Empath Seasonal Challenge: The Christmas Dissonance

When growing up, empaths and sensitives feel but don’t understand the Christmas discomfort.

Empaths and sensitives are feeling their surrounding. You know how you have the feeling that children understand more than words and sense conflicts between their parents. Well it is because every children learn through empathy and senses. They lack words and mental programing in their first years, so the only thing they can do to grow and learn fast is to connect with their parents, family and the people close to the family or school. They plug into others’ emotions and energetic field to understand the world, develop their vocabulary, and all the essentials to function as human being. Then once the language is acquired, they can gently release the dominance of emotional and energetic intelligence and use additional intelligences such as the mind to keep learning.

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Though the sensitive and empathic intelligence remain active and for some they stay more alert than for others. As children are seeing the world as if they were the centre of all things, from a child’s perspective, everything is about them, because of them and passes through them. Therefore, sensitives and empaths cannot yet grasp the difference between what is theirs and what belongs to others.

Empaths and sensitives potentially have a superpower!

Actually, they probably won’t make the difference between what is theirs and what belongs to others before adulthood because in their programming this empathy or sensitivity is useful. It allows them to gage a room, fit in or hide, to sense things ahead, to see and hear beyond the words and appearance.

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No wonder empaths and sensitive feel overwhelmed during a season exacerbating emotions, expectations, frustrations, fears, needs, and a truckload of other emotions.

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But imagine that this superpower kept on being one of your core intelligences because of self-preservation, whether emotional or physical. Sensing a room or a person could mean the difference between staying safe or not, humiliated or not, physically or verbally abused or not. It would inform them when to hide, how to stay safe, and how to avoid the thunder.

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What a superpower! Yet, sometimes what saved you at some point can also hurt you later.

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If you do not learn how to turn that superpower from self-preservation to empowerment, it will turn into what feels like a super-weakness.

There comes a point when your empathy will feel like turning against you. Maybe you are criticised for being too emotional, feeling too much.

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Perhaps you feel drained after any social interaction, or you experience physical pain from the pressure you feel from your environment.

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Maybe you keep attracting selfish or even abusive partners because you are so good at dealing with the mess of other that your nervous system confuses love and drama addiction—in more scientific terms, cortisol addiction resulting from chronic stress—no judgment there, I’ve been there, done that and got the T-shirt.

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But the thing is, it is not your empathy or sensitivity that is turning against you, it is a call to recalibrate how you use that magical tool so you don’t stay stuck in old patterns and suffer.

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When calibrated, your empathy and sensitivity can serve you and help others. You will see or sense the bullshi***, the manipulative games, the needs and more. If you work in the service industry, it will guide your words or therapeutic methods, in the retailing industry, it will guide your purchase or creation to serve your clients’ needs, in an artistic career, you will express emotions and help people feel, and as manager it will help leading your team.

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But if you don’t calibrate it, you will keep feeling what feels too much and feel crushed by it, maybe ashamed to be so sensitive, perhaps tired to feel in a constant emotional earthquake, maybe extremely lonely even if you have friends and family around.

Now, you can seat and moan because you feel too much or you can learn how not to feel everything.

Okay, that is a bit of a provocative, tough-love title. But it is the one choice I had to make for myself to move from feeling I was powerless to feeling so much, to feel I could breathe and feel fine to function in social interactions, work and even on Christmas dinner.

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I had to learn how to set boundaries.

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And boundaries have two side! There is where you give too much, are too present, feel you need to help, save, protect, give everything you have, please everyone. On the other side of the boundary is where people drain you, by sucking your energy, asking too much of you, not respecting your feelings, territory, or health.

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To be truthful, they are both part of the same issue: the need to recalibrate and relearn what is yours and what is not, what is your responsibility and what is not, how do you respect your energy and how you don’t. And for that, I first needed to assess your belief system, and I would invite you to do the same because it will tell you a lot about why you are taking other’s pain on your shoulders.

• Do you feel that if you don’t feel deeply, it means you don’t care?
• Do you experience guilt when you set boundaries or say no?
• Do you believe that helping others heal requires you to take on their pain?
• Do you notice that being highly aware of your environment helps you feel safe?
• Do you feel a sense of responsibility to help or even rescue others?
• Do you long for peace and harmony, using your empathy to soothe or balance those around you?
• Do you desire love and believe that anticipating others’ needs will help you feel worthy of their love respect or attention?
• Do you believe that sacrificing yourself leads to wisdom or spiritual growth?
• Do you find yourself trying to please everyone, relying on your empathy to do so?
• Do you assume you are meant to help or save everyone around you, regardless of your wellbeing?
• Do you carry a wish to heal everyone?
• Do you feel selfish when you say no?
• Do you feel responsible for the emotions, well-being, or outcomes of others?
• Do you constantly blame yourself for your colleague's bad mood, the accident that happened on the other side of the road, the red traffic light or any other thing you don’t have control over?

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For any beliefs or thoughts you agreed with, explore their origin. Were you taught them? If so, are they actually true?

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Did you form this belief as a child, leading to specific behaviours (e.g., “If I do this, I get approval,” or “If I do that, they’ll be upset”)? If so, consider an adult perspective and revisit your conclusion about how you felt and if it was really about you. Maybe validation was not one of your parents' strong skill, perhaps the tension or anger had nothing to do with you, but you were there to receive or witness it.

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Do you need to change and take responsibility for your environment or others’ feelings, or should they handle their own healing? Are you truly helping, or are you trying to feel better about external problems? When you assist others, are you also allowing them the opportunity to grow and find their own solutions, preventing you from always being the “saviour”?

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Why are you placing others before yourself, sacrificing your wellbeing or making compromise with your needs or even values? Is it by fear of being alone or unlovable? Is it because you don’t believe you are enough is you don’t do something for others? Could it be that you numb yourself with other people’s problems because it feels easier and less frightening than exploring what you need and want of life?

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I know some of these questions have unpleasant answers, and, by the way, it will differ for everyone, and you are more than welcome to add your own introspective questions to the mix. If they stir up too much self-judgment, guilt or shame, I recommend you find some help to navigate them. And most importantly, see them as the unpleasant truth but not as judgment. They are just room for recalibration. Remember, your empathy and sensitivity sharpened because of a need, not because of a flaw, weakness or defectiveness.

Why start by questioning these beliefs?

Because it’s hard to change your actions if they contradict what you believe. You’ll likely revert to your old patterns unless you update your beliefs.

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I had to examine my own beliefs to learn how to set boundaries and stop feeling drained, obligated, or depleted. Over time, I realised I could offer better, higher-quality support when I prioritised my energy.

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The best analogy I can offer is the airplane safety briefing: put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. Now that I protect my energy, I’m less affected by things like Christmas celebrations. I even plan to bring the shop to Aegina’s Christmas Market in 2026, a place where emotion will be multiplied by the number of visitors.

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So, if you feel a need to change because you feel drained, too impacted by the world (or the family gatherings), exhausted nervously and emotionally because you feel so much. Start journaling about your beliefs about your empathy. Use the questions from the previous paragraph and explore yourself.

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But first, ask yourself: What do you believe you have to be or do because you are sensitive or empath?

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Then go back to the questions of the previous section, those you resonated with, then journal over a couple of days to explore them.

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And…

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If you want to keep exploring how to move from empath victim of their capacity to super-empath (the one using the potential of their power/capacity/talent)?

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Then subscribe to my newsletter to find more about regaining your energetic sovereignty throughout the year.