Michael Sgro Leadership Coaching's mission has been to build empathy as a core competency with extraordinary leaders across the country. As we work with those who have very high empathy, we have learned that there are vulnerabilities of this beautiful gift, if overused, Hyper Empathy.
When someone experiences too much empathy, it can be called hyper-empathy syndrome or empathy burnout. This can happen when someone is too in tune with others' emotions and mirrors them, or when they over-give themselves without taking time to replenish.
Some signs of overused empathy include:
Feeling drained and tired after time with others
Having difficulty regulating emotions
Having a tendency to pick up on negative feelings
Having emotional responses that are out of proportion
Having physical reactions to other people's upset
Being unable to drop your emotional response to another's pain
Being so overwhelmed that your own life suffers
To manage empathy and avoid burnout, you can try to:
Give thought to what people are going through, but try not to take on their pain
Take action and reach out to help, but without owning their pressures or turmoil
Respect people's agency and give them the space to speak for themselves
Ask "what do you need?" or "what are you going through?
Coach Sgro has said, "Empathy is a natural human remedy for conflict." and this essential in the workplace for all the challenges we face but leaders with high empathy have to modulate, to not become the stress they discover in others. Self-Regulation skills, our coolant, is ultimately the cure.