The beauty of having an empathic nature is having the ability to assess energy. The ugly of being an empath is that, because we can assess energy, we don’t always protect ourselves from negative energy because we’re “helping” others. Left unprotected, we often get used, abused and figuratively eaten alive. Any of us who’ve dealt with emotional abuse know that recovery is a long but necessary purging process. The feelings of grief, guilt, anger and mass confusion force fed to us must be vigorously regurgitated and a new diet of conscientious empathy heavily seasoned with self-preservation must become our sustenance.

Don’t strive for perfection. The path to healing is paved with the munchies and sugar fixes of those that you allowed to breadcrumb you. Trust that you’ll eventually master how to sustain yourself and starve emotional vampires. Here are a few tried and true ways:

· Stop Justifying People Treating You Poorly. Be honest with yourself as to why you’re allowing bad behavior, but stop acting like it’s going to change. It very likely is not. You have to change.

· Beware of too Much Care. It’s not your job to save anyone but yourself. When that friend (or family member) who is a devout user calls crying (and you’ve been down this road with them before), listen, send them good thoughts and move along. Often, this would not be reciprocated if it were you.

· Practice Loving Detachment. This isn’t you being selfish. You can still care for others, but it’s usually best done at arm’s length. Detachment is crucial. Once you get past the internal conflict of the fallacy of “abandoning” the person, you’ll wonder why you didn’t detach sooner. Detach to get back to you.

· Stop Competing with Their Ego. You will lose. PERIOD.

· Untangle Your Self Worth from their Low-Value Insecurity. Low self-worth is an abuser’s prized commodity. The cheaper you are the better for them. The minute you begin to reassess your value, they will flee – they will challenge you – but if you stay the course and continue to increase your worth, they will eventually go.

· Stop Trying to Make Sense Out of Nonsense. Stop trying to organize it. Whether you were in it for months or years, as empaths we feel most comfortable being able to label and put people’s behaviors into neat little boxes to help ourselves understand the “whys”. This is self crazy-making. You may never figure it out so release yourself from that supposed responsibility.

· Get Thee to a Therapist. Just go. Don’t hesitate or think too hard. It’s not a decision you’ll regret.

· Mind Your Own Business. This is just really a sum of all of the above-mentioned points. What projects have you been procrastinating on because you’ve prioritized someone else’s stuff? What opportunities have you allowed to pass you by because you’ve been doing the thankless job of minding somebody else’s business?