From Fixer to Free: Healing as an Unawakened Empath

The more truth we can compassionately acknowledge and accept about ourselves, the greater we can grow and shift our lives.

My last few blog posts addressed some pretty major and important principles that were monumental on my healing journey, which are taking accountability for my life and healing. But if you were anything like me in my unawakened state as an Empath, you might skew these teachings against yourself to take care or benefit others; therefore, harming yourself.

Let me explain.

What It Means to Be an Unawakened Empath

You love with 1000% of your heart.

You may or may not be aware that the emotions and feelings of others are so strong that it is physically, emotionally, and mentally devastating for you when others are in disarray, or in an emotionally reactive state around you. You most likely would do anything to take their pain away, to make them feel better, to make them calm down, dry their eyes, or cool down from a state of rage.

You quickly find yourself calculating how you can shift their energy, to find peace in the moment, to diffuse the situation. Point blank, my friend, you take responsibility for other people’s sh*t.

This is your brain going into a stress response to fix the situation, environment, and/or people around you in an attempt to maintain peace when there is a perceived threat present.

Taking on What’s Not Yours

For Empaths especially in an unawakened state, when we are taking responsibility for others’ emotional wellbeing - they respond often as freezing or fawning. Sometimes they might enter a fight response if extremely angry, but this is not usually as common.

Empaths mainly want peace and will usually take responsibility to calm the storm around them to feel safe.  This can show up as, unnecessary apologizing, giving into demands, rug sweeping and making excuses for and accepting disrespectful behaviour, inserting themselves into potentially harmful or dangerous situations to play mediator or peacekeeper.  Additionally, Empaths might take the brunt of someone’s anger in order to protect themselves or another.

I.Have. Done. All. Of. This.

If you resonate with doing this, please do not beat yourself up. Please do not shame or become mentally abusive towards yourself if you recognize these tendencies. These behaviours are mainly unconscious and have been hard wired into your DNA. Awareness is key. In fact, if you can admit and accept that you have these tendencies – you are on the way to upleveling your reality if you want to transform your life.

Awareness Is the First Step

A major lightbulb moment in my awakening journey as an empath was learning that I am responsible for my own life, which includes my feelings, thoughts, and behaviours – and not other peoples!

This means that other people are responsible for their own. Period.

When you process through the “ouch” that this realization can initially have upon accepting this hard truth – you can find a lot of peace, and empowerment on the other side. It helps you to lift the burden you have placed on yourself to caretake and attempt to “fix” others. It begins to help you detach from an enmeshment that you have been unknowingly entangled in your (most likely) entire life.

Building self-awareness is a gift to yourself and foundational to learning to love yourself unconditionally.

It is like you have been living in a sticky, restrictive, limiting web that has had a strangle hold onto you mentally, emotionally, and energetically. Bringing conscious awareness to where your energy ends and another person’s starts, helps you to take responsibility for your own life and by setting boundaries – you are showing yourself love and respect.

Another way that Empaths can begin to take responsibility for their lives is to allow themselves the time and space to recognize when they being triggered. In another blog post, it was discussed how Empaths can learn to master themselves by through the practice of deep breathing. This literally feels like time is slowed down so that awareness can be brought into the moment while making decisions in a heated, unconscious, and/or upset state of mind.  

As mentioned before, awareness is key. By slowing down and realizing our own behaviour and patterns, we can chose differently. We can recognize and realize when we might be acting in a way that is harmful to ourselves or others (ie: enabling unhealthy or toxic behaviours).

Forgive yourself if you are not at a point (want) to make major changes, as even slowing down to watch ourselves from an observer perspective is huge! It can lead to big changes over time, if you desire to transform your life. Additionally, these patterns mentioned above are so deeply ingrained that they are healed in layers. Like meditation, yoga, and mindfulness - this is a practice to heal and transmute these patterns. As we transcend on our healing journey, deeper layers will appear to transmute. And as you do, you will ascend, your perspective will change, life will change around you. It is truly magical!

Just observe yourself, the other parties involved, and the results that unfold.

As the unawakened stage, it is all about observing yourself, and life around you.

I cannot express how powerful this is, it begins to crack your reality, limiting beliefs, conditioning, and programming.

Cracking the reality that is not working for you is imperative to transforming your life.

An advanced challenge to add to this exercise – simply getting curious by asking yourself “That’s interesting that I reacted like that when she said that…. I wonder why I did that?”

That’s it. Do not try to fix, shame, abuse yourself. And if you find that you did, refer back to this advanced challenge to level up.

Try This: Respectful Curiosity 

Reflect on how your self-talk might have been a bit abusive.. “That’s interesting. I see that I just had a thought calling myself ‘stupid’ and shaming myself… I wonder why I did that?”

And let it go.

When you are beginning to reflect on your own patterns, thoughts, beliefs, etc. I highly encourage you to adopt a respectful curiosity by observing with a “That’s interesting…” perspective followed up with a gentle question of “I wonder why?...”

And leave it there.

It is important to let the thought train end there with gentle curiosity as to not allow yourself to spin out into a downwards spiral. We have ALL been there, it is not pretty, productive nor helpful. I know I have gotten myself lost a many times for many hours into a thought storm of panic, worry, and fear through not bowing out by ending with a rhetorical question of “I wonder why?”

If this resonates with you, let me know in the comments or share with a fellow empath who needs this message.💜🥰

 Copyright © 2025 Amanda MacLeod. All Rights Reserved.