Whose Energy Is This Anyway? Stop Taking on Board How Others Are Feeling

It was 1985; my swim team was on an exchange trip with another team in a neighbouring country. I was spending my first weekend away independently from my family. Thirteen year old me was nervous but looking forward to meeting the other family I’d be staying with: a young girl my age, with an older brother, who both swam for their local team.

When I arrived, I met Rachel and her older brother, who was driving us back to their house. I got into the back of his old light blue Ford Capri, his obvious pride and joy, and Rachel and I began to chat. As the journey began through the winding countryside of Lincolnshire, I had been unprepared for the sheer terror I was about to face.

At thirteen I didn’t want to seem uncool, neither did I want to be bad mannered, but taking the narrow winding lanes at speeds in excess of those dad normally drove at on the motorway was pretty hair raising. I was having a complete internal melt down and literally preparing myself to die…

Over the last couple of weeks I had been enjoying some of the talks at the World Tapping Summit. I often forget about tapping as a tool – especially in the moment when I’m blindsided by something that gets me spiraling on a negative track.

Anyway, after listening to a great talk by Carol Look on self sabotaging behaviours, I had started to recognise how my empathic abilities were sometimes stopping me from getting too close to others to be able to help them.

This was followed by another fantastic talk with Carol Tuttle on this very topic. Discerning whether the energy we are feeling is wholly ours, or whether it originates from other sources (like a TV programme or others around us, or even our ancestors).

She covered something very close to my heart, about what we take on board in our early childhood affecting who we become. She made the astute point that, if things aren’t peaceful, predictable and safe in our early years, our ability to read others’ moods is heightened in order to just survive within our family environment.

While this would obviously be more marked in abusive households, it happens to a certain extent in all households, since we are all human and experience a gambit of emotions after all. Carol teaches how to take this empathic gift we have developed out of preservation and protection and use it instead for something that can benefit us.

This really resonated with me, having keenly felt my mum’s angst and stress in ordinary day to day life as she was parenting. Kids learn to recognise the signs around this and want to smooth things out. Yet I can’t help someone feel good by taking on how bad they are feeling, which is precisely what ends up happening.

With my awareness raised I’ve been more alert to taking on energy that isn’t mine and using some of Carol’s techniques to release it.

For example, last weekend I was headed across some native bush in a car with four others. The road we were on climbed up over the hills and back down the other side on miles of dirt track, with many sharp bends and places where the track narrowed to a single lane.

This isn’t my favourite kind of car ride, and not just because of the motion sickness I experience. When it comes to cornering I stick with the slow-in, fast-out technique taught to amateur drivers’ world over. Approaching with caution appeals to my nature.

Many years ago, I did an Advanced Driving course at Silverstone, home to the British Grand Prix. I have noticed in the years since that it appears to be a trademark of most petrol heads to drive as if they are on the race circuit, maximizing both entry and exit speeds when taking a corner. Of course there is unlikely to be another vehicle coming towards you on a race course.

As we were headed along the road I heard my fellow passenger in the front telling our friend, who was driving, to be cautious. I knew my fellow passenger was not looking forward to taking this route due to an experience she’d had many years ago; so my empathy was on high alert.

That is when I became tenser and started to anticipate all the awful things that could happen. While our driver was far from a petrol head, he certainly cornered faster than I would. And as we progressed along the road I added my voice to that of the other passenger, and then the person next to me picked up on the vibe and added her voice and anxiety, while the other passenger just wanted to know when we would get there as she felt sick.

You can imagine the discord. I could see by the set of my friend’s jaw as he was driving that he was feeling under pressure, and it felt like he was digging his heels in by not slowing down. That triggered me further because of past incidents (like the one described above) where I’ve felt like a hostage in a vehicle, absolutely sure I was going to die at any given moment.

This brought the cacophony to a head, with him yelling at us all to leave him alone to concentrate. I imagine there are many out there in great sympathy with my friend, I mean, I get it. Even in that moment I started to get it; just how affected each person’s energy had become by the others and our own spiraling memories and thoughts.

So I just closed my eyes for the rest of the journey and focused on my breathing, imagining myself sitting inside a bunch of reflective mirrors that allowed me to return others’ energy, and leave me free to experience my own while working on becoming more centred.

Carol Tuttle mentioned how it takes men take seven times longer to process their emotions, just because of where the limbic system is situated in their brain, so it was fair to say there wasn’t a lot of engagement from our driver for the rest of that day; he was pretty wrung out. That said, we had all gotten ourselves in a better space by the ride back, which was a lot calmer.

One of my friends mentioned afterwards how sad she was we had that experience, but I don’t see it like that. There is no one person responsible for setting the tone, we are each responsible for our own energy. Our driver friend was as responsible for his energy as I was for mine; the same applies to the others in the car.

The only thing we can each do is start to recognise when we are feeling triggered by something and do what we need to in order to centre ourselves and feel calm enough to get some perspective that is more helpful. All in all, it was a fabulous learning experience for all of us.

I have had many experiences of unpleasant car rides, just like the one I recount at the outset of this article and – when I think back further – all of these reinforced the initial anxieties I took on in childhood sitting in the back of a vehicle and listening to terse phrases about slowing down, and watching out, the energy palpable in those moments.

I can see how I’ve taken on board someone else’s story and made it my own over the years. That is not to say I’d steer away from advising any driver to approach corners with caution, especially with nervous passengers in the car. Nervous passengers versus driver ego appears to be a common scenario.

This is just one example of many in each day I could probably mention. That very same day my partner was watching a documentary about a huge pop star, now dead, accusing him of some horrific deeds. I knew better than to tune my energy into something like that. I am aware of the suffering that goes on in this world, but I am not helping anyone by taking it into my energy.

As I said to my friend, the best we can do is focus on our own energy rather than trying to fix other people, no one needs to take responsibility for how others are feeling. She has a sunny nature generally, so just be the sun that continues to shine. Sure, there will be the odd cloud, but no need to invite a storm because of how others are feeling.

If you are reading this article it likely means you too are aware of taking on others energy. As Carol said, this is huge in itself. Conscious awareness of something is the first step to change. Figuring out what is mine and what is not is a process. It will take many examples to work through, tapping being one way of helping.

Practicing feeling into my own energy versus others may take some practice, but I reckon it’s worth it to just feel the relief of my own unadulterated energy – so much lighter than carrying everyone else’s.

​There are many other techniques and tools to help out there to release the trauma we feel, for that is what taking on negative energy is. Anything negative that triggers us is likely to be creating a trauma signature in our bodies and, left untreated, will eventuate in sickness. A quick Google search brought up suggestions such as bodywork, hypnotherapy, energy work (like tapping) and Biofeedback.

I’m grateful for my empathic gifts, but know that unless I can learn to observe without letting my energy tune into something heavier, it is stopping me from helping as much as I can in this world – which is the real reason I have this gift.

Empathy is the gateway to compassion. For a long time I had understood compassion to mean I needed to get down with the person so they knew I was in their corner. Instead of lifting them up from down there though, I’ve discovered it’s a whole lot more effective if I can help them to lift themselves up.

The reason for that is it’s an inside job. I can make someone feel better by lifting them up, but then what? Then a dependence is created on external things (like me) to make them feel better. When in reality, they are already equipped with that ability inside themselves.

For a long time I’ve created distance in order to help others, by offering perspective. While I will continue to do that, it’s time I created capacity for deeper healing and growth to occur.
What would it feel like for you to lose the weight of how others are feeling? What would it free up capacity for you to do? A world of lighter beings, even just a few, sounds like progress towards a more authentic and compassionate world.

​If you enjoyed this you might want to read Who is Holding You Back?, Shine the Light on the Shadows of Your Childhood or You Are the Gift Your Ancestors Gave to the World. If would like a fresh perspective on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me with an outline of your circumstances or click here for further information, I love to help. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog