If you’re a heart-led leader, chances are you’ve felt the weight of others’ emotions more than once.
You’re sensitive.
You care deeply.
And your ability to hold space is part of your sacred gift.
But here’s the catch:
Holding space doesn’t mean holding it all.
Today we explore:
🌿 Why empaths and intuitive leaders so often carry too much
🌿 How to distinguish between supporting others and absorbing their emotions
🌿 A gentle practice to help you clear and return to your own center
Because your greatest leadership strength comes from leading with your own energy — grounded, clear, and aligned.
You’re not here to carry the world on your shoulders.
You’re here to lead from the place where your light shines brightest.
The Weight of Unconscious Holding
As an empath, you likely know what it’s like to walk into a room and feel the tension before a single word is spoken.
You can sense the unspoken, hear the emotion behind the silence, and often absorb it before you realize what’s happening.
It’s beautiful.
But it can also be exhausting.
Many empaths and intuitive leaders unconsciously carry the emotional residue of others: their sadness, their fears, their expectations.
And when that happens without awareness or boundaries, your system can start to feel:
- Drained without knowing why
- Responsible for fixing things that aren’t yours to fix
- Foggy, unfocused, and energetically disoriented
This is the empath’s dilemma: How do I hold space for others without holding it all within me?
Leading with Energetic Sovereignty
Here’s the sacred reframe:
Your gift is not in absorbing everything.
Your gift is in witnessing with compassion and leading with clarity.
Energetic sovereignty is the capacity to feel deeply without merging completely. It’s the leadership art of standing grounded in your own center, even as you hold space for others.
This is not disconnection.
It’s deeper connection.
Because when you’re grounded in you, the space you offer is actually more spacious, more stable, more trustworthy.
A Gentle Practice to Clear & Re-Center
If you feel like you’ve been energetically entangled with others, here’s a simple practice I use to clear and come back to center:
- Pause and place a hand on your body. Your heart, your belly, wherever feels most grounding.
- Breathe and ask inwardly: “Is this mine to carry?”
- Visualize releasing anything that’s not yours. Let it flow gently out of your body, into the earth, or back to its rightful place.
- Say aloud or whisper:
“I return to myself now. I trust others to walk their path, and I choose to walk mine, grounded and whole.”
This isn’t selfishness.
This is sacred self-honoring.
My dear, your ability to hold space is powerful. But your power is not in your absorption. It’s in your alignment.
This week, let that be your gentle practice:
to witness without wearing,
to lead without losing yourself,
to be fully present and fully sovereign.
With my all,
Paula
xx