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Anxiety to Confidence - The Personal Development Unplugged PodcastAuthor: Paul Clough Language: en Genres: Health & Fitness, Mental Health Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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FMQ527 Empathy Sucks!
Thursday, 5 March, 2026
Empathy Sucks (Unless It's With Yourself) I said it. Empathy sucks. Now before you unsubscribe and send me a strongly worded email… hear me out. In this episode I'm diving deep into something that most people believe is a virtue — feeling other people's pain. And yes, empathy can be beautiful. But if all you do is absorb the emotions of others, carry their struggles, and ignore your own… that's not kindness. That's self-neglect. Here's what I explore in this episode: Why absorbing other people's pain drains your emotional energy How empathy can become a way of avoiding your own feelings Why suppressed emotions don't disappear — they generalise The difference between empathy and compassion (and why it matters) How to process your own emotions so they stop running your life Simple processes to turn emotional overwhelm into emotional strength I truly believe this: If you deal with your stuff first, you help people better. When you stop hiding from your own emotions and learn from them instead, something shifts. You become grounded. Present. Powerful. And far more able to support others without drowning in their experience. This episode includes practical processes to: Work with difficult emotions Discover the positive intention behind them Stop suppressing and start learning Shift from emotional sponge to compassionate supporter Because compassion sustains. Empathy without boundaries drains. And if you're going to feel deeply… start by feeling for yourself. This Episode Is For You If: You feel emotionally drained by other people You often absorb the moods of those around you You struggle to process your own emotions You consider yourself "an empath" but feel overwhelmed You want stronger emotional resilience You want to help others without losing yourself A Simple Practice From This Episode Before helping someone else this week, ask yourself: "Am I grounded… or am I hiding?" Then sit with one emotion of your own. Ask: What are you trying to teach me? What are you protecting me from? What can I learn from you? Learn the lesson. And watch what shifts. Share The Love If this episode resonated with you: Subscribe Share it with someone who gives too much of themselves https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/fmq527-empathy-sucks-unless-its-with-yourself Leave a review Let's help more people become emotionally strong instead of emotionally overloaded. And as always… Have more fun than you can stand. Shine Brightly 🌟 Paul Hey there! I'd love to hear from you—questions, feedback, requests—all welcome. Drop me a line or leave a comment. If you've enjoyed this episode or any other, please share and subscribe! You can reach me at feedback@personaldevelopmentunplugged.com. Subscribe to the Podcast Ready to subscribe? Click here to explore your options. Or, if you're on Apple Music or iTunes, you can go straight to subscribe or leave a review here. Special Programs for You For tools on developing Supreme Inner Confidence, finding Freedom from Anxiety, or specialized Hypnosis Tracks, visit PaulCloughOnline.com. Free Hypnosis Tracks Want access to my FREE hypnosis tracks? Head over to paulcloughonline.com/podcast. Connect with Me Follow me on Twitter: @pcloughie Remember: I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. This podcast and any of my online resources are for educational purposes only. Never use the hypnosis tracks or exercises if you're operating machinery, driving, or if you have epilepsy or psychiatric conditions. Always consult a healthcare provider if you're unsure. Find Us on Other Platforms Catch the podcast on Spotify, Castbox, iHeart Radio, YouTube, or on our Libsyn page. Stay tuned, and keep shining brightly. ✨ Music Credits Music by Wataboi from Pixabay, Music by DreamHeaven from Pixabay, Music by ccjmusic from Pixabay, Music by freegroove from Pixabay, Music by prazkhanal from Pixabay. And the transcript WARNING if you're a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated, or angry - you have been warned - is it an 'ism Hey, welcome to the five minute quickie, the seed that I sow for a longer podcast. And hopefully you'll find if you, if you have an issue, by the way, if you have an issue and they're not, not directly talked about in the episodes, I think you'll find that I've made, made them in a way that if you concentrate on your issue and set your intention to learn about your issue and how to let it go with every episode, you'll find that they're, they're ambiguously linked. I'll say that again, ambiguously linked. Done it in a way that you can really use these for so many issues. In fact, you can have any issue you like as many as you like, but pick one and have a listen and you'll find that it will help. That's my plan anyway. And today we've got another seed and it's about one of the banes of life. And what is it? Bloody empathy. Empathy because it bloody sucks. Now, title is something different. You have to read the title, but you know, why do I say empathy sucks? I've said it for a long time is that if all you do is feel the pain of others, then, you know, it just adds to yours, doesn't it? It adds to your pain. The people who just dump on you. And I don't mean it in a nasty way. They're not doing it consciously. Well, maybe some people are, but most people do it unconsciously. They offload, don't they? They offload their pain. And because you're empathetic and you think it's a good thing to do, you feel their pain, you take their pain, you live with their pain and you add it to yours. And that's why I think it sucks. But I also think being empathetic does have a sort of positive intention because it hides you away from your pain. Get it? Hides it away from your pain. Now, you have to think about that for a little while. Because you can say, no, no, no, no, no. This is really good that I'm helping somebody. But you're not concentrating on yourself. You're not setting an intention to deal with your stuff first, because if you deal with your stuff first, you will help people a lot better. You will. And I think sometimes when you're in that way of being empathetic and you're hiding things from yourself, you're hiding that emotion from yourself and what it's trying to do for you. Because everything has an intention. Every emotion you have is here for a reason, negative or positive. You're learning. Or you could and should learn from them. And when you learn from the negatives, they just disappear. But here's the thing. I know it's a form of safety. But when you're not dealing with yourself first, then there's a little bit of a clash, isn't there? And we need to do that. Because it's not really safety, is it? If you're not dealing with yourself, how safe are you? Well, you're not really. You're hiding again. I say hiding. So what are we going to do? You see, one of the reasons we push negative emotions away is because they're painful. They're bloody painful. We push them away. We suppress them. We repress them. And what happens? The more you push, those emotions push back. And they don't only push back in the context that they were created in. They generalise, they generalise into different areas of your life. And what happens then is, well, unless you're prepared to learn from them and deal with them, they just get worse, bigger, stronger and in more areas of your life, which is a real shit. And you can deal with it. You really can. Now you've got, as I said, loads of other episodes, but this particular longer episode coming next is to deal with this thing called empathy, but dealing with it in the right way. If you're going to be empathetic, be bloody empathetic to yourself. So what can we do about it? These emotions that you're ignoring, you're trying to hide, you're pushing away, you're suppressing, repressing more than we've said it all before. What can you do about it? Well, I've got a plan, a plan and maybe a couple of processes that I'm going to put into the longer episode, because that's what we need to do. And the thing is, these processes, guess what they are? They are simple. And what does simple do? In simplicity, there is genius. Because it's easy to do. It's easy to follow. Sometimes it's a little bit hard because it takes effort. That's the only only hardship. You have to take effort. You have to set your intention. I'm going to do this. I'm going to find the learnings because this part of me is making me feel this emotion that I'm trying to push away. But if I if I work with it and learn from it, it will disappear and I'll be a better person for it. So that's where we're going on the deeper, deeper, that's where we're going on the longer episode with a deeper dive. And just in case you don't agree with me, and that's fine. It's just my opinion, my thoughts. If you don't agree with me that empathy sucks, that's just a belief. And I think it's a limiting belief because I'll show you why when we deal with it. Because I think if you really want to help people, change your empathy into being compassionate. Compassion. That's where you really get to help people. You can be there for them, support them. You don't have to feel the pain to know they're in pain. But you can use all your compassion to support them. And that feels bloody good. Oh, there is one other thing before we go, where empathy doesn't suck. Even though I said it does suck. There's one place where it doesn't suck. Because feeling other people's emotions can be when they're feeling joy, feeling happy, when they're celebrating, you go feel that celebration, you go feel the happiness, you go feel that joy, support them in that way. Oh, we're being compassionate again, because we're meeting them with that wonderful feeling again. And we're just, well, that's what we're going to do. We're going to be there, we're going to be for them. But more importantly, you have to be compassionate with yourself, you have to be more empathetic with yourself. And that's where we're going. Long way around. But I think you'll enjoy it. Even though it seems a bit weird, come and play. Come and sit down for a change, maybe for a spell, all that magical stuff. And let's just see where it goes. Because you might find it just really gels to set your intention when you come with me on the longer podcast. I want to learn from this. What can I learn from this? And I guarantee you when you say that to yourself, with a pure, honest intention, you will learn something big. Come with me on the longer podcast, comes out next week. I have more fun than you can stand. Okay, see you soon. Bye bye now, go fly. So before you leave this unplugged mind of mine, this hypnotic mind, if you enjoyed this podcast or any of the other podcasts, please do subscribe. It helps this podcast grow and affect so many more people. And we love to leave everyone in a better place than we found them. And this will help help the podcast, it will help you and it will help everyone that you know. So if you just subscribe and share, share this podcast to everyone you know. That's the only cost, pay it forward to everyone. And when you do that, boom, we are all going to make a difference to this little old planet Earth of ours, and the people in it. Let's make a good world, a nice world. Okay, okay, you can now prepare to leave this unplugged mind. Warning, you are now leaving the unplugged mind of Paul Clough. It's time to fly. Be brave, my friend. Personal Development Unplugged Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited Personal development [self improvement] [self development] [NLP] [Hypnosis]
