Trauma-informed therapy for the ones who feel too much, love too hard, and give until there’s nothing left
Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt the tension between two people who weren’t even speaking? Or found yourself changing your entire mood to match someone else’s energy, without even realizing you were doing it? Maybe you’ve spent so many years tuning into everyone else’s emotional weather that you’ve forgotten what your own feelings actually sound like.
Understanding Highly Sensitive Persons – HSP
If you’re reading this, you might be a “Highly Sensitive Person” or what many refer to as HSP. But those labels, while validating, don’t capture the exhaustion of absorbing everyone else’s pain, the confusion of not knowing where you end and others begin, or the loneliness of feeling like no one truly understands the weight you carry.
Someone who is HSP or a highly sensitive person has a more sensitive nervous system than most others. It does not mean, “You’re just too sensitive”, or that you take things too seriously. Rather, this means that your nervous system takes in more data than others, and you often pick up on other people’s emotions because of that heightened sensitivity. It is estimated about 15-20% of the population might identify as HSP.
These people are deep mental processors, are often sensitive to Physical, emotional and social stimuli in the environment, and are prone to overstimulation. They are often highly empathic. Understanding and learning to manage your heightened sensitivity can bring a sense of relief and help you learn to channel these into strengths. Self-care is crucial.
When Your Nervous System Never Gets to Rest
Before starting therapy at Jim Brillon Therapy, many of my clients describe feeling like a radio that picks up every station at once—a constant buzz of other people’s emotions, needs, and unspoken expectations. Your body might feel perpetually tense, braced for the next emotional crisis you’ll inevitably be asked to help solve. Sleep becomes elusive because your mind replays every conversation, wondering if you said something wrong or if someone is upset with you.
After we begin working together, something gradually shifts. It’s not that you stop caring—that’s not the goal. Instead, you start to notice the difference between your feelings and theirs. You might catch yourself taking a breath before automatically saying “yes” to a request. There are moments when you can sit with someone else’s distress without immediately trying to fix it or absorb it into your own body.
Maya’s Journey: Learning Where She Ends and Others Begin
“I don’t know how to love people without disappearing,” Maya told me during one of our early sessions. She’d spent thirty-two years being the family peacemaker, the friend everyone called in crisis, the partner who could sense every micro-expression and adjust accordingly.
Maya came to therapy after what she called “the great collapse”—a period where she’d given so much to everyone around her that she literally forgot how to access her own needs. “I went to make dinner one night and realized I didn’t know what I was hungry for. I stood in front of the fridge and cried because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten something just because I wanted it.”
Through our work with EMDR and somatic practices, we explored how Maya’s nervous system had learned to prioritize everyone else’s emotional safety over her own. As a child, her survival had depended on reading the room, predicting her volatile parent’s moods, and shape-shifting to keep the peace.
Months later, Maya shared a moment that surprised her: “My sister called in one of her dramatic spirals, and for the first time, I felt my body say ‘no’ before my mind could override it. I told her I loved her but that I wasn’t available for a three-hour crisis call. And somehow, the world didn’t end.”
What Your Body Knows That Your Mind Keeps Forgetting
That hypervigilance that scans every room for emotional landmines? It’s not a character flaw—it’s an adaptation your nervous system developed to keep you safe. But what helped you navigate chaotic or emotionally unpredictable environments as a child might now be keeping you from experiencing the calm you crave as an adult.
In our sessions, I don’t try to eliminate your sensitivity—it’s often one of your greatest gifts. Instead, we work on what I call “emotional discernment”: learning to sense what belongs to you and what doesn’t, developing boundaries that protect your energy while still allowing you to love deeply.
The Myth of Boundaryless Love
“Setting boundaries feels selfish,” a client told me recently. “Like I’m abandoning people who need me.”
This belief—that love requires the complete absence of limits—often stems from early experiences where we learned that our worth was tied to our usefulness, our ability to prevent others’ pain, or our capacity to be endlessly available. But boundaryless love isn’t really love at all—it’s often a trauma response disguised as virtue.
Real love, the kind that actually nourishes relationships, requires you to know where you end and the other person begins. It means being able to witness someone’s struggle without taking it on as your own emergency. It means trusting that people can handle your authentic feelings, including your limits.
Reclaiming Your Right to Your Own Experience
Through EMDR, I help you process the memories and messages that taught you to prioritize everyone else’s emotional experience over your own. These aren’t always dramatic trauma memories—sometimes they’re the accumulation of countless small moments where your feelings were dismissed, where you were praised for being “easy” or criticized for having needs.
Somatic work helps your nervous system learn what your own calm actually feels like, separate from the borrowed anxiety or manufactured peace that comes from keeping everyone around you comfortable. We practice noticing the sensation of your own boundaries—that subtle but important felt sense of “yes” and “no” that lives in your body.
Why This Therapeutic Approach Feels Different
I don’t believe your sensitivity is something to be cured. In our sessions at Jim Brillon Therapy, I honor the part of you that feels deeply while also teaching it how to feel safely. We create space for you to practice existing without immediately scanning my face for approval or disapproval. We explore what it’s like to share a difficult emotion without instantly trying to manage my response to it.
Many clients discover that their capacity for empathy actually deepens when it’s no longer compulsive. When you can choose to feel with someone rather than being flooded by their emotional state, your presence becomes more genuinely supportive, not just reactive.
The Practice of Emotional Sovereignty
Healing doesn’t mean becoming cold or disconnected. It means learning to love from a place of choice rather than compulsion. It means developing what I call “emotional sovereignty”—the ability to care deeply while maintaining your own emotional ground.
This might look like feeling your friend’s sadness without immediately offering solutions. Or noticing your partner’s stress without automatically absorbing it into your own nervous system. Or recognizing that someone’s anger in your direction isn’t necessarily a referendum on your worth as a person.
What Becomes Possible When You Stop Absorbing Others’ Emotions
When you’re no longer carrying everyone else’s emotional weather, space opens up for something you might have forgotten existed: your own authentic desires, preferences, and responses to life. You might rediscover what you actually think about things, separate from what you think others want you to think. You might find yourself more present in conversations because you’re not simultaneously monitoring and managing the other person’s emotional state.
The people who truly love you will welcome this version of you—the one who can say no, who has preferences, who doesn’t disappear into whatever emotional shape the moment requires. And the people who don’t? That’s valuable information too.
A Different Kind of Caring
If you’ve been drowning in other people’s feelings, if you’re tired of losing yourself in every relationship, if you’re ready to discover what it feels like to love from a place of fullness rather than depletion—you don’t have to figure this out alone.
Sometimes the most radical thing we can do is stop trying to feel everyone’s feelings for them and start getting curious about our own. Your sensitivity isn’t a burden to be managed—it’s a gift that deserves protection, boundaries, and the safety to exist without constantly being in service to someone else’s emotional experience.
The journey home to yourself begins with a simple question: What do I actually feel, separate from what everyone else needs me to feel? In my therapy practice, I create space for you to discover that answer, one breath at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions About Therapy for Empaths and Highly Sensitive People
What’s the difference between being empathetic and being an empath?
Being empathetic means you can understand and share others’ feelings when you choose to. Being an empath often means you absorb others’ emotions automatically, sometimes without even realizing it’s happening. In therapy, I help you move from automatic absorption to conscious choice—keeping your gift of sensitivity while learning to protect your own emotional space.
How does EMDR help with emotional boundaries?
EMDR helps us process the experiences that taught your nervous system to prioritize everyone else’s feelings over your own. Maybe you learned as a child that your safety depended on managing a parent’s moods, or that love meant having no needs of your own. Through EMDR, we can update those old survival programs, helping your body understand that you’re allowed to have boundaries now.
Will therapy make me less caring or compassionate?
Not at all. In fact, most of my clients find they become more genuinely present and supportive when they’re not drowning in others’ emotions. When you can choose to feel with someone rather than automatically absorbing their pain, your compassion becomes a gift you offer rather than something that depletes you.
How long does it take to stop absorbing everyone else’s emotions?
Every person’s journey is unique, but most clients start noticing small shifts within the first few months—maybe catching themselves before automatically saying yes, or feeling the difference between their anxiety and someone else’s. The deep work of rewiring your nervous system takes time, but each session builds on the last, creating lasting change.
What if my family or friends don’t like the “new” me with boundaries?
This is one of the most common fears I hear in therapy. Some relationships might feel uncomfortable at first when you stop being endlessly available. But the people who truly love you will adjust and often express relief at seeing you take care of yourself. Those who can’t accept your boundaries? That tells you something important about the relationship.
Can highly sensitive people thrive in relationships?
Absolutely. Your sensitivity is actually a superpower in relationships when it’s paired with good boundaries. You can sense subtle shifts, offer deep understanding, and create profound connections. In therapy, I help you learn to use your sensitivity as a strength rather than something that overwhelms you.
Ready to explore what it feels like to honor your sensitivity while protecting your energy? Contact Jim Brillon Therapy to begin your journey toward emotional sovereignty.
