Written by: Caroline Lewis, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
We all take on different individual roles in our family system. In our family of origin, we take on different roles in order to keep the psychological needs of the family system functioning. When we are kids, we unconsciously inhabit a particular role that suits our family members because we depend on them for our survival. Our parents often play roles that were passed down to them by their parents, and our grandparents also inherited roles. Some examples of individual roles are “the caretaker,” the “rebel,” and “the provider.”
Sensitive people often mask their own emotional experiences to caretake the feelings of their loved ones.
When I was growing up, I was more sensitive than I realized, and my role was to caretake others’ feelings in my family unit. When I say “caretake,” I mean that I masked my own emotional experience in order to take care of the other person’s feelings. I was very sensitive to other’s feelings and unconsciously avoided negative emotions so I would not be overwhelmed by them. My own emotions often went on the back burner, and I attempted to present myself as “the little ray of sunshine” that I was nicknamed.
I also understood from an early age that I received the most validation and positive affirmation when I didn’t speak my true feelings. My family had enough challenges, so I became silent and good and processed my negative emotions quietly and alone. I did everything I could to avoid making others feel uncomfortable because I felt everything. I learned to value others’ emotional experiences over my own voice and truth. This is a common pattern for highly sensitive individuals, and can lead to codependency later in life.
To this day, my family members comment on how “strong” I am, how “resilient,” and how I “always land on my feet.” While I believe these things to be true about myself, I consider these descriptions as only part of my story. My healing journey has taught me that true resiliency and courage are stepping into my own unfiltered wildness and vulnerability.
Our culture teaches victims that silence and repression of emotion hold the golden key to survival and success.
Any highly sensitive person or empath can struggle with prioritizing others’ emotions over their own. I think the recent Me Too movement has shed light on the ways that many have silenced their own voices in order to survive the trauma and our patriarchal and white supremacist culture. In order for our culture to function as it has for hundreds of years, the system teaches that silence and repression of emotion hold the golden key to survival and success. Speaking individual and collective truth have been sure ways to be outcasted from the family unit.
Empaths have many superpowers and strengths.
Although sensitive people often carry the emotional burden for their family systems, they have many superpowers and strengths. For example, as a therapist, I feel very grateful that I have the capacity to sit with others’ intense emotional experiences. I gain so much fulfillment from the heartfelt connection and gentle listening to my client's stories. Also, empaths often feel very deeply about the suffering that is presently happening in the world and fill roles in society in order to make positive and lasting changes. However, they can suffer from burnout, chronic pain, and health issues if they do not learn how to take care of themselves effectively. It has taken emotional work and persistence to internalize that tending of my own needs, feelings, and energy system is not selfish but necessary. In order for humans to survive our present ecological crisis and to evolve, we desperately need wildly sensitive warriors to be healthy and energized emotional leaders and visionaries.
The World desperately needs your gifts, talents, and sensitivity.
Through facilitating groups for others to speak the truth and also through teaching energy medicine tools, I support sensitive folks in learning how to take care of their own health while also being present to the huge task of caring so much. From personal experience, I know that empaths do not have to isolate in order to refuel. Learning how to speak my own messy truth, learning how to have energetic boundaries with others, and knowing how to refuel my own life-force energy no matter where I am or who I am with has allowed me to keep showing up and embodying compassion in a world that desperately needs my gifts, my talents, and my wild sensitivity.
Caroline Lewis, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Caroline Lewis (she,they) is a psychotherapist, energy healer, and wilderness guide. She believes true embodied joy is rooted in the courage to embrace sensitivity, opening our hearts through the necessary risks to love, grieve, hope, and transform. Through healing and sacred nature connection, Caroline guides wildly sensitive leaders with aligning with their true purpose and souls' wisdom during this time of ecological transition. She is the founder of Root Awareness which offers transformative experiences through nature adventures, meditation, process groups, and 1:1 healing and coaching sessions.
