Power, boundaries, feeling like a bad person

[ocean]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone had any experience of moving from being a co-dependent empath, to being more self centred and personally empowered?

I'm in this unfamiliar place at the moment, where I'm realising I dont need to lean into my pain anymore. I've been processing a lot of deep core wounds, and suddenly I got this insight that there was more to me that my wounding, and that I could hold it without "going in to it", if you know what I mean...

I've been quite defeatist for most of my life; never really prepared to fight for anything, and always the one to back down in arguments. I thought this all made me a nice person, but now I see that I was just giving my power away.

Anyway, a feeling of empowerment has come to me. It's scares me slightly because it's so unfamiliar, but I want to lay out my boundaries with people. However, it makes me frightened, because energetically I associate standing my ground with being abandoned.

I've been holding back from doing anything, but then tonight I spoke on the phone to my best friend. I love her, but she very often uses me for extremely long phone conversations where I act as her therapist. Quite often I've told her i thought she needed to find a therapist or something becuase I needed to take the pressure off myself, but tonight I ended up saying to her that I couldnt keep having these hour long conversations with her because they are draining me. Obviously she took it badly. Now I feel like a bad person, and I'm afraid she's going to abandon me (not be my friend anymore), but on the other hand I honestly dont want to keep filling this role for her. I love her, and I want to be there for it, but it's too much.

Any suggestions for how to work through this would be really appreciated!

[FallingLeaves]

the side effects are nasty - but it is kinda like going down the rapids. hang on for dear life and hope for the best. In some ways it is also like being a child again, because, the only thing you are sure of is that you don't know what will come of your decision.

I don't like the idea of being 'empowered' though. Mostly because I've learned not to like what happens next, whenever I try cajoling life to be whatever I want it to be. What works better for me is, just not hanging on so hard to things I don't want anyway and then living through *those* side effects.

But that is just me...

[Lynn]

Hello


Has anyone had any experience of moving from being a co-dependent empath, to being more self centred and personally empowered?


I was in a relationship from the age of 18 til I found the power some 33 years later to say DONE and I got my freedom. LOL single for 5 months LOL but I knew the man I married since 2007 just never thought I would marry him.

I was I felt in that negative place I had with a relationship until one of us died and then set free. I was the one with the abilities in that relationship, as I grew and he stayed that 19 year old I met in 1981. He fed off me and my emotions, and played them like one does a drum. I was spiritual and he called it all hocus pokus unless it served him to have me make money from it doing readings or workshops ext.

We are INDIVIDUALS first and foremost and we should seek to find that compliment not completion in someone that we walk our life path with. Yet at times we are raised so much differently than that, we are raised to find our Soul Mate, or life partner, to in some case like me give your virginity to "one" partner for life. That too was not true to form for me. I have a second that is kind and gentle with me not negative and abusive.

While whom I am with is no where near as advanced as me he is my Twin Flame soul match. We are in perfect harmony with the other. Yet we are very much individuals. To break the ties to someone you have to be willing to cut the ties. Willing to make it a clean and clear ending so that your not used as an energy drain.

Lynn

Lynn

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by ocean

Hi everyone,

Has anyone had any experience of moving from being a co-dependent empath, to being more self centred and personally empowered?

Yes I have. One of the most difficult life experience has been to untangle myself from being caught up in "others".

I'm in this unfamiliar place at the moment, where I'm realising I dont need to lean into my pain anymore. I've been processing a lot of deep core wounds, and suddenly I got this insight that there was more to me that my wounding, and that I could hold it without "going in to it", if you know what I mean...

Yes at some point you recognise the turnaround point where you internal balance shifts to show you, "this is not you" anymore and its time to become aware of your true self and potential beyond entanglement in your own pain and the pain of others who reflect the original foundation of you being laid in you.

I've been quite defeatist for most of my life; never really prepared to fight for anything, and always the one to back down in arguments. I thought this all made me a nice person, but now I see that I was just giving my power away.

I had to learn all sides of myself to understand the whole "taking back my power" to feel deeper a real sense of empowerment. Nice is a term many highly sensitive empaths when they understand what is behind this, come to the realization, it contains conditioned niceness, but the realization of modelling support, is the authentic true self without conditioned entanglements deciding what that means/ The true self is just being itself and you without the old patterns are just being you as you feel and want to be. Not how you Think you need to be in your old pain body leading you. You feel true to you, no one else. If your nice, your nice for real, nothing attached as in "need" to be. You just are displaying and modelling what the essence more true to you can be and is willing to be.

Anyway, a feeling of empowerment has come to me. It's scares me slightly because it's so unfamiliar, but I want to lay out my boundaries with people. However, it makes me frightened, because energetically I associate standing my ground with being abandoned.

Yes the associations will arise to show you where you fear to step into your own power/empowerment. This I liken to the Rise and fall of you once upon at time. Now your here and rising again understanding what you felt originally when you did build associations to feelings that were difficult for you or suppressed or skewed in some way.

I've been holding back from doing anything, but then tonight I spoke on the phone to my best friend. I love her, but she very often uses me for extremely long phone conversations where I act as her therapist. Quite often I've told her i thought she needed to find a therapist or something becuase I needed to take the pressure off myself, but tonight I ended up saying to her that I couldnt keep having these hour long conversations with her because they are draining me. Obviously she took it badly. Now I feel like a bad person, and I'm afraid she's going to abandon me (not be my friend anymore), but on the other hand I honestly dont want to keep filling this role for her. I love her, and I want to be there for it, but it's too much.

Two open people who want to live more authentically will work through this. I have with my best friend, but I am leading aware of what may of those shifts can bring into being deeper for connections that serve us deeper for him. I source and show him from a deeper empowered presence. He listens and gains through this. This is a shared union where you will work through the changes together, just by being open and honouring how you feel more complete. Feeling the bad person you are "not" but have created at some point, is all about feeling others reactions and hurt which leads to fear of loss/abandonment. This is a deep core fear at the root of separation. So its all about feeling how it feels to choose and have others react and feel what they feel and you feeling and letting go through this/ This is really why entanglements occur. If she is open to you to her feelings and recognises what is hers and clears this, she will come back more connected, if not you clearing this can actually be her catalyst as I often am for my friend for him. For you feeling what you feel and honouring yourself is modelling and showing her why she is using you and not listening deeper to your needs in all this. Again on some level a union of deep connection is open to listen to itself and the other more consciously of their needs, but completing what these kind of activations open in yourself to clear out and be more centred. I find if people are journeying more closely in this way you both are, it will transcend the barriers if your walk is meant to be. If not you really have to let go.

Any suggestions for how to work through this would be really appreciated!

Your in it, aware and moving through, all you need do is open to what you feel and release the core threads your aware of. I have just come through something similar to release the fears and associations that I held in making empowering choices for myself and dealing with hurt in others. It was difficult and painful to feel as an empath but a huge catalyst to understand deeper, "I am not responsible for others in their feelings" even as they may see me as the source of their reactions. Learning to not defend yourself, but go deeper and let go deeper can give rise deeper to a more empowered you that can be more compassionate for others in this way. Compassion will stay present with the other as they need, but you have to find that in you first. You have to love that part of you feeling abandoned and go deeper into compassion for you in this way.

Deep connection with another human being is about your own deep connection to self. Find it in you first and it will naturally model itself. It's all about presence and being present with yourself empowered, to be present with another to allow them to find their own.

One thing your friend may find support in is to share that her feelings are valid but they don't need to a story as often the story runs much deeper than you and her. If she is open to hear this it may show her, to just be with her feelings and release the reactions. Depending on her age and maturity to do so of course.

[H:O:R:A:C:E]

for you to consider yourself as a "bad person", i figure you'd need to have a
standard to compare yourself to. do you? is there some minimum requirement
that must be met in order to qualify as good?
since you seem most interested in your friendship with this thread, it may be
a good place to start is to be a friend to yourself. i figure that you're wise to
recognize that you have limits that ought not be exceeded if you intend to
remain healthy (too much sun/food/etc may actually cause harm). if that
friend is unwilling to respect your boundaries, you're probably far better off
to allow that relationship to dwindle. i suggest that you follow the guidance
of your heart, and reach out to maintain that friendship as able, with the
understanding that you have needs of your own as well.

[OEN34]

I resonate with what you're saying here.

I'd consider myself empathetic towards others; sense energy as soon as I walk into a room, almost feels others energy as if it's my own, but certainly the past couple of months I've become more self centered and empowered, as you say.

It's very easy for the ego to question ourselves by acting more self centered, but when you go within you recognise you're coming from an authentic place and putting your own needs first. It feels liberating.

Sometimes we need a break from healing and just monitor it, as you say. See it's there but watch it. The thing is, it can't be ignored for too long as whatever emotion is trapped will act like a pressure cooker and burst as some point.

I completely get you with acting the therapist with your friend. I enjoy offering a hand and listening to some close friends, yet there were a couple of others who purposefully used to lean on me to spill their stuff - which is fine - yet did absolutely nothing to remedy their situation? They were basically playing the victim, and like you, I was honest with them after so long and told them as such, in a polite way.

They will be defensive as their ego doesn't like hearing something that 'offends' it. But again, coming from this self-empowering and assertive place now you can separate yourself from knowing where they are coming from and that it is not your issue how they are handling it, but theirs.

You're coming from your soul and being authentic looking after your needs, so stick with it. I am assertive and quite 'black and white', but I do say things some people don't necessarily like or agree with in a polite way.

I've learnt that to have an opinion is absolutely fine, and how others take that is their reaction and issue which I won't absorb anymore. Claiming we're 'right' and they're 'wrong' is complete ego, so there's a clear difference here.

People just aren't used to others being honest with them, it's as clear as that IMO. People are so conditioned and used to others naturally acting with others that it's taken as gospel this is who they are. When you're awake and become self-aware and see what is happening, you react differently and others don't appreciate it.

You're coming from soul, keep doing what you're doing.

As long as you are polite with your friend, you have done nothing wrong. Her reaction is down to her, don't absorb it.

I had the exact same conversation with a friend a few months ago. Messaging me about the same thing over and over again, yet I'd offered advice and support time and again, but it was each time I heard from this person, it would be rinse and repeat and it became too much.

Most people accept it and humour the other, will tell them the same thing repeatedly for years probably, but when you're awake there's something great about being aware of what is happening here and you aren't willing to absorb this energy any longer. I told this friend very politely that I am offering no new advice or support just repeating what I have said for months now and the things we have talked about, or the suggestions we came up with to resolve the issue, haven't been actioned on their part so I am stuck as to what to do.

You can't be everyone's therapist and sounding off board.