In my case: once an empath, are you always an empath?
If you have spent much of your lifetime absorbing the emotions of others around you, can you ever escape it and learn differently, or do you just have to learn to live with it as best you can?
Do you walk by a homeless person on the street on the street and feel obliged to help, or guilt if you don't? Even more guilt comes from the fact my ex-husband is also homeless, but if he had a civil bone in his body, that needn't have been the case.
Do you take on board other people's problems and work out solutions and ideas whilst your own life could be in tatters around you?
I seem to do this with anyone I get close to and I have written about it before. Sometimes I wish there was an off switch, but if there was then would that be being true to me?
I know the one thing I have to learn is to say "no", I don't have to give a reason. No is a complete sentence. But hard to do because if I can help, then I will, it feels like an earthbound duty.
Is it realistic to walk around and believe that most people are inherently good? Or just a fantasy? You just have to turn on the news, which I don't. I refuse to watch the news else I will be weighed down by it. If it's important it will filter through soon enough, whatever medium I'm on.
People find it so hard to ask for help, it's perhaps an injustice to turn off completely.
But for now, I need to concentrate on just me and my girls for a little while. And practice using my brain instead of heart for a little bit so I can find a better balance, as so drained emotionally at the moment.
I'll always be here for my bestest Steemit friends, you know who you are (
Set up a few income streams, then I can come back and help even more (after Christmas)! I will write about creating and maintaining these streams, so when they work, I'll still be helping and inspiring and that's what I live to do.
In the new year, I hope to set up the Hope Bank (second idea written about in this linked post) but I need to have something to invest into first and time to see if I gather some kind of support for it.
So no I don't think you can't take the empath out the girl, but I can and will manage it better. I have to be in a place where I can help more and I need time out in order to achieve this.
What do you think? Should you fight who you really are on the inside? Be on a permanent mission for self-improvement? Or just learn to live with who we are and managing to be the best version of that?