Today I have different ways of listening and responding to protect myself from over exposure to other people’s pain and stress. There is a way of being empathic without losing myself. If I truly allow myself to let go as I listen, to know that someone else has their own Higher Power and it’s not me, I can turn the person I am trying to respond to over in my mind and heart. Much as I would like, I cannot be everything to everyone and I am unable to be more than one place at a time. In my codependency I felt that to help someone else I had to take on their problems and make them my own. Today I see that that does not help them or me, in fact, it creates a third sort of problem – that of entangling the mess of my feelings layered on top of and around the sides of theirs.
I can change the way I listen and assist
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
La Rouchefoucauld
(Source : Tian Dayton : Daily Affirmations for Forgiving and Moving On)
Emerging From The Dark Night 
That is wuite an accomplishment really. I find it difficult not to take on other peoples pain. You are right, it doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help me, only adds to my pain.
LikeLike
I posted this because, like you I struggle . It comes from one of my daily readers. I aspire not to take thing on, but it happens all the time. All part of being a sensitive, lovely human. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person