Trauma and relationship support for Empaths & Highly Sensitive Souls
"Supporting you to live comfortably in your own skin, not struggle or do everything you can to escape from it"
WHEN LOVING HURTS YOUR EMPATHETIC HEART
"A THICKER SKIN WONT PROTECT MY TENDER, WARM AND BIG HEART"
When wearing your heart on your sleeve has unintentionally invited unhealthy people into your life.
Perhaps you are one of the 15-20% of people who are wired in a way that makes too much stimulation overwhelming. The constant cross-conversations, the noise of shopping centers, and the chaos of dining in noisy restaurants may leave you feeling drained rather than satisfied. You may struggle with the congestion of freeways or the hassle of public transport. Even social gatherings and parties can feel like too much to handle. You might find yourself overwhelmed by intense emotions when you witness the suffering of others—whether it’s a sick or injured animal, a person in pain, or even something you see on TV.
More importantly, your heightened empathy may cause you significant distress when it comes to friendships and even greater pain when navigating romantic relationships. Your strong empathy could keep you stuck in relationships that, at best, leave you feeling deeply alone and misunderstood, or at worst, tethered to situations where you don't know how to leave, even if they’ve become toxic. Your mind may tell you to leave, offering you every rational reason to do so, but your heart seems to have another agenda.
Perhaps you’ve reached the point where you know, deep down, that your romantic relationship is beyond repair. You’ve outgrown each other, and the excuses you once used to stay no longer hold weight. The illusion that things might improve no longer has its grip on you. Yet, despite this inner knowing, the fear of leaving paralyzes you. It’s likely that your trusting nature and heightened empathy have led you into one or more destructive relationships, and you may still be carrying the emotional scars from these experiences. Perhaps you stayed in these relationships, desperately trying to salvage them, only to return feeling like a shell of the person you once were.
For those of us with high empathy, relationships—especially romantic ones—are rarely straightforward. The journey of love is far from smooth sailing. It’s highly possible that the emotional toll of past relationships has caused your anxiety to skyrocket, affected your sleep and eating habits, and led you to indulge in "shadow comforts" (such as emotional eating) just to cope with the overwhelming pain. This could be a result of a current relationship struggle, or it could be the cumulative impact of a series of relationships that have left you emotionally depleted.
You may be trying to break free from your pattern of seeking out emotionally unavailable people or toxic relationships that leave you hurt, vulnerable, or even traumatized. You might struggle to accept that, while you have so much love to give, the person you care about is emotionally distant, blowing hot and cold, or perhaps even involved with someone else. Despite it all, you may find yourself obsessing over the absence of a returned text, making excuses to stay close to someone who treats you as an afterthought or, worse, is abusive in other ways.
You may wear your heart on your sleeve, fully open to love, yet somehow find yourself repeatedly attracting unhealed individuals—especially those with avoidant or disorganized attachment styles. You might feel puzzled as to how, despite your genuine efforts to connect and make relationships work, you end up in emotional turmoil. It’s as though your heart betrays you, caught in a cycle of blind hope, the agony of saying "goodbye," and the weight of unfulfilled promises. This mix of pain and confusion can leave you questioning your own worthiness of love, as the story you tell yourself about your value becomes tangled with each failed connection.
"How do I keep getting this love thing so wrong?
Perhaps you spend a lot of time reflecting on how your search for love only seems to lead to more pain. You may find yourself wondering, “It must be me. Why do I keep getting this so wrong?” In doing so, you might have expanded your capacity for excuse-making, making all sorts of concessions for behavior that is, at its core, unacceptable. As a result, you’re left facing yourself in the mirror each day, trying to reconcile the growing guilt and shame for staying long past the point when the relationship had run its course. Along the way, you may have relied on maladaptive coping strategies—ways to numb or distract from the pain you’ve been carrying
"You're just too Sensitive". 'Too emotional". "Too everything"
In your search for love, the actions of your current or past partners may only serve to confirm your worst fears about your self-worth—that, to some extent, you are "unlovable" or flawed in some way. When this happens, it’s natural to seek comfort from the overwhelming weight of this painful belief. If you have high sensitivity, heightened empathy, or conditions like untreated ADHD, you may be particularly prone to rejection sensitivity. You've likely been made to feel (or told outright) that you are "too much," "too sensitive," "too emotional," or any number of other negative labels over the course of your life.
But that's not what happened....maybe I am going crazy?
You may feel exhausted from constantly replaying relationship conversations, desperately trying to make sense of what’s really happening, only to find yourself more confused and perplexed. It’s possible you’ve been gaslighted, leaving you to question your own mental stability as you react to emotionally provocative behavior—behavior that may even be witnessed by others. This can result in your psychological well-being being scrutinized by partners, friends, and even family.