That’s Not Mine

For years, I could spot an empath from across the room.

Apparently, I just couldn’t spot the one standing in my own shoes.

About eight years ago, one of my employees told me she was an empath. I had never heard the word before. I didn’t really understand what she meant, but as she described how deeply she felt other people’s emotions, how easily she absorbed what was happening around her, and how difficult it was sometimes to separate her feelings from everyone else’s, I became fascinated.

Later, I had another friend at work who described similar experiences. He could feel people. He noticed things other people didn’t. Their moods seemed to stick to him.

“You’re an empath,” I told him.

He had never heard the word either. He went home, researched it, and came back completely changed by the realization.

Meanwhile, there I was, apparently handing out empath diagnoses like Oprah.

You’re an empath! You’re an empath! Everybody’s an empath!

Except me.

I always thought their sensitivity was stronger than mine. Their intuitive experiences seemed more obvious, more dramatic, more undeniable.

Mine just felt… normal.

And that was the problem.

It was so natural for me to feel what other people were feeling, worry about their problems, take on their stories, and carry their pain that I didn’t recognize I was doing it.

I thought I was caring.

I thought I was being supportive.

I thought this was simply what love looked like.

Until one day, I began to realize that sometimes I wasn’t just caring about what someone else was experiencing.

I was carrying it.

The Things We Carry

Years ago, my son Taylor called me one morning upset and angry because I turn my phone off at night.

Something terrible had happened.

He and his husband had gone away for the day and left their pug and Boston terrier outside. When they came home, the Boston terrier came inside, but the pug didn’t.

Taylor went looking for him and found him dead.

It was extremely hot outside.

I knew immediately what had probably happened, and I knew how dangerous heat could be for a pug.

It was heartbreaking.

I felt devastated for the little dog.

I felt devastated for Taylor.

And then I did something I didn’t understand at the time.

I took his guilt into my own body.

I worried about it.

I replayed it.

I felt responsible for something I had not done, could not have prevented, and had not even known was happening.

At the time, I was seeing a therapist who was very blunt.

Sometimes refreshingly blunt.

Sometimes more like being hit over the head with a frying pan.

When I told her what had happened and how upset I was, she basically said:

Why are you carrying this? You didn’t do it.

Her delivery wasn’t especially tender, but the truth underneath it stayed with me.

This wasn’t mine.

I could feel sad.

I could feel compassion.

I could grieve the loss of that little dog.

I could love my son through something painful.

But the guilt?

That wasn’t mine.

And somewhere along the way, a simple phrase began forming inside me.

That’s not mine.

Empathy Is Not Ownership

That sentence has become one of the most useful teachings of my life.

Not because it helps me stop caring.

It helps me care without disappearing into someone else’s experience.

There is a difference.

For a long time, I confused empathy with ownership.

If someone I loved was worried, I worried.

If someone had a problem, I immediately started trying to solve it.

If someone was uncomfortable, some part of me began working overtime trying to make them comfortable.

If someone was hurting, I hurt with them—and then sometimes kept hurting long after they had moved on.

I thought being loving meant entering the emotional room with someone and then moving in permanently.

Apparently, I had no checkout time.

Now I am learning something different.

I can enter the room.

I can sit beside someone.

I can listen.

I can care.

I can offer love.

And then I can leave the room without stealing their luggage.

That’s not mine.

What Happens When Someone You Love Is Upset?

I have started using this with Willy.

He can tell me something that is upsetting him, and I can listen.

Really listen.

I can feel empathy for what he is experiencing.

But now I sometimes take a breath and quietly remind myself:

That’s not mine.

I do not have to spend the next three hours thinking about it.

I do not have to fix it.

I do not have to find the perfect solution.

I do not have to replay the conversation while brushing my teeth, feeding the animals, taking a shower, gardening, and possibly sleeping.

Revolutionary concept, apparently.

I can simply allow him to have his experience.

And I can have mine.

Sometimes I think we try to fix the people we love because their discomfort makes us uncomfortable.

If they are okay, then we can relax.

So we soothe, manage, anticipate, explain, repair, mediate, and solve.

And sometimes that looks like love.

But underneath it may also be this:

I need you to be okay so that I can be okay.

“That’s not mine” gives me a little space.

Not a wall.

Not distance.

Space.

Enough space to ask:

What belongs to me here?

What Kate Is Teaching Me

I have shared this phrase with my niece Kate.

She is smart, funny, strong, capable, and deeply sensitive.

She also learned very young to pay attention to the emotional temperature of a room.

When you grow up around volatility or emotional unpredictability, noticing everyone else can become a form of protection.

Who is upset?

Who needs something?

Is everyone okay?

Should I say something?

Should I stay quiet?

How can I keep the peace?

A child can become extraordinarily skilled at reading a room.

That sensitivity can become a gift.

But it can also become exhausting.

Because eventually the child grows up, but the protector inside may continue believing:

If everyone else is okay, then I am safe.

So when Kate tells me about something happening around her, sometimes I can hear that old protector stepping forward.

And I remind her:

Take a breath.

That’s not mine.

Not because the other person doesn’t matter.

Because she matters too.

She is allowed to notice another person’s emotion without becoming responsible for it.

She is allowed to love someone without regulating them.

She is allowed to be kind without abandoning herself.

And honestly, I think every time I remind her, I am reminding myself too.

Sensitivity Is Not the Problem

For years, I thought perhaps I wasn’t really an empath because I didn’t experience things the same way other people described them.

Now I wonder if I simply didn’t recognize my sensitivity because it had always been there.

Like asking a fish when it first noticed water.

I had spent my entire life swimming in other people’s emotional weather.

No wonder I didn’t notice it was weather.

I thought it was the atmosphere.

Now I am learning that sensitivity itself is not the problem.

The problem is believing that everything I feel belongs to me.

Or that noticing someone’s pain means I must fix it.

Or that loving someone means carrying whatever they are carrying.

It doesn’t.

I am learning a different kind of empathy.

One with boundaries.

One with breath.

One with discernment.

One where I can stay open without becoming overwhelmed.

What “That’s Not Mine” Is Teaching Me

“That’s not mine” does not mean:

I don’t care.

It means:

I can care without carrying.

I can love without absorbing.

I can listen without becoming responsible.

I can be present without fixing.

That distinction has changed something fundamental in me.

Because when I know what is mine and what isn’t, I am actually more available to love.

I am not secretly trying to manage you.

I am not trying to make your feelings disappear.

I am not turning your story into my burden.

I can simply be with you.

Sometimes the most loving thing I can do is sit beside someone and trust that they are capable of having their own experience.

And sometimes the most loving thing I can do for myself is quietly say:

That’s not mine.

You May Be Wondering…

How do I know if I am carrying something that isn’t mine?

Notice what happens after you leave the conversation.

Are you still replaying it?

Trying to solve it?

Feeling responsible?

Feeling guilty?

Imagining everything that could go wrong?

Your body may tell you before your mind does.

Tight shoulders.

A heavy chest.

A clenched stomach.

Restlessness.

Urgency.

You might simply pause and ask:

Is this mine?

Not Do I care?

Not Is this important?

Just:

Does this belong to me?

What if I really do want to help?

Help when help is yours to give.

Listen.

Offer support.

Ask what the person needs.

But notice the difference between helping and taking ownership.

You can hand someone an umbrella without deciding you are personally responsible for stopping the rain.

Does saying “That’s not mine” make me selfish?

I don’t think so.

I think sometimes it allows us to love more cleanly.

There is nothing selfish about recognizing:

Your feelings belong to you. My feelings belong to me. And we can still love each other very deeply.

An Invitation Inward

What are you carrying right now that might not actually belong to you?

When someone you love becomes upset, what happens inside your body?

Do you feel responsible for making other people feel better?

Where did you learn that keeping everyone else okay was part of your job?

And what might change if, just once, you noticed what was happening, took a slow breath, and whispered to yourself:

That’s not mine.

Not as rejection.

Not as indifference.

As remembrance.

I can love you without carrying you.

May you see the world through the eyes of love, remembering that we are all part of one living, sacred whole.