For years, the author believed she was an “empath,” a term she discovered about a decade ago. It offered a welcome explanation for her constant exhaustion around others, her ability to instantly read people, and her habit of always being involved in helping, listening to, or supporting others through their crises. However, she now rejects that definition and no longer identifies as an empath.
Instead of being cured or questioning whether she was ever truly an empath, she found a new understanding that freed her from what she calls an “empath-prison.” She learned she could change her reactions to other people’s emotions so that she no longer organizes her life around them.
The author initially followed common advice for empaths, which involved avoiding “toxic” people or “emotional blood suckers.” This advice felt like another cage. She found that even with these precautions, she was still completely overwhelmed by the emotions of her relatives, children, husband, and close friends. She felt stuck in a permanent reactive mode, which was disempowering.
Years later, she discovered a different word that changed her life more significantly: “appeasing.” Appeasing is a survival response, similar to fight, flight, or freeze. It activates when emotions or situations become too much to handle. She learned that from an early age, she had associated safety with anticipating and managing the feelings of those around her.
Her survival reaction was to be hypersensitive to others’ emotions and to help with them. This pattern, learned in childhood, often leads adults to feel safest when their own emotions are ignored while they attend to others’. They may derive a sense of belonging and validation from being the supporter, listener, or fixer. The author realized that her drive to be helpful was not a genuine, authentic desire, but a response driven by a need for safety, belonging, and acceptance.
Unraveling this appease response has been a challenging process. She had to learn to attend to her own emotions and build a sense of safety in her nervous system. She recognized that other people’s emotions can feel scary or even dangerous. With awareness and the right tools, she has learned to be authentic and safe in the world, surrounded by others’ emotions without being overtaken by them.
She also realized that her style of support—fixing, smoothing things over, and endlessly listening—was not the kind that helps others change. True emotional support, she argues, does not come at the emotional cost of the supporter. Her support should not risk her own energy, time, or sense of safety.
Awareness
Creating awareness was the first powerful step. She suggests noticing what it feels like to be around emotional people. What happens to the body? What emotions activate? The key is to turn attention away from others and toward oneself. A sense of urgency to help or fix is a sign that survival responses have been triggered, signaling a threat where there likely is none.
Creating a Sense of Felt Safety in the Body
One method to calm the nervous system is an orienting exercise. When feeling urgency or overwhelm, one should gently and slowly scan the room, letting the gaze drift. This includes looking above, below, and behind. If possible, looking outside at the horizon line can be very soothing for the nervous system. Doing this for a minute or two can help the body signal safety.
Creating a Pause
Her final tip is to create a pause. When people make requests, it can be hard to remember one’s own limits. The author suggests that learning to pause before responding can help break the cycle of automatic appeasing and allow for a more authentic choice. This pause creates space to check in with oneself before jumping into a helping or fixing role.
