Why Being an Empath is Negatively Affecting Your Healing

By Jenny Peterson

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Today I’ll be discussing the subconscious patterns to the term “empath”.

Where this pattern comes from, how it negatively affects your health, life and healing, and the 6 ways you can overcome this “glorified super power” so you can get your true super power back.

WHAT IS AN EMPATH

Let’s first start with what is an empath according to what we have been told?

Those that call themselves an empath will tell you that they can instantly pick up on the thoughts and feelings of others, and they are aware of the energy in all environments. They feel everything and are highly sensitive.

But as someone who recognizes that how we respond to life/situations is based on programmed survival patterns, I see being an empath as a learned skill by someone who has learned how to be hypervigilant of their environment for the sake of their survival. I like to call it an empath survival pattern, which is a pattern within the subconscious mind that was created based on our childhood experiences.

I like to call it this because I don’t like labels that give us an identity. Especially an identity that says, “be careful, I’m sensitive.” Saying “I’m an empath” vs knowing that you have a subconscious empath pattern, tells us that its just an old survival pattern, and you can change it.

The difference in this language, as you can see, makes a big difference in your ability and/or desire to let go of this survival pattern, if you want to. I’m going to dive into all this in a bit, but let's first look to see if you have signs of this empath survival pattern.

SIGNS OF EMPATH SURVIVAL PATTERN

How do you recognize that you have an empath survival pattern? For some, you may already know or have been told that you do. For those of you that are on the fence or don’t know, here is a list of some signs that you have an empath survival pattern. Get your pen and paper out to see how many you relate to:

• You might label yourself as “highly sensitive.” Meaning you are affected by the emotional states of those around you.

• You may have been told that you are too sensitive or too emotional.

• You may feel drained when you spend time around certain people.

• When a friend of yours is feeling particularly happy or distressed, you find yourself feeling these same emotions.

• Your feelings are easily hurt.

• You have a desire to make others happy or fix them.

• You feel guilty sometimes when you need time to yourself.

• Always trying to fix situations even if it’s not your problem to fix

• Feeling rejected (and filled with anxiety) when someone leaves or threatens to leave

• Sensitive to facial changes and feeling immediately fearful at what might be coming

• Attracted to people who need saving, fixing or help

• You may be in professions where you want to help people but feel like your mental and physical health often declines

• You help people, and eventually, they leave or walk away, leaving you feeling used

• Have a tendency to feel challenged in setting boundaries, identifying and expressing your needs.

• You look to others for validation

• Often take pride in self-sacrifice, service, caretaking, and being a healer.

If you relate to more than 3 of these, you most likely have an empath survival pattern. Recognizing that you have this pattern is an important first step to your healing.

Now before I dive into all the goodies, I want to be clear on a couple things. There is a difference between being empathetic, an empath and being intuitive. Let's clear that all up before moving forward.

EMPATH VS EMPATHY VS INTUITION

Being empathetic and labeling yourself as an empath are two different things.

We are a society that doesn’t understand what empathy actually is. Many people confuse empathy with caretaking, enabling, and rescuing behaviors. That’s not empathy, that’s codependency.

Being empathic is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. You are not taking on anything here. It's just a level of understanding. When another person is having an emotional experience, empathy allows us to hold space. We can be fully present and listen.

Empathy means that when you see another person suffering, such as after they've lost a loved one, you are able to instantly empathize with what they are going through. Being an empath in this situation would be choosing to feel this person's grief within your own body and take it on.

An empath takes empathy a step further by taking on the thoughts and feelings of others. In my own words, they take on other peoples bags of shit and become victims to it. No matter how stinky that persons shit is, they take it. Co-dependency is often a pattern connected to those with an empath survival pattern as well, which we will get to in a bit.

Intuition is turning inward for answers. Empaths often think they are intuitive which maybe true for some, but note that they are very different. One is going within with certainty, the other is going into other peoples space because of fear. With intuition there is boundaries, with being an empath there are no boundaries.

So where does this empath survival pattern come from?

ROOT TO EMPATH SURVIVAL PATTERNS

Imagine you grew up with a mom that was an emotional rollercoaster. One minute she was happy and the next minute she would turn around and bite your head off. Your environment is unpredictable. You are constantly walking on egg shells around mom. In order to protect yourself, stay alive, you need to be on alert, on your toes because you have no idea what is coming. This creates hypervigilance.

Hypervigilance is a symptom that is basically anxiety. It is a state of feeling on guard and worried about a situation or perceived threatening situation. As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, anxiety is about fear of what is ahead and feeling powerless to do anything about it. When you are walking on egg shells, trying to stay ahead of moms emotional outbursts, that hypervigilance is no different than staying on alert in the woods just in case a bear jumps out.

As a child all we want is to feel safe. If safety isn’t felt, our mind and body will create protective patterns to ensure that safety. Even if those protective patterns are not for the best of us in the long run.

If you have an empath survival pattern, It’s likely that as a child, the adults in your life could not communicate with you in a healthy way. They may have been passive-aggressive and made you guess, wondering what you did wrong (if anything). Perhaps there was silent treatment, and you felt like you had to tiptoe around certain people in fear that they would rage or punish you in some way. This may have been a look of disapproval without letting you know what was bothering them. They may have hinted things to you or made passing comments about you that caused you to feel like you had to guess whether you had done something wrong or not.

You may have been scolded and told things that made you feel as if you are ungrateful and undeserving. You often wondered why assumptions were made about you, as though you are selfish, even though you didn’t feel you were.

You had to guess the problem, and you felt that it was always a guessing game. You would worry, even subconsciously, who will you get today? Which version of them will show up?

When there were happy times, it hardly lasted. Anything would set them off. If anything went wrong or wasn’t perfect, the mood would quickly change from joy to bitterness, rage or violence. And you were the scapegoat for their anger.

So, your subconscious became a detective and a good one at that.

It started to watch for slight changes, like a mood change or facial expression, and it memorized those expressions and associated them with certain behaviors. For example, a frown without communication could have meant that you would be scrutinized or told off without warning later on.

Your brain started to connect the dots and alarm you to shifts in energy, tone or anything that would lead to being published or ridiculed.

Your brain was on alert all the time. At the start, maybe not so much as you had hope for better days ahead. Maybe, just maybe, if you were good enough, they would be happy with you — and they wouldn’t react or act cold toward you.

But over time, you started to realize this is how it is. So your subconscious would pick up the signs that something is coming — and you would try to do more, be more, act extra happy or behave perfectly. You hoped you could change things before anything could happen.

What a losing battle for a young child — and how ridiculously stressful this would be.

Then as you enter adulthood this survival pattern will now show up in other relationships. You filter all your experiences through this ultra sensitive lense. You're an adult now, but feel the same way you did as a child. The way you learned to read your mom is now how you read everyone. Again, because it's what your subconscious knows.

You find yourself in relationships, friendships and situations with people that mirror your childhood. Things seem good at first, but after a short while, the moods begin, the silent treatment creeps in, rage hits — and you find yourself on a loop.

As you try to fix things and make them go back to the start again when things were good, you start to lose yourself, your energy and your grounding. You feel anxious again, nervous, worried. And you stay in situations because part of you thinks you need to.

If you could only do more, be more, and act extra happy or perfect, maybe you could change things, right?

When you have learned to take on other people’s emotions and dismiss your own to help another, it was an unfair burden placed on you by adults. This reflects their emotional state — an inability to manage their own emotions and mental health and unable to communicate in a wholesome, loving way.

But as a child, you didn’t know you had the right to your boundaries. You were at the mercy of people supposed to care for you and lead you. It wasn’t your job to carry them — and to try to figure out how to please them so that they wouldn’t hurt you, get angry with you or punish you — especially when you did nothing wrong.

When children develop, they learn that they must meet specific standards to be loved and to feel worthy due to the standards imposed on them by the adults. They become what they think others want them to be and if those expectations are distorted, abusive or unhealthy, this can lead to feeling disconnected from our true selves.

And while we don’t want to excuse the bad behavior of our caretakers, it is helpful to know possible reasons why they may have been like this. If the adults in your life had unhealed trauma, they were less likely to be able to detect your emotional states of distress, while also making you responsible for their inability to manage their own emotions.

It's most likely a survival pattern that they learned as well. They most likely were completely unaware of it. These are traumas that are passed on from generation to generation until someone in the family stops them.

Sometimes when I share that our childhood experiences shape the way we behave as adults, people say this is giving empathy towards people who abuse.

Empathy is simply understanding “why.” It’s allowing yourself to see a perspective outside of your own BUT empathy has clear boundaries. Empathy speaks the truth that other people’s wounds are not ours to carry, they’re simply feedback into how they feel about themselves.

Often it's us with chronic illness that are the ones to uncover these unhealthy survival patterns because our symptoms force us to do so. Which is why I believe this work is not only here to help you grow and heal but also to shift the trauma patterns within your family and the world.

CO-DEPENDENCY

What’s really at the core of an empath survival pattern is co-dependency and lack of boundaries.

We become dependent on others around us to feel a certain way, to feel loved and accepted. We neglect ourselves so we can survive.

We are looking outside of ourselves to distract from the emotions that we can’t sit with.

Codependency is chronic self neglect. It begins in childhood when families have no boundaries, when parents display emotional immaturity and need their children to validate them, and when we witness codependent dynamics between family members.

Codependency is different from empathy because there is a lack of authentic self.

Because of our past experiences, many of us do not develop a stable sense of what makes us us. To fit into our earliest relationships, we developed a habit of looking externally to find approval, validation, and our sense of worthiness.

Codependency is a learned behavior that begins in childhood, when there's a lack of boundaries within our family dynamic. We learn as children that in order to receive love, we have to be hypervigilant to the emotional state of others around us.

Let's say we had a critical, perfectionist mother. In order to receive her love, we had to appear a certain way and keep things perfectly clean. Subconsciously, the message is "I am not worthy to receive love unless I am perfect." Our focus is placed outside of ourselves to get our mother's approval because as children, love means survival.

While love and external approval no longer means survival, for many of us, it still feels that way. This is because our earliest relationships create our attachment styles. If we have not healed from those attachments, we will carry the same behaviors into our adult relationships.

Codependency can manifest in many ways. You might be constantly analyzing your partner's behavior; even simple things like not responding to a text or needing a night to themselves may cause panic. You might find yourself being highly indecisive; even simple decisions seem overwhelming, and you find yourself calling your mom daily to help you make them. Or maybe you want to start something new but feel paralyzed with fear at just the thought of putting yourself out there and what others will think. Each of these is a sign that we're outsourcing our internal state to those around us, a core component of codependency.

Empathy is different from codependency in that we have a solid sense of self. With empathy, we understand that people's emotional state and behavior is not something to take personally, change, or fix. How people respond to us is not an indication of who we are. Our sense of self is not defined by those around us, which allows us to follow our unique journey even if that means being misunderstood.

But with codependency, we lack the ability to regulate our emotions: When someone comes to us needing support, we cannot hold space. Instead, we offer solutions and instantly go into "fixer" mode because we cannot tolerate the emotional discomfort we are experiencing.

BOUNDARIES

A lack of boundaries is a major piece to co-dependency and having an empath survival pattern.

What are boundaries? Boundaries are like a fence that you set up between you and your neighbor. They establish what is yours and what is not yours. Emotional boundaries define one's emotional space. Someone physically touching you when you don’t want to be touched is invading your space, overstepping your boundaries.

Because of the lack of emotional maturity from our care-givers, we were not taught boundaries. In fact, they most likely didn’t even know what healthy boundaries were because they were never modeled to them. When someone is needing another person to validate them or feel a certain way, that is going into someone else's space. Your parents stepped into your space and you didn’t have the tools or maturity to know any different. All you knew was that you wanted their love and if that meant that you had to stop making yourself of importance, you were willing to do that.

There is a lack of boundaries with an empath survival pattern because you go into someone else's space. You take on their poo and make it your poo. There are no boundaries between you and the other person because your brain needs to detect how they are feeling in order to make yourself feel safe.

You were modeled a lack of boundaries therefore you also don’t know what healthy boundaries look like.

THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF BEING AN EMPATH

We teach a lot about boundaries in MBR. The reason for that is because almost everyone that comes to us would call themselves an empath. This survival pattern, as I mentioned, takes us away from being our authentic self and when we do that, our body starts to tell us through symptoms.

There are negative health effects to having an empath survival pattern.

First and the most obvious is that when our body and mind are constantly “on” it's extremely stressful. It wasn’t designed to be on high alert all the time. This leads to symptoms of anxiety.

When you have an empath survival pattern, you have many other subconscious patterns connected to it that if they are never addressed, can lead to particular symptoms.

For example:

Empaths are often afraid to speak up. This may show up as issues with the jaw.

Setting boundaries with others is also an area of weakness and this may show up in the bladder, stomach or even depression.

Empaths also tend to not feel good enough because they try so hard to make others happy and its often not enough. This can lead to a self devaluation conflict which shows up in the bones, lymphatic system, and blood vessels.

In addition, you often feel guilty for putting your needs first, so self care is put on the back burner, supporting the belief that you're not important. This can cause a whole host of physical and mental issues.

Having an empath survival pattern bleeds into so many areas of our life and our perceptions, which ultimately show up in our bodies. This is a very individual situation but in general these are the thinking patterns of someone who has an empath survival pattern and the symptoms that may come with it. It is all based on your perception, which is the most important thing to keep in mind.

When we continually neglect ourselves, our body will tell us. It will tell us through symptoms. Often there is guilt associated with putting healthy boundaries into place and allowing people to navigate their pain without us stepping in. In our desire to avoid rage, outbursts, and silent problems, we may weaken our boundaries and put up with poor treatment rather than valuing ourselves.

The biggest way the empath pattern is negatively affecting your health and healing, is because it keeps you a victim. When you have a victim mindset, you blame everything on everyone else, and don’t take personal responsibility. If you are feeling frustrated one day, you will have a tendency to blame someone that caused that frustration. Being a victim gives away your personal power. Without personal power, you will never be able to overcome any challenge in your life including chronic health conditions.

The main problem with the victim mindset is where we place the power. In this mindset, the power is outside of us. We give “them” the power to “make us” feel or do something. No person, place or thing can make you feel a certain way. Only you have the power to determine how you will react to the things that happen around you.

As a child that developed an empath survival pattern, your caregivers took away your power on an unconscious level. They didn’t wake up everyday and say to themselves “how can I fuck up my kid today?” They were only operating based on their own programs.

But as we become adults, we have to take back our power if we want things in our life to change.

We have to recognize that though our family and personal experiences may have shaped us, WE are in control over the way we feel about a situation and as a result, the choices that we make. Each one of us contains a unique set of experiences, filters, and perceptions. When we realize it is through those things that we evaluate the world around us, the power comes back to us.

We realize and understand that we are creators of the world around us. Though we cannot always control what people do around us or to us, we can have complete authority over the way we feel about it and what we do with it. Instead of giving others the power over how we feel, we take responsibility and realize the choice is ours.

In the past, I called myself an empath. I checked all the boxes. Being a business owner and having an empath survival pattern actually negatively affected my previous business and ultimately my health. I was the fixer, offering to help everyone no matter if they asked for it, and feeling used after trying so hard and they walked away. I didn’t speak up when someone walked in my door at 2 minutes to closing and stayed an extra hour past closing because I was in fear of hurting their feelings, yet my husband was spending nights alone eating dinner.

I was afraid to charge what I was worth because I was afraid of the comments that would come with the price, yet I could barely pay my bills.

Later when I had my chronic symptoms, I faced the reality that if I wanted to get better, I needed to start setting boundaries with others. My body told me this because of the type of symptoms I was experiencing.

Even though I was an adult, I was subconsciously acting from childhood patterns where I learned that I had to sacrifice myself, my feelings, my space, just so I could be loved.

The truth is, if you want to heal, you have to let go of the empath survival pattern. For all the reasons that I have mentioned. It's going to keep you stuck in old patterns that don’t serve you or allow you to personally grow. In addition, chronic symptoms most likely will not go away. Because chronic symptoms are there to help us grow. They are there to help us develop, love and be comfortable with our true self.

IS IT A SUPERPOWER?

I see the “empath” label being thrown around so much. Often it's talked about like it's a super power, its carried like a trophy that” I have this gift! “

But let's really think about this superpower.

With this superpower you will take the blame for other people's triggers and emotional swings. You give up your needs for the needs of others. You find yourself in unbalanced relationships. You try fixing everyone that steps into your life. You walk on egg shells around everyone. Basically, you willingly take everyone’s bags of shit. No matter how bad it smells, you take it.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a superpower I want.

To me, a superpower shouldn’t do any of these things. In fact, a superpower should do the opposite of those.

A superpower that I would rather have is confident empathy. The ability to discern what is mine and what is someone else's. The ability to set healthy boundaries and be empathic at the same time. These are the qualities of a superpower that I personally choose to have instead.

Does this mean we will lose our empathic powers if we heal? Absolutely not. In fact this isn’t about letting go of being empathetic, this is about setting healthy boundaries and having confident empathy which allows for the emotions of another, while still honoring your true self. That is the super power.

Confident empathy doesn’t fix, or control, or change. It accepts what is, even if that means loving someone from afar. It sees people as empowered, capable, and limitless. And it honors your own limits in the process.

Empathy does not betray the highest self.

Here are some examples of empath survival pattern (being an empath) vs confident empathy:

Your partner drinks too much and it affects your relationship but because you know of his/her childhood trauma, you understand why he/she does it because its the only way they know how to cope with it, so you deal with it, yet you are miserable. This is an empath survival pattern.

Confident empathy would be where you know that your partner has wounds but you also know they are capable of healing. You set clear boundaries around what you accept in your relationship and what you don’t.

Another example: Your mom is not ok with your career choice, she makes that clear to you every time she talks to you and tells you that you can do better.

Someone with an empath survival pattern would ask his/her mom what she thinks she should do instead and pursue that because if they don’t, mom will not be happy and he/she will feel rejected.

A confident empath would kindly set a boundary with mom that this is the career that he/she has chosen because they love it and make it clear that they are making choices that feels right to them. This person will understand that mom may not be happy with that answer, but is ok with knowing they are honoring themselves.

So what can you do if you want to let go of the empath survival pattern? I have 6 ways you can start letting go of this pattern starting today.

6 WAYS TO LET GO OF THE EMPATH SURVIVAL PATTERN

1- Get Rid of the Label

I suggest getting rid of the language and label of “being an empath”. Instead replace it with confident empathy that I talked about.

Catch yourself when you are tempted to use the label. In that moment you can start making changes just by realizing that your brain wants to go down that path and you consciously stop it. You will notice a difference when you start making this shift. You will feel a shift in your posture.

When you’re feeling like a victim your body hunches over, you don’t stand tall. You feel weak. When you shift to confident empathy, you will stand taller and feel the inner power that has always been there, re-awaken.

2- Pause

Learning to rewire old patterns, there is one very powerful “tool” you can use, that many people overlook. It's the power of a pause.

When you notice those old patterns of co-dependency showing up, your need to make someone happy or being hypervigilant around someone, take a deep breath and pause before you respond.

That small pause will have a big impact on you because you will notice what is coming up in your body and also in your mind in that moment. Then you can talk to yourself and tell yourself that it's ok. You may say to yourself, I got this, I am safe to speak up and speak my truth, how others perceive my truth is all about them, not me. Reassuring the little you that it's ok is key here. Even just giving yourself a smile can do wonders to start breaking this old pattern.

This small action of pausing will eventually break up and weaken those old survival patterns and the new ones that you rewire will have more power.

3- Make the Connections to the Past

Knowing that this empath survival pattern started when you were a child, means you have to go back to the past to find the proof.

Write down memories or situations that you experienced that you can see where this empath pattern started. It's easiest to do this individually with each parent or caretaker. Then it's about shifting your perception about these situations knowing that they did the best they could with what they knew. Its also helpful to know the history of your family as well. What was your parents' childhood like, where did they learn this from? Understanding that you also did the best you could with all that you new is also important. There is no sense in being hard on yourself or anyone else, everyone was doing the best they could.

Keep in mind, boundaries are really a new thing for many of our parents and grandparents. They were taught and passed onto their kids that parents are the ones that have a voice and children don’t. Many children's needs were neglected back then because they simply didn’t know any different.

4- Start Setting Boundaries.

Learn to stick up for yourself. Don’t be a doormat. If someone isn’t treating you well, say in a firm, neutral tone, “Let’s discuss this when you’re calmer or … I’d appreciate it if you stop.” Also remember that “No” is a complete sentence, you don’t have to explain anything to anyone to justify why you are saying no.

Make a list of areas in your life that you need to set boundaries. Where do you feel drained? Where are you saying yes to when you really want to say no?

Eliminate people that are vampires in your life. Understanding someone’s background doesn’t mean it's our role to parent them. Or fix them. Healing is always a personal responsibility. We can understand why someone is the way they are and have boundaries. Or not allow that person in our lives at all.

If someone comes to you to dump all their problems, set boundaries with them. It's ok to say, I’m willing to listen this time, but I will only listen once. After that, I will gladly help you make an action plan to help you move through this. You are still present, but you can be a great listener and a loyal friend without taking on someone’s problems.

Spend some time journaling about your relationships. Which are interdependent? Which are too dependent? List a few constructive steps you can take to make all relationships more balanced—for example, checking up on someone less often, setting a clear boundary, or letting others make and learn from their own mistakes. Then, one by one, begin to reshape your relationships and appreciate your interdependent ones.

Learning how to set boundaries will not feel comfortable at first. Letting go of this old pattern doesn’t happen overnight. You have been wired to respond this way for many years, it's going to take small, daily, consistent action to shift it.

This is why I suggest you start with setting boundaries with yourself first. Then no one else is involved but you. Where do you use this label of being an empath the most? Set a boundary with not allowing yourself to use it. Where in your life are you doing things to please others because it makes them feel comfortable and safe but it's not what you want? When you're chronically ill, there are a lot of people that tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing to heal, a lot of them family and friends. That is one place I highly suggest that you set a boundary. Its your body, your choice, your journey. Most don’t understand what chronic illness is either. You don’t need to call these people and tell them that you are doing this or that, just do it!

Set boundaries with yourself of what outside influences you allow to control decisions about your health. Your brain is going to want to protect you and keep you safe, so often times the fear of what others think will be at the core of why you don’t set boundaries. This is again where you will need to pause, recognize that it's an old pattern and remind yourself that you are honoring you and the way people respond to that is really none of your business.

5- Set Your Intention

Intention is everything. When you set an intention, you are telling your brain, this is our plan. It will then start to flag you around certain situations, reminding you of your intention. I love adding visualization with intention because its even more powerful for the brain to have the visual. Then adding how this visualization would feel, wires the brain as if it's already happening. When we do this, we will start doing whatever we want because the brain thinks it's something we have already done and it won’t cause so much stress and fear around it.

So I suggest that you write out what it would look like to set healthy boundaries in the areas that you have identified that need them. Maybe its with your mom. You know what it looks and feels like to not have boundaries with her, so now you need to create a picture of what it would look like.

So for example, if on the phone mom typically says things that overstep your boundaries, maybe it always ends up in an argument or you are getting defensive. For your visualization you could create an imaginary phone call where mom says something, and you just answer no. She may come back with some more things to say, but you continually see yourself say no and tell her that there is no need for me to explain why I said no. Make up a scene that typically plays out with your mom and visualize yourself setting boundaries the way that you want to. Then make sure that you include feeling the feelings that taking this action would make you feel. Would it make you feel powerful, confident, independent, free, etc. Tying in the feelings anchors the visualization to the brain.

After you're done visualizing or before, it doesn’t matter, set your intention and say it out loud.

Something like: I will identify my early traumas. I will notice how my reactions to them may be repeating in my relationships today. I am capable of healing from these wounds. It's safe to set boundaries, it's safe for me to value me.

6. Start to Feel Your Own Feelings

When you have an empath survival pattern, you have learned to put your feelings on the back burner. You need to start feeling those feelings again.

I suggest to start journaling. Get them on paper. At the end of each day, write down how you are feeling. Allow yourself to feel. There are no such things as bad feelings.

But I also don’t feel that it's healthy to sit in emotions that don’t make you feel good for long periods of time. Those emotions are all connected to perceptions and you can always change perceptions which will in turn shift those feelings.

Remember that you have the power to create whatever feelings you want to feel, so don’t let this practice go all negative nancy on you, because that won’t be helpful either.

The goal here is to give yourself permission to feel.

CONCLUSION

The great thing about survival patterns is that we can unlearn them. The power is in our hands.

The way to begin to be more accountable for our own trauma and history is to identify where we often take the route of side-stepping and viewing ourselves as wounded. When we do this fancy side-step, we tend to instead wrap up whatever reactions or decisions we make, in a self-promoting, idealized way.

Then, once we look at how we manage to avoid accountability, we can be honest with ourselves about what common dynamic we co-create with people, what we feel, and what past trauma it may be connected to (e.g. why we do it).

We can do meditation, positive thinking, affirmations, etc. for years and years, but without addressing the core of why we end up in these experiences in the first place (which is something originating from within us), we won’t ultimately heal and transform.

When one truly starts being accountable and honest with the self, this is when we build self-awareness, boundaries, greater connection with the authentic self, greater resilience, courage, compassion, empathy, an ability to be vulnerable, greater authenticity, confidence, and thus greater happiness. We won’t need to continue to live life in a way where we are constantly avoiding what is happening within us, our relationships, and the world, on the deepest levels. We won’t spend an inordinate amount of time in conflict, as there won’t be much ego to defend. We will set boundaries. We know our needs and express them. We also won’t need to avoid being present with ourselves, because our pain will have been seen, integrated, and healed. Life becomes simpler and more peaceful, and our feelings and relationships do too. This will then follow a domino effect within our body, where symptoms then go away.

A true, unshakable happiness springs from this deep inner work. The healing journey is about tuning into our soul and inner truth because we have rejected that part of ourselves for so long.

Let's take away the glorifying of being an empath and instead chose to stand in confident empathy, the true superpower.

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You are unique, your symptoms are connected to very specific patterns within your subconscious.

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You can also Download my free healing guide, “Why Can’t I Heal” where you will learn the 5 reasons that you haven't healed despite everything you've tried. These are the missing pieces to your healing and the key to resolving your symptoms for good.

Jenny Peterson is the founder and CEO of Mind Body Rewire (MBR). She teaches those that are overwhelmed with trying to heal chronic symptoms how to simplify their healing by focusing on just one place, the subconscious mind. Learn more about MBR here.