Here are five boundary tips for empaths to keep themselves from taking on the energy of others, so you can stay open and connected without feeling drained.
1. Start With Not Giving Up on Being Around People
As a practitioner, have you ever had a powerful session with a client, but then felt completely exhausted afterward? Or have you ever been to a large event with a lot of people and felt completely overwhelmed or burnt out?
I bet your first instinct was to withdraw and avoid people after that.
That is totally understandable, but the most helpful thing here is to actually avoid the retreat. When we become overwhelmed by other people’s energy, we instinctively want to avoid having that feeling. To keep ourselves safe, we end up going more and more inward and become more removed from groups of people. However, this removal has made us even more sensitive to others.
Instead of retreating fully, make a point to go out but be gentle on yourself. Start with smaller intimate gatherings like a yoga class where the energy feels right. Over time, gradually start adding more and more people until your nervous system learns that you are safe.
2. Use a Grounding Visualization to Remove Outside Energy From Your Body
Once you have done some work around feeling your energetic boundaries and noticing when you are taking on the energy of others, it is time to figure out what to do with it.
One of the easiest and most direct things to do is a grounding visualization, where you create a receptacle in which to store that excess energy. You can do this by yourself through visualization and meditation, through energy work, or with help from a practitioner.
What I like to do is imagine a bucket or some sort of vessel in the ground underneath me that will recycle that energy back into the earth. I close my eyes and do a full body scan to check for any energy that isn’t mine. Once I find it, I feel those energies flow from my body into the receptacle.
I also make sure to fill the gaps with my own energy. Let your body fill up with you so there is no room for anyone’s energy but your own.
3. Turn Your Energy From Liquid to Solid to Feel Your Energetic Boundaries
I have noticed that empaths, healers, and sensitive people have a tendency to have watery energy. It is very easy to get that energy muddied up with the energy of others and can make it difficult to find the boundary between how others feel and how we feel.
Something I’ve been practicing is this: when I am in a situation where I cannot tell if I am experiencing an emotion or picking it up from someone else, I imagine quickly turning my energy from liquid to ice.
It’s a really nice way to check into my own energy and look at it in solid form. It makes it easy to see the clear boundary between how I’m feeling and how others are feeling.
4. Make Sure Your Energy Channel Is All the Way Open
If you are actively working as a facilitator to transmute the energies of others, there is a good chance you will be acting as a channel for the energy to move through your body.
When doing this work, it is very important to keep your energy channel open. Otherwise, the outside energy could come into your body, have nowhere to go, and get stuck unintentionally.
When I do energy work, I imagine an open channel through my body going way down into the earth. That keeps energy from getting trapped and always gives it a place to escape.
5. Use Your Mind as Support to Keep Yourself From Feeling Things for Other People
When we have a natural propensity to feel the feelings and emotions of others, it is very easy to get swept up in those feelings.
An important thing to remember is that when we are feeling something for someone else, we are preventing them from doing their own healing.
I use my mind to support myself when I feel myself falling into this pattern. If I can be conscious of when this is happening, I can withdraw myself from their feelings and allow them to work through things on their own.
Boundary Tips for Empaths: Keeping Other People’s Energy Out of Your System
These are the most practical tips for empaths who want to learn how to keep other people’s energy from getting stuck in your system, how to release other people’s energy, and how to hold clear energetic boundaries so you can be an empty vessel and a more powerful healer when you’re working with your clients.
If you’re learning how to hold strong energetic boundaries while still staying open and connected, understanding your natural archetypal patterns can give you deeper clarity around how you relate to others’ energy.
Take the Free Archetypes Assessment
Discover the archetypal energies shaping your healing style, boundaries, and sensitivity — and learn how to work with your gifts in a way that feels grounded, clear, and supportive for both you and the people around you.
https://pages.holtonhealingarts.com/archetypes
And if you’re already doing this work with clients — or feel called to — and want real training in how to hold boundaries while facilitating for others, that’s exactly what deeper practitioner training offers.
When Your Sessions Leave You Drained
If you’re a practitioner, you know the feeling of a powerful session followed by complete exhaustion, or of feeling your clients’ emotions so fully that you carry them home. The Way of the Hollow Bone Master Healer Certification is a nine-month path for healers ready to become a clear channel for their work, hold space without absorbing what isn’t theirs, and let clients do their own healing while they walk beside them. Apply now if you’re ready to finish your sessions as full as you started.