People who are naturally attentive and empathetic sometimes perceive the feelings of others as their own. Empathy is certainly a positive trait, but it can be truly exhausting for someone who is generously endowed with it. Psychologists even identify a separate condition called "empathic fatigue", which affects not only your mental, but even physical health.
Instructions
Step 1
Learn to set healthy boundaries in relationships. Your compassionate tendencies sometimes lead you to do things that are uncomfortable for you, emotionally or physically. Remind yourself that your healthy emotions and desires should take priority over those that other people project onto you.
Step 2
Share your emotions and those of others. If you are prone to empathy, you sometimes find it difficult to determine who owns the feelings you are experiencing - you or the interlocutor? Learn to define your attitude to events, and not only perceive what your counterpart is broadcasting.
Step 3
Remember that other people's emotions are not yours, you do not have to experience them. If you meet someone who is deeply and sincerely grieving, you can empathize with that person, but you shouldn't continue to be sad after you show your support and move on. If someone needs help, your negative emotions will only prevent you from providing it, will not allow you to concentrate and disturb the clarity of perception and the willingness to set goals and achieve their implementation.
Step 4
Remember that everything you learn about is just history. Be critical. There are things in the world that really deserve sympathy, but no one has any doubts about such incidents - they are sad and tragic. The rest may be just someone's desire to win you over to their side, to get what psychologists call "stroking" or a distorted perception of what is happening. Do not take the emotional coloring of the story, listen to the facts first.
Step 5
Take care of yourself. If you are upset by events that do not concern you in any way, and which you cannot influence in any way, close them access to your life. For example, stop watching channels that broadcast extremely bad news in tragic tones, or buy tickets to theater performances or movie premieres if you know in advance that they contain scenes that can throw you off balance for a long time. Tell yourself that such works of art are for those in whom compassion needs to be awakened, and yours is already awake.
Step 6
Look for positive emotions. Communicate more often with positive people, rather than those who spend hours talking in detail about their suffering. The latter, often, themselves do not want to give up the troubles that make their life, from their point of view, significant and serious.
Step 7
Create an "emergency" folder on your computer filled with files - be that video or audio clips, pictures, letters or poems that make you smile. "Accept" positive emotions as soon as you feel that something has upset you too much.
