The Mystery Behind Your Overwhelming Reactions​

Why You Feel & How to Transform It

Sarah came home from work excited to share news about her promotion. But when she walked into the kitchen, her partner Jake was standing by the sink, shoulders tense, staring at a stack of unpaid bills.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Everything okay?”

Jake turned toward her, and she could see the disappointment etched across his face. “I thought I had enough in savings to cover these, but I miscalculated. I’m really disappointed in myself.”

That’s all he said. He wasn’t blaming her. He wasn’t even asking her to fix anything. Just sharing his own frustration with his mistake.

But something happened inside Sarah’s chest. It tightened like a fist. Her face flushed hot. This wasn’t just concern for Jake—this was volcanic panic, like she had personally caused a catastrophe.

Her mind raced: “I should have checked the bills earlier. I should have helped him with the budget. I should have seen this coming.” Her body was coiling with urgent energy, ready to fix everything immediately.

Jake had no idea about the emotional storm happening three feet away from him. Sarah stood there, hands shaking, wondering why such a simple moment felt like an emergency.

If you’ve ever had a moment like this, I want you to know something: You’re not overreacting. You’re not too sensitive. And you’re definitely not broken.

What’s happening in your body makes perfect sense. Let me show you why.

When Your Empathic Heart Makes Everything Feel Bigger

If you’re highly empathic, you know this experience. Sarah wasn’t just observing Jake’s disappointment—she was absorbing it, feeling his frustration and self-criticism as if it were her own. His emotion merged with hers until she couldn’t tell where his feelings ended and hers began.

For highly sensitive people (HSPs), this emotional absorption isn’t a choice—it’s how your system processes information. Sarah was carrying both her own panic AND Jake’s actual disappointment. Two separate emotional loads, merged into one overwhelming experience.

Maybe you’ve been told to “just set boundaries” or “don’t take things so personally.” But here’s what I want you to understand: This isn’t about being too sensitive. Your system is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The real question is: Why did his disappointment feel like proof that she had failed him? Why was her body acting like she was under attack when he was just sharing a normal human struggle?

There’s an answer. And it’s not the one most people talk about.

But For Some Empaths, There’s Something Deeper…

If boundaries, grounding, and shielding techniques help you manage your empathic absorption, that’s wonderful. Keep using what works.

But if you’ve tried all the traditional empath tools and still find yourself having volcanic reactions that feel way out of proportion—if someone else’s mild disappointment sends you into urgent panic—I want you to know: there’s nothing wrong with you.

There might just be an additional layer at play. Not every empath has this layer. But for those who do, understanding it changes everything.

The real question for you might be: “Why does absorbing someone else’s disappointment trigger volcanic panic in my body? Why does it feel like an emergency I must fix immediately? Why can’t I just observe their emotion without needing to change it?”

If this resonates—if you’re nodding your head right now—stay with me.

What I’m about to share is something most empaths never discover.

The Inner Child: A Deeper Layer For Some Empaths

For some empaths like Sarah, something ancient activates when they absorb others’ emotions. A part that formed when they were very young—a part that learned specific strategies for handling the overwhelm of absorbing everyone’s feelings.

This is your inner child. The part of your psyche that holds your earliest learning about how to stay safe and loved in the world.

Not every empath has inner child wounds amplifying their absorption. But if your reactions feel disproportionate—if they feel like they’re coming from somewhere else entirely—this might be why.

And here’s what I need you to hear: that younger part of you did what they had to do to survive. They figured out how to make it through in a world where they were drowning in everyone else’s emotions.

When Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Forgot

Let me paint you a picture of what was really happening for Sarah in that moment.

Our nervous systems constantly scan for familiar patterns, comparing every new experience to stored memories.

When Sarah saw Jake’s disappointment, her nervous system instantly searched her memory banks. What did disappointment mean in her childhood?

Here’s the crucial part: Sarah was an empathic child. She didn’t just observe disappointment in the people around her—she FELT it. She absorbed their disappointment, their frustration, their pain as if it were her own. And as a small child, she had no idea how to handle the overwhelming flood of emotions that weren’t even hers.

Can you imagine that? Being five years old, feeling your mother’s sadness like it’s living in your own chest? Absorbing your father’s stress until your small body is coiled with tension you don’t understand?

The only way young Sarah found relief from absorbing everyone’s overwhelming emotions was to fix them. If she could make them feel better, she wouldn’t have to feel their pain anymore. If she could prevent their disappointment before it happened, she could protect herself from drowning in their absorbed emotions.

This wasn’t a choice. This was survival.

So her nervous system didn’t just process Jake’s words as his normal struggle with money. It processed them as: “Alert! I’m absorbing his disappointment! This is overwhelming! I need to fix this NOW so I can stop feeling it!”

This is why Sarah’s reaction felt volcanic. Her nervous system was responding not just to Jake’s disappointment in the present, but to the accumulated weight of every childhood moment when she absorbed someone’s pain and had no way to stop feeling it except by making them feel better.

If you’ve ever felt this—if you’ve ever had a reaction that seemed to come from nowhere and felt way too big for the situation—I want you to take a breath right now.

Your body isn’t broken. Your body is remembering.

The Part of You That Never Stopped Protecting

When you were small and empathic, you were absorbing everyone’s emotions constantly. Your young mind was desperately trying to figure out: How do I stop feeling all of this overwhelming emotional pain that isn’t even mine?

Your younger self discovered that if you could make the important people in your life feel better, you could get relief from absorbing their emotions. Maybe your inner child learned that if you prevented everyone’s discomfort, you wouldn’t have to feel their pain flooding through your system. Maybe they learned that fixing others’ struggles immediately meant you could escape from drowning in their absorbed emotions.

These weren’t conscious decisions. They were survival strategies—the only way an empathic child knew how to protect themselves from constant emotional overwhelm.

And here’s the tender part: that inner child never stopped working. Even though you’re an adult now, that young part of you is still running the same protective program: “When I feel someone else’s pain (because I’m absorbing it), I must fix it immediately to make this overwhelming feeling stop.”

“Your inner child whispers: ‘I learned this was the only way to stop drowning. I’m still here, still trying to keep us safe the only way I know how.'”

I know this might be a lot to take in. You might be feeling something shift in your chest right now, some recognition of truth you’ve always known but couldn’t name.

That’s your inner child. They’ve been trying to reach you for so long.

Why Your Empathic Absorption Feels So Overwhelming: The Double Load

Recognizing Your Inner Child’s Loving Patterns

These aren’t random reactions—they’re specific strategies your younger self developed based on what they learned about love and safety.

Sarah’s intense reaction was her inner child’s version of The Love Guardian—the part that learned to scan constantly for signs someone might be hurt and rush in to fix everything before the pain could really land.

You might recognize different patterns:

The Harmony Keeper—springs into action the moment someone seems even slightly upset. Your body floods with urgency and you’ll do anything to make it right, even sacrificing your own needs. This part learned that fixing everyone’s emotions immediately was the only way to stop absorbing their overwhelming pain.

The Approval Seeker—drives you to work twice as hard as everyone else, believing that perfect performance will prevent anyone from feeling disappointed (which you’d then have to absorb). Even small mistakes feel overwhelming because this part learned that preventing others’ negative emotions was the only way to protect yourself from drowning in them.

The Emotional Radar—always scanning rooms, reading everyone’s energy before you even walk in. You know who’s upset before they do. This part learned that predicting emotions before they happened gave you time to prepare or prevent the overwhelm of absorbing them.

The Preemptive Fixer—solves problems before anyone even knows they exist. Anticipates needs three steps ahead. This part learned that preventing struggles entirely meant never having to absorb anyone’s stress or disappointment.

These patterns aren’t problems—they’re survival strategies. Each one was your empathic inner child’s way of not drowning in everyone else’s absorbed emotions.

Can you see it now? Can you see what that younger part of you had to do? They figured out exactly what they needed to do to survive. And they’ve been protecting you ever since, even though the world has changed, even though you’re not small anymore.

The challenge is that these protective parts are still running the same programs today, still believing that fixing others is the only way to get relief from absorbing their pain.

“Your inner child has been holding your emotional safety in their tender hands, waiting for the moment when you’d understand their devoted protection.”

Working With Your Inner Child Instead of Against Them

Here’s where everything shifts.

Once you can recognize these patterns, you can start to catch the moment BEFORE you’re fully flooded. Sarah learned to notice the physical cues—the chest tightening, the hand shaking, the hot flush. These weren’t just anxiety symptoms. They were her inner child’s alarm system turning on.

When she could catch that split second before the panic took over, she had a choice she didn’t have before.

And I want you to have that choice too.

This shift in awareness changes everything. When you feel that surge of panic about someone’s disappointment, you can identify it as your inner child saying: “I’m absorbing their pain again! Remember when this felt unbearable? I’m trying to fix them so we don’t have to keep feeling it!”

“Your inner child has been trying to reach you through these patterns, speaking a language you’re finally ready to understand.”

The healing happens when you can distinguish between what’s yours and what you’ve absorbed—not just in the present moment, but also recognizing the absorbed emotions from your past.

Let me say that again because it’s important: In that kitchen moment, Sarah was carrying two separate emotional loads. Her own panic from her inner child pattern (which came from absorbing overwhelming emotions as a child) AND Jake’s actual disappointment that she’d absorbed in the present.

Two different absorbed emotions. One from the past, one from now. Both merged together in her body until she couldn’t breathe.

Until she could separate these, her nervous system treated them as one massive overwhelming experience. This is why ‘just being gentle with yourself’ doesn’t work for empaths with this layer—you’re not just soothing one wounded part, you’re untangling two completely different emotional experiences (past absorbed emotions + present absorbed emotions) that your system has merged together.

I know this is complex. I know it might feel like a lot. But stay with me, because what comes next is the part that changes everything.

This doesn’t mean your reactions will disappear overnight. Your nervous system has been running this protection program for years.

Sarah still felt the panic surge when Jake looked disappointed. But now she could identify it: “This is my Love Guardian pattern activating. This tightness in my chest is partly mine, partly absorbed from Jake. My body thinks this is an emergency, but my adult self knows it’s not.”

That recognition didn’t stop the reaction, but it gave her a foothold to work from instead of being completely swept away.

And over time, with practice, Sarah learned to:

• Distinguish between absorbed emotions and her own

• Build boundaries that let her observe others’ feelings without drowning in them

• Reassure her inner child that she doesn’t need to fix everyone to feel safe

• Allow others to have their own emotional experiences without urgently intervening

The patterns didn’t disappear overnight, but they became manageable. Workable. Less overwhelming.

And that’s what I want for you too.

What This Means for You

If you’ve ever wondered “why do I feel everything so deeply?”—it might be just your empathic nature. And that’s okay. There are tools and practices that can help you manage absorption without needing to go deeper.

But if you’ve tried all the surface-level tools and still feel volcanic reactions, your empathic system and inner child patterns might both be amplifying every experience. If that’s you, this deeper work might be what finally helps.

The next time you feel that overwhelming reaction—the surge of panic, the urgent need to fix everything—pause and notice the physical sensations first. Where do you feel it in your body? Is your chest tight? Are your hands shaking?

These physical cues are your first clue that your inner child’s protection system has activated.

And here’s the crucial piece for empaths with this inner child layer: Ask yourself, “How much of what I’m feeling right now is absorbed from the other person, how much is my inner child’s old pain from the past, and how much is actually mine?” Your inner child’s panic about absorbing pain is different from the other person’s actual emotion, even though your empathic system has merged them into one overwhelming experience.

The good news: You can learn to work with this. You can build boundaries. You can distinguish what’s yours from what you’ve absorbed. You can reassure your inner child that you have adult tools now—you don’t need to fix everyone to protect yourself from overwhelm.

This is the beginning of a different kind of healing—one that honors your empathic nature while also addressing the deeper patterns that might be amplifying it.

Work With Your Inner Child Through Energy Healing

If you’d like support in transforming these overwhelming reactions and untangling what’s yours from what you’ve absorbed, I work with empaths through empath healing and inner child sessions. These sessions combine energy healing with gentle inner child work designed specifically for your sensitive system.

Book an Inner Child Session