I don't have to jump in and throw in my two cents. I don't have to sit there and feel the anxiety of, oh, this isn't comfortable. I don't like it. It's making me shrink, it's making me feel small. I have to be very intentional about it. Nope, this ain't mine. Nope, not gonna do this. I'm out the door, or I'm breathing and I'm paying attention to my own breath and telling myself, this isn't mine. You don't have to collapse into it, you don't have to get involved, you don't have to partake. This isn't your baggage, it's not yours to carry. And it's remarkable how much that has actually changed my life in a really short amount of time. My experience of just the world now has become very different. But now I I am aware that this this was something that I learned way back that I carried through. It became a survival, basically a like a survival mechanism. And I don't, I don't have to live in survival mode anymore. Living in survival mode is exhausting. You hypervigilance and the physical and mental toll that it takes is it's it's I can't even tell you, it has been almost disastrous for me. Shockingly, shockingly disastrous that if I had continued down that road of absorbing everybody's stuff, I don't think I would have been long for this world. My body was literally shutting down. So to learn this, this recognition has been so powerful. I'm gonna feel better. My experience of the world is better, I'm a lot lighter, I'm not diving into people's stuff. Yep, I I could see, you know, people come to me. Yeah, I can see what you're saying, but this isn't mine. This isn't my bag to hold. I think there's also some level of letting people experience their own disasters, right? You and it sounds very cold. I kind of on this journey, I'm learning some of the things that I'm having to do. Me from the outside seem very cold, very cold and distant. It's not. It's probably the most compassionate thing I can do is not get involved. Compassionate for them and compassionate for myself. I'm not getting involved. I am walking out of this room and I am not participating. I am not getting entangled with whatever is going on in here that isn't mine. It's not mine to deal with. So, you know, you kind of have to get used to this idea that that it may seem cold, but in reality, it's deeply, deeply compassionate on so many levels. Um, and it's freeing. It's it's very liberating. Man, it just not having to to carry everybody else's stuff. It's it's liberating. And you have to let people experience their own journeys. And sometimes their journeys involve really disastrous, ugly circumstances. And you getting involved isn't going to change that. It's just gonna pull you into something that that isn't even yours to deal with in the first place. That has probably been uh one of the toughest lessons for me. Some of the learned behaviors of peacekeeping and sacrificing myself to try to try to keep from feeling trauma. I I don't like to be around arguments. I still don't, but now I don't try to keep the peace. You want to argue? All right, you guys go ahead and duke it out. You duke it out. I'm gonna go over here and tend to the garden or I'm gonna go sit out in the car. I am not entangling myself with whatever's going on here. I have my own stuff, I have my own issues, and I'm also learning not to involve everybody else in my own stuff. That's we we kind of are taught to lean on other people, but I'm I'm really trying to start not entangling other people in my own dramas, right? And I'm I'm really trying to eliminate those dramas altogether, but it's life. There's gonna be things that that come up, but I'm learning to be more self sufficient with that. I'm really responsible for. my own my own stuff and a lot of it involves just rethinking how I engage and we're that I it's funny because it kind of goes against everything you're taught a lot of times. No, you need to confront the issues. You need to you need to tell this person how you feel you need to do this and you should do this and you should do that. And honestly my experience has been completely different. All those you need to's and you shoulds have really gone out the window for me. What I need to do is I just need to focus inward. I need to breathe I need to let go of things and not always have to engage and I don't always have to say my piece and I can say it in my mind and breathe through it and get through it just as easily as firing off something that is only going to escalate. It's not weakness. Yeah I was always taught you know to be confrontational. If you're not confrontational you're you're weak. I'm not entangling myself anymore and my world has changed just dramatically has been it's like night and day my days are far more enjoyable. I don't look forward to going to bed every night like like just to escape to escape the waking hours. I'm actually participating lighter I'm freer there's probably plenty of you that can go back and think you know childhood where things were a little crazy a little hectic even in the most perfect families you don't enjoy the weirdness you don't enjoy the the arguing and and you learn to compensate but you're really sacrificing yourself and then how that plays out into the rest of your your and in your relationships and you lose yourself and you become small. You become small just to keep the peace you become small just to not traumatize yourself and get into things that you feel are going to devastate you emotionally. I don't know just something that that hit me strong yesterday and I wanted to share. So with that thank you for joining me here on Star Women Rising. If today's conversation stirred something in you trust it that's your fire awakening this podcast is part of the Chicology collective where women everywhere are reclaiming their voice their power and their light be sure to subscribe share this with a soul sister and explore more shows under Chicology because we rise higher when we rise together. Until next time keep reaching for the stars and rooting deep in your power