Change of Course

You may be part of the 15-20% of people who are naturally wired in a way that makes too much stimulation overwhelming. The noise of bustling shopping centers, the chaos of crowded freeways, or dining in noisy restaurants might drain your energy rather than satisfy your appetite. Even social gatherings or parties, meant to be enjoyable, may feel like an unbearable challenge. You might find yourself struggling with intense emotions when you witness suffering—whether it's a sick animal, a person in pain, or even something you see on TV. Perhaps your heightened empathy makes it difficult to navigate relationships, especially friendships and romantic ones. It may leave you feeling deeply misunderstood, or worse, trapped in toxic dynamics because you don't know how to walk away. Your natural tendency to trust and empathize with others may have led you into relationships that have left emotional scars, some of which might still linger. You may have stayed too long in these relationships, hoping to fix things, only to return feeling like a shadow of who you once were. For those of us with high empathy, love and relationships can feel like an emotional minefield. The journey isn’t always smooth, and it's possible that the strain of past relationships has caused your anxiety to soar, disrupted your sleep, and affected your eating habits. You might find yourself turning to "shadow comforts," like emotional eating, just to cope with the overwhelming feelings. This could stem from a current relationship struggle, or it may be the lingering effects of past relationships that have left you emotionally depleted. You may be wrestling with the tendency to pursue emotionally unavailable or toxic people—those who ultimately leave you feeling hurt, vulnerable, or even traumatized. Perhaps you obsess over unanswered texts, making excuses to stay close to someone who treats you like an afterthought or, worse, abuses you in some way. You may have sought therapy, only to find it hard to explain the deeper emotional layers you experience. Maybe your therapist dismissed your feelings, your more spiritual side, steering the conversation back to more conventional, scientific approaches, leaving you feeling unheard, dismissed and misunderstood. Yet in doing so, you in turn experienced a sense of invisibility resulting in a therapeutic rupture. This is often what clients report to experiencing prior to working with me.