I am an empath, I am too sensitive. How do I protect myself from empathy burnout?

I often wondered why Buddha didn't just enjoy his eternal bliss forever? Why did he go back to his wife after he attained enlightenment? What made him get involved with ‘others’, creating sanghas and teaching. 

When your self-awareness churns into enlightenment, you go through a few hiccups before you settle down with it. The first danger of a budding enlightenment is empathy, which translates to ‘take everyone along on this life-changing journey syndrome’. 

While on your own path to enlightenment, you try to huddle everyone you know into a Karwaan. But thankfully better sense prevails. Mostly out of empathy fatigue than compassion.

Gradually you realise that even though people say they want nothing more than self-realisation and spiritual awakening. All they truly need is a paid holiday or an addiction at the most.

I tried to drag a whole lot of people along with me. Drag, I say because that is exactly what it was.

Empathy may be a noble intention but without regulation, it too is insensitive.

Empaths usually don’t check back if anyone is truly interested in expediting their self-evolution. Especially if you are a woman. Our inherent nature to-fix-it-all-to-perfection plays up big time. We can totally ignore the fact that people are enjoying their stages, be it in our families or humanity at large. Apart from us, millennials are another breed of humans who specialise in empathy burn out.

Although kind intentioned, my unregulated empathy was my bad, which stood corrected after being completely misunderstood for it all the time.

It finally dawned upon me that the Buddha didn’t drag anyone along. He just walked his path. Alone. Sufficient. The matriarch in me yielded to accommodate the Buddha in me.

The truth is that the Buddha didn’t alienate himself. This is because of an universal law. When your consciousness expands, it becomes more and more inclusive. On the outside, you may not attend to any social structures but on the inside, the collective’s destiny becomes pivotal for you.

The bottom line is when you get enlightened you don’t just kick back, sip a beer and live in a spiritual party zone, forever. That’s a busy person’s fantasy. Instead, you are moved deeply to work for the collective joy.

Statistically more people are sensitive and empathetic than there are insensitive ones. But then all those sensitive empaths are also burnt out and sometimes plain abused. 

This is why I work with awakening your inner clarity rather than your spiritual paraphernalia. Inner clarity helps you navigate away from your empathy fatigue into an astute awareness, the key to real contribution. 

When you begin to reclaim your inner clarity, for the first time in your life, you don’t ‘need to make a work-life balance. Your life becomes an artwork of universal play. You become fully aware of the fact that you are only a pawn but your game will make the team win. You become Sufficient, just like the Buddha. 

Shivshera Azeer, Bio Architect and Artist suffering from severe empathy fatigue explains his rehabilitation journey aptly. He began his journey with my 12-month Navel Consciousness Personal Growth Mentoring Program 

"For an Empath like me, the inequality and pain in the world was like a personal hell. I had done so much spiritual awakening work but my heart kept bleeding. I did not even know that I was burnt out and mentally paralysed due to my empathy fatigue. UG moved me from performative empathy to authentic empathy. It began with coming in a-never-before-deep contact with myself. Now, I feel like a tree, grounded in my roots, in my own absolute clarity. Reaching out, ascending beyond this existing paradigm into truths that I know to be true for myself and a lot of you out there." 

Becoming enlightened is one thing but living an enlightened life is the art of inner clarity. An art that was lost 2000 years ago to people. Only Masters had access to it.

It took me 25 years to make this art available to you in simple self-paced courses, that you can access from the comfort of your home. It was not an easy journey to undertake. I lost almost everything in the process but it proves that the impending new paradigm of living joyously is here for good. And the Universe is all out to seduce you into it. Does it get better than this!

Udumbara Gesu

A fan of your soul & its strength