Taking on the Emotions of Others

In that moment, she was taking on the emotions of the bride and the bridegroom, right? She was like, oh no, they’ve run out of wine. This is gonna be very upsetting for them. And so it is a beautiful and wonderful thing that women have this gift, this superpower where we have just a natural sense of the emotions of others.

And then some people have that to an even stronger degree, we would say that they’re very empathetic. I’ve even heard them called empaths, right? Some people are just even more highly attuned to the feelings of others, and regardless of whether you’re a highly sensitive person or not, it’s pretty easy to not only sense the feelings of others, but to take them on. 

Where you see someone who is feeling strong emotion, and then you yourself begin to feel that strong emotion. So it’s not just that you are seeing someone who feels sad, right? Obviously we could see a person over there and see them and they look sad, and you can just think, oh, that person is sad, and have just like a moment of like, oh, I’ll just pray for them. Right. 

But there’s another version where you see some sadness and then that sadness starts to take over your body. And you feel this heaviness and this despair and, maybe you feel the sadness  of all of it. 

Like let’s say you’re seeing a single mother and she’s struggling, and not only do you take on the emotions of this single mother, but you’re just sad about the culture and what creates single moms in the first place and how many of them there are, and how are we gonna help them All right? And, you can feel that, this starts to be really, really big in your own body. 

And then, there’s the people who live in your home, right? There’s taking on the emotions of your children. So if you’ve got, you know, a really passionate kiddo, you know that those kiddos are very passionately happy, but they also get very passionately sad or angry, and it’s very easy to take on those emotions when you watch them do that. 

Some of you take on the emotions of your husband if he’s feeling very angry or very blue or very worried. Then you see that and you mirror that in your own body. And this is scientifically something that we know. We know that humans have this ability to mirror someone else’s emotions, but I think women are more gifted in this in general.

In general. Women naturally have this, and I think take it on more deeply. And here’s the thing, it’s exhausting. It’s a superpower that’s exhausting. And so we learned this in coaching. One, we first learned not to take on somebody else’s emotions, right? There’s almost like a barrier between the client and the coach where you can watch them and even have empathy for them.

But we don’t if we have a cup, right? We don’t let their emotions come in and fill up our cups, right? We remain neutral and calm on the other side so we can coach them, and it’s been so helpful to learn that because I’ve taken that into my own personal life with my friends or my mom or my kids, and I’m now able to watch people have very strong emotions and talk to them about it, and have genuine empathy for them without letting them seep into my body or carrying them away. 

You know, let’s say that you have a friend and she’s getting a divorce, which in the Catholic world is very upsetting and very scary and it’s confusing and we feel this sense of injustice and anger and all of it, right? It’s just like, it’s a very emotional thing, when someone in a traditional Catholic community ends up getting a divorce.

And you could sit with your friend and hold her heart. And pray with her, but then you could leave that interaction and then just carry this, like these deep, heavy emotions with you for the whole rest of the day. 

And you could be chewing on them and stewing on them and you can’t go to sleep and it’s like draining your battery just to be thinking about this other person who’s going through something emotional. 

So what I think is very important is that you recognize that we have this gift, we have this superpower, and you learn how to close the window, right? How to close the window where you’re like, hey, I’m able to see this person and love them. This is a weak analogy, but it’s really the only one that I could think of, but that their feelings then can’t come in and live in your body. 

And we certainly don’t carry them around after the interaction. Like really just think about that. It’s amazing that Mary was able to see, you know, this couple is out of wine, and she felt empathy for them and she knew that was, would be a very upsetting experience. And then she gave it to the Lord and if he had said no, it would not have bothered her for three days. 

She would’ve just been like, thy will be done. That’s what the Lord had decided. She would’ve accepted it perfectly and she would’ve moved on, which does not mean that she has any less love for this couple. I think sometimes we think carrying the emotions or chewing on it means we love them extra hard, but I wanna encourage you to instead, take that activity or that intent  and move it to prayer and surrender, and trust  and peace. 

Pray for them, give it to the Lord and then move on with your day. He does not ask us to emotionally carry all the things that I think we’re walking around emotionally carrying and then it’s robbing ourselves and our families of a healthy, vibrant version of you. 

And so I want you to ask yourself, you know, is my thinking about this right now helping anything? So let’s say you have a parent  and it’s clear that they’re in the early stages of dementia. That’s a very upsetting thing to happen to a family. And then the family dynamics of the person suffering from dementia, their spouse and all the adult children around you just creates all this stuff, all this noise, all these emotions. 

But there is a certain amount of problem solving that needs to happen. So I’m not saying that we see, you know, one of our parents with early dementia and go, well, I’m just gonna give it to the Lord. Sterling said not to think about it, right? It’s not that. It’s important that we problem solve, but sitting and chewing on made up scenarios in the future or replaying conversations, that is not helpful.

What would be helpful would be finding a podcast about dementia or a book, or there’s probably some sort of Facebook group for that and saying, all right, what are the things that are gonna come up? How do I learn about that? But that will feel purposeful. It won’t feel like riding a stationary bike where we’re going and we’re going and we’re going and it’s, it’s so exhausting, but we’re not going anywhere. 

So I want you to think about the things in your life that feel big and emotionally draining. And  I want you to ask yourself, has God asked me to take this on? That’s the first question. Has God asked me to take this on at all? And then has he asked me to take it on in this way? Because he may be calling you to have a heart for a certain ministry. 

You know, I do think that God places certain ministries, and nonprofits on our hearts, and we then when we wanna support them, but not from this place of deep despair or, I don’t know, collective sadness. 

I do not think the Lord is calling us to that. And it’s so easy to do that, by the way. I mean, it’s so easy to scroll on social media and, and see a group of posts about a particular topic. Whatever it is, there’s always something. And then to just sit and feel so upset about that. 

And let’s just take for example, last year, those fires in Hawaii, right? There were those fires and they burned all these homes. And it was so shocking and so sad, and Hawaii’s such a beautiful and kind of sacred place and, and just to watch this happen was so upsetting. And then there was, there was all this news coverage about it and some conspiracy theories about it.

And then also just these people losing all of their homes and the government giving them $750. And to be honest, I don’t know where that shook out. I just remember the time when that was the deal that they would get $750 and a lot of people were so upset, like, that’s just not enough. And that’s not helping them.

And here’s the difference, right? That is an objectively upsetting event, right? We want to be upset about that. We want to be sad for the people who lost their homes. We want to feel empathy for them, okay? But if we then take it and think about it all the time and chew on it,  and, it’s zapping our energy and stealing our peace.

Again, the first question you wanna ask is, hey, Lord, are you calling me to do something here? And then maybe you go to your parish and you say, Hey, I think we should take up a second collection and then find a Catholic church, you know, in Hawaii and send the money to them to see if they can kind of help some of the families who’ve been displaced. 

Right? Notice how clean that feels though, right? It’s purposeful. It’s very clear. We’re gonna solve this problem, we’re gonna do something. But just driving around thinking about like conspiracy theories about fires and the injustice of only $750. 

And how corrupt people are likely, you know, moving into, you know, I remember hearing things about how like, oh, they’re just, they’re trying to get them off these, off this land so they can build like beautiful million dollar properties, something like that.

Again, I have no opinion about any of that, but I just remember the coverage was so upsetting  and you could choose to just be upset about that. For a long time, or you can pray for them and say, Lord, please be with those people. Like I don’t feel called right now to go do a particular action that directly affects those people, so I’m just gonna pray for them and trust in the Lord. 

So that’s kind of an external example, but we have these, you know, personal close to us. Examples too, all the time, like a parent with dementia or a friend who’s getting divorced or you know, a kiddo who’s having a really hard time. Maybe it’s your friend, and their teenager’s really struggling.

And I really just want you to find this balance of loving that person, listening to them, supporting them, doing what you can, and then leaving it where it is. You can always continue to pray for people. Praying for people isn’t draining, right? Like when you have a morning of praying for people for 30 minutes, you don’t come away from that feeling exhausted. 

But even while you’re making dinner, if you’re just thinking about your friend and something really awful that that person’s going through and you’re just chewing on it and chewing on it, you are exhausting yourself in your mind. 

So it’s important, I think, to realize this is just a beautiful gift that women have, is that we kind of  know what emotions people are feeling and we read them so well, and we have this gift of empathy and supporting them and holding someone else’s heart. And I want you to hold their heart while you’re sitting with them. 

If I was a friend and supporting her and she was crying and having a very emotional time for 45 minutes, I would be tired after that, and that’s good and appropriate, but then I wanna leave it there. 

I wanna leave that kind of exhaustive support there, and then I can pray for her later, or in the example of Hawaii or a parent with dementia, there might be some problem solving that needs to be done, and I can do that. 

But we wanna not carry these things and let them weigh us down and, and just feel so exhausted because we are taking on the emotions of others. That is not what God intended as he gave us this gift of receptivity. 

Right? Something can be twofold and we can fill it with the wrong thing. Right, So if you think about a beautiful vase and then like pouring cement into it and then it’s heavy and it hardens and it breaks that vase and it was not designed to receive that. 

So honor that you have this gift, use it well, use it to please the Lord. Use it to hold the hearts of the souls around you. Be Mary. And you know, sometimes that means rolling up your sleeves and doing something yourself. And sometimes it means saying, Lord, please solve this problem for them. And then just trusting he’s gonna do what he thinks is best. 

But I wanna challenge all of us to not take these emotions on and carry them into our lives in an inappropriate way. That’s then contributing to just how exhausting I think modern life is, and we just don’t need to add to it. We can clean up some of this stuff. 

It is the ultimate trust to hold someone’s heart and then leave. Leave the issue there and just say, all right, Lord, now it’s yours. Let me know if you want me to do something. 

All right, my friends, somebody asked me about this, somebody emailed me and said, I just feel like I take on everyone’s emotions and I’m exhausted all the time. And I thought, oh my goodness that is an amazing topic for a podcast. If you ever want me to do a podcast episode on something, just email me [email protected].

And, you know, it may go into a bank of ideas that I pull out when the time is right. I don’t always do it right away, but I really love to answer your questions and to support you in this wild and beautiful journey of motherhood. I mean, it really is both. 

All right, my friends, I’m praying for you.Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.