Trauma Bonding as an Empath | Episode 118: Syd the Expert
As an empath you can easily feel and understand the emotions and energy that other people are experiencing. Trauma bonding is when your relationship with someone strengthens because you find comfort in mutual pain.
In this episode of Carrying Connected Conversations Syd shares her expertise on emotional healing as a spiritual mentor and what that looks like for people who trauma bond as empaths. Ang brings forward great questions to better understand Syd’s point of view of what trauma bonding means and how trauma bonding affects your relationships. Syd leaves Ang and the listeners with a few great tips on how to remove trauma bonding in your relationships and what it means to emotionally detach yourself from your trauma.
Listen to the episode now to gain knowledge around trauma bonding and emotional healing as an empath.
You can continue reading about the conversation Syd & Ang had on the podcast through the transcript below.
Ang: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Carrying Connected Conversations. This is Angie chatting at you. Now if you guys listened to last week’s episode, I was the expert. This week we are doing things a little bit different because there are two hosts to our podcast. That means that Syd is going to be sharing her expertise in today’s conversation. I am so excited about this because I know a little bit about the topic, but obviously Syd is the expert, so I have a lot of questions that I am sure you listeners will relate to in regards to removing trauma bonding from your relationships as an empath. What? Mic drop. Such an interesting topic for today because I’m sure we have a lot of our empaths listening and I’m sure that we have all heard of this term trauma bonding. Before we even get into it, let’s buckle up, get your notepads out because Syd is going to be spewing out all the facts.
So, before we start, let’s check in with Syd. Syd, how are you doing today, my expert friend?
Syd: Hello, I am doing really really well. I am so excited to get into this topic today and to hear your questions, and to hopefully bring a little bit more knowledge on the topic to our listeners. Maybe some of our listeners kind of know the idea of trauma bonding, but maybe some of our listeners have no idea what that means and how it’s actually affecting their lives. So I am ready to jump in because this is something that I have experienced in my own life as an empath and had to learn how to remove trauma bonding in my own relationships, and it’s something that I recently worked through with a client of mine who had been experiencing trauma bonding in her relationships. I’m forming those experiences and my knowledge on this to bring this topic together.
Ang: I love it! Okay, so before we start then Syd, I’m going to ask you a simple question, for some of our listeners who have no idea what trauma bonding is. What is trauma bonding and why is it something to even be aware of?
Syd: I think that’s a great question because I think a lot of people don’t even understand how it’s affecting their lives because they don’t even understand that it’s a thing. Coming in from my expertise as an emotional wellness mentor and a spiritual mentor, I’m bringing in my definition of trauma bonding in that sense. So, to me, trauma bonding is when you have a relationship with someone, whether it’s a friend, family member, coworker, or whatever, and you both have experienced something in your life, maybe the same situation, maybe different situations, that have caused you pain. It could be emotional pain, mental pain, or physical pain, and you end up bonding over that experience that you had.
Here is an example: Ang, you and I used to work together. Let’s say we had a boss that we didn’t like. This is not true, we had great bosses at our job when we worked together, but let’s just say we had a boss we didn’t like. This boss was really emotionally putting everyone down, condescending, manipulative and not a kind person. If we were trauma bonding, we would get together and we would talk about that experience constantly, we would say how terrible it is, and we would hate on our boss together. We would vent and complain and gossip, and be in our victim mindset of how terrible the situation is and we are being emotionally affected by it. This would bond us and bring us closer together as friends. Our relationship is being built and strengthened off of something that actually hurts us. I think the second part of your question was why is this bad. What was it?
Ang: Well, it’s more about why is this something to be aware of, but before you even answer this Syd, I want to talk about what you said. I think this is something, especially for us women, let's be real here, we can all relate to. I know when I grew up, whether it was high school or middle school, we got to this idea of gossiping, then you get sucked into it. So, I’m loving how you explained trauma bonding. I want to know why is it something to be aware of, like the gossiping aspect of it, how does that change who you are, in knowing what trauma bonding is?
Syd: Yes, this is great because it brings something in with how trauma bonding affects you as a person, how it affects your relationships and how it affects the progress of your life. What I am talking about is the pain, the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual pain that you get from this situation. As an empath, the definition of an empath is somebody who easily understands and feels the emotions and energy of another person. So as an empath that has trauma bonding in your relationship, you are not only feeling your own pain from the emotions you experienced in that situation, but you are also feeling the emotional pain of the person you are bonding with. This affects the progression of your life and your relationship because what you are doing is clinging, attaching yourself emotionally, to the story that the two of you, or multiple of you, have created that carries very harsh, heavy energy.
If you think of something that caused you emotional pain, it made you really angry, frustrated, sad, whatever it was that it made you feel, every single time you talk about that experience you are putting yourself back into those emotions. You are creating a stronger attachment to that terrible story and to those awful emotions. Then on top of that, anytime you are around that person, even if you are not talking about what you have trauma bonded over, that story is connecting you because the foundation of your relationship is built on trauma bonding. So, if they are having a terrible time in something, and it has nothing to do with what you trauma bonded over, you are already very emotionally attached to them and their experiences. You are able to feel them and their emotions on a very deep level.
What this means for your individual life, is you are going to have emotional waves that are very, very powerful with high highs and low lows. You are going to feel extremely unstable in your emotional waves.
Ang: Okay, so let’s be real, it’s difficult. It’s something I’ve been working on too and I’ve definitely had trouble with it, especially around not wanting to continuously talk about the issue. How would you explain this to somebody who is trying to remove themselves? How would you emotionally detach yourself while you are in the middle of the conversation?
Syd: This is the part that I think ends being a lot harder than what we expect. It ends up taking a lot more time. It’s not a flip of the switch where all of a sudden you become emotionally detached from this original trauma bonding so you are no longer affected when you are around these particular people. For a lot of the people that we have trauma bonded with, we don’t necessarily want to completely remove them from our lives. I say this because the majority of our trauma bonding actually happens in our family relationships without us even realizing.
This is because as a family we can go through really difficult experiences together. If you grew up in a family that was not well-off financially and maybe you had a lot of challenging experiences because your family didn’t have the finances to support you. You probably bonded with your siblings because the belief systems that had been created within you came from those family experiences. Your siblings and parents have the same belief systems. So you all bond on this idea of having financial struggles. We can’t just get rid of our family, especially for those of us that want to have loving and supportive relationships with our family. For those of us that are empaths, we want to be able to help our family. We want to help our family become successful.
So, how do you detach yourself emotionally so while you are in the middle of the conversation you’re not being affected? You are not actually going to be able to detach yourself emotionally while you are in the middle of a conversation. You detach yourself emotionally from the story you’ve created around the trauma, in your own time and in your own space.
First it’s about becoming aware. You have to recognize, oh shit I’m trauma bonding with this person, we are bonding, we are strengthening our relationship, we are finding connection off of something that doesn’t feel good. Ultimately what that means is that you have an emotional attachment to a story you’ve created in your mind that doesn’t feel good. You can’t change the past, so the only thing you can do is release that emotional attachment, heal the emotions that are attached to that story so anytime the story does come up, you are not being triggered. You’re not being emotionally triggered and you are actually able to say to yourself, “oh I remember this story, I remember how much pain it used to create for me. Now I am seeing it from a totally different space. I feel calm, peaceful and connected and I can move forward not reacting to my emotions, but actually responding from a calm, peaceful state.”
It’s about doing the inner work on your own, bringing awareness into that space, healing the emotional attachment and rewriting the story. This is how you begin the process of detaching yourself emotionally from the story so you are not triggered every single time you are with them or the topic comes up. Like I said, it’s a process and it takes time. If you are in the middle of working through your detachment and the conversation does come up the best thing you can do for yourself is change the subject. The best thing you can do for yourself is not continue to talk about the topic because you will easily be pulled back into your ways of trauma bonding. Then you’ll have to go home and do even more work to continue. Every single time the story comes up, you are adding to that emotional foundation.
How can you change the subject? Say you have to go to the bathroom. Remove yourself from the moment so there is time and space, when you come back from the bathroom you can start a new conversation by saying, “oh my gosh did I tell you about this super exciting thing that happened”, even if you already told that person about it. It’s really hard to change the subject in the middle of something, especially when you know that you are being triggered and you know you have a deep emotional attachment to the story. Finding different things to change the subject, being proactive and preparing yourself ahead of time is really impactful.
Ang: Absolutely! I love this. Now as someone that is an empath, as you said earlier, you really take on the emotions of someone else. So, let’s say you did end up trying to change the subject, maybe it didn’t go 100% according to plan, how can you help yourself after the fact? As an empath, being unsure if it’s your energy that you are holding onto or maybe it’s someone else's energy that you are holding onto.
Syd: Great question! This is a great, great question. I think as empaths, as people pleasers, as sensitive souls, we need to understand how we are affected by emotions and energy. We are affected by our own and we are affected by other people’s, whether we realize it or not. One of the things I teach when I am first working with clients is how often you actually think it’s your emotion but it’s most likely somebody else’s emotion that has attached onto you. As an empath, that is what we do, we give our light away, we give our compassion away and when we are not protecting our energy, we take on the energy of the other person, which then triggers our own difficult emotions.
What can you do after the fact? Love that question. Building awareness is always my number one lesson for everyone and every situation. The more aware you are the easier it’s going to be to remind yourself that you need to do something that is more supportive for your energy, your emotions, your healing, whatever. Building awareness is really about recognizing, “oh I’ve walked away and left that moment with that friend. I know we’ve trauma bonded in the past. I know that they were just venting about their situation with me, I don’t feel emotionally affected yet, but I know there is a good chance I can become emotionally affected. So, I’m going to take a moment right now to cleanse my energy.”
It’s awareness first, then cleanse your energy. There are so many different ways to cleanse your energy. I think what this really comes down to is, if you didn’t listen two weeks ago when our podcast came out it was a check in episode. I was sharing my experience about embodying my Higher Self and how it takes patience and slowing down. Cleansing your energy, releasing your energy, shifting your energy, uplifting your energy, all of that is energy. You can't think your way through it. You will not think your way to feeling better, you have to feel your way to feeling better. Cleansing your energy is not about thinking “I’m going to cleanse my energy”, it’s about dropping from your mind space into your heart space and tapping into how you feel right here right now.
A lot of things I work with in my 1:1 space, my membership and my group program, is while I’m on the call with my clients I say, “close your eyes if you feel like it you can keep them open if you want to, and take a couple of deep breaths, and feel into your body in this moment”. Then I ask a question and I ask how it makes them feel. It’s really about connecting to the way you feel the energy shift. You can feel it when your energy shifts, especially when it’s something outside of you that happens and all of a sudden you feel that energetic shift. What I work on with my clients is not waiting for something outside of you to create that energetic shift, but instead learning how to create that energetic shift for yourself.
Cleansing yourself can look like many different things and I’m not going to list them all here, you can look it up online. I have a few different blog posts about cleansing your energy on my website. That is what I would say, if you are walking away from that conversation and as an empath you know that you’ve most likely been affected by that person's emotions and energy, awareness comes first to know how you’ve been affected and cleansing your energy is the next step.
Ang: Syd I know you just gave our listeners somewhere to reference how to cleanse, but is there maybe a super simple step in cleansing your energy that you can give our listeners now before they head over to your blog.
Syd: The best thing you can do if you are new to cleansing your energy and you are new to shifting and transmuting your own energy from shadow to light is using water. The spirit behind water is extremely cleansing, it is a purifying tool. If you can, have a shower. Obviously, we can’t always have a shower if it’s in the middle of the day and you are out doing things, but the moment you get home and you have a minute, you don’t even need to be in the shower for that long. Being under the water as it pours over your head, taking a moment to drop into the way that you feel, feeling yourself rooted and connected to the earth and asking the water, “please cleanse my energy, wash away any of the energy or emotions that have attached onto me that are not mine”. That is where the awareness comes in, knowing you have most likely been affected by the situation you have moved through and you are allowing that energy to be cleansed away from you. As you are standing under the water, feel it, visualize it washing away any darkness, any heaviness.
If you can’t have a shower, then drinking a glass of water is another great technique. It’s about setting intentions into the water saying, “this water is cleansing me, it is purifying my energy”. If you can't do that, then visualizing water, doing a meditation that allows you to connect to some sort of water.
Ang: I love that. It’s funny you are talking about this idea of cleansing yourself with water because there was a time where I was 100% trauma bonding, and sure enough I had to leave. I ended up leaving and next thing you know, it was pouring rain and you know what I did?! I did not run to my car. I literally stood there with my arms wide open, palms facing up and I said, “you know what this is exactly what I needed, I need this to cleanse from that conversation”. It was very heavy and very emotionally draining, and literally being and feeling the rain drop touch my body, helped me move through that cleansing process that much smoother. It’s like you said, it’s hard to take a shower in the middle of the day, and to have that energy be removed from you. So if it’s raining, take that opportunity to sit in it.
Syd: Ya exactly. I think what you said is a great point to further what I was saying and a great reminder that because it does affect you, this energy that you are carrying, you don’t want to wait until the end of the day to cleanse your energy. Especially, if you are aware and you are recognizing it in the moment. If you are not aware until the end of the day, well there is nothing you can do about that. The moment you are aware, that is the moment for you to cleanse. It’s because if you don’t cleanse in that moment when you are aware, you will carry that energy with you throughout the rest of your day, throughout the rest of your interactions, throughout the rest of the actions that you take.
Something that I have noticed in my own life, if I have trauma bonded with someone, or even just as an empath if I have taken on somebody else’s energy, it can trigger my own fears and worries. If I am taking action throughout the rest of the day my mind is saying, “are you sure this is the right action, are you sure that this is what you are supposed to be doing right now, why are you resting, you should be doing this”, and there is so much judgment that moves through me. It’s not my judgment, it’s that I’ve picked up somebody else’s energy and it’s triggered my own wounds, its triggered my own fears and worries. This is why cleansing yourself the moment you are aware is really important because then you are able to get reconnected to yourself, you are able to feel aligned and you are able to lead yourself from a more uplifted and cleansed state.
Ang: Absolutely because then your mind isn’t going to be racing 100 miles a minute and you’re trying to figure out where this is all coming from.
Syd: Yes! So what you had said when you were standing out in the rain reminded me of the conversation we had two episodes ago, you created stillness for yourself. In that moment of connecting to the rain you allowed yourself to be still, you allowed yourself to be patient before rushing to the next moment and that was you embodying your Higher Self in that moment.
Ang: I love that. Now Syd, obviously what we are talking about, it's not, let me use this word lightly, it’s not “easy”. Let’s say we are in the middle of this scenario that has happened and we forget to cleanse ourselves. Obviously we need to find ways to remind ourselves, is there maybe any proactive steps that we can take?
Syd: Ya, definitely. I think you are right in the sense that it’s not easy. It’s always going to happen, not that trauma bonding is always going to happen because it’s not, but as an empath we are always picking up energy from everyone. That is always going to happen.
How can we be proactive in remembering to cleanse, remembering to be aware, remembering to support ourselves in order to live from a healthy, uplifted, aligned state? It really comes down to, what are you doing on a daily basis to feel connected to your Spirit. I’m not saying that you have to feel connected to the Universe, or God, or a Higher Power, or whatever that looks like for you. Again, I am a Spiritual Mentor, so I work with people who are spiritually inclined to be connected to the Universe, so if this is not your thing then what I am going to say is probably not going to resonate with you and that’s okay. You’re not the kind of person that I am here to work with. But for those of us that are open to being on a spiritual journey, what it comes down to is just as much as you prioritize your physical health and your mental health, how are you prioritizing your spiritual health and your spiritual wellness?
Are you meditating on a daily basis? Because if you are not, then that hamster wheel of thoughts is always going to control you. There are many different ways to meditate, you don’t have to sit in silence for it to be a meditation.
Are you journaling on a regular basis? You don’t have to journal every single day, but are you journaling at least once a week? Journaling is a way to build awareness, to check in with yourself, to learn how you’re feeling, what you are thinking, and how you’ve been affected by the situation you’ve been moving through. Journaling is about building self-awareness. I believe, especially as empaths, and I hate to use the word should, but I believe we should be cleansing ourselves on a daily basis. This comes from somebody, I’m pointing at myself, who didn’t, I didn’t cleanse myself on a daily basis and it affected me. So that is why, again I know I’m coming back to the episode we did two episodes ago, but that entire experience that I spoke about on that episode, it explains so much of where I am today and how I can share my expertise and how I want to help other people. If you show up for yourself on a daily basis, you show up for your energy, you learn how you are feeling because we are not always feeling uplifted, we are not always feeling high vibes, but you learn how to hold acceptance for yourself and compassion for yourself in that space. This is how you build awareness and it’s not that it becomes easier, but it starts to become more second nature. You have to be committed to that practice.
Ang: So if anything, I would almost say it’s safe to assume that we are, I want to use the word triggered. We are being triggered by taking on other people’s energy. It’s like we need to be assuming that we are taking on other people’s energies and then by building that self awareness on the daily, it’s going to help us in the difficult moments. If anything, if there is a proactive piece, it’s about what we are doing every single day in between the difficult moments, to help us in the difficult moments. Let’s be real, in the hard moments you’re not going to remember to cleanse yourself, to journal, to meditate, to this and that and the other thing, if you don’t do it every single day. We have to be doing it on our good days, so that way on our bad days we remember to do what makes us feel good.
Syd: Yes exactly. We are being triggered constantly and being triggered is not always a bad thing. As empaths, sensitive souls and people pleasers, this idea of being triggered, what it means is that you are picking up on the energy of the people around you and it is influencing you in your own energy. If you are having a conversation with someone and they are sharing their celebrations and they are super excited about something, you are being triggered, as in you are being influenced by their high vibes. You are going to walk away from that conversation feeling a very high vibe, and excited and motivated to take action on your own things, that’s one way of being triggered. Or if judgment is something that you are constantly working through, you are going to be triggered in a different way. You will be self-judging, saying “how come I’m not where they are, how come I’m not experiencing that”.
So, it’s how our beliefs are formed by the information we gather from our experiences and other people's experiences. Prioritizing stillness for yourself, meditating, journaling, working on your self-awareness, what you are doing is you are giving yourself time and space to tap back into who you are. Right, checking in to see if the energy I’ve picked up from Angie today, is it impacting me in a positive light and if it is it encouraging me to take action on something that is actually aligned with me or is it encouraging me to take action on something that she said that I think should take action, but it’s not actually aligned with me. So it’s really creating that space to tap back into yourself and tap back into your own intuition, but if you are carrying everyone else’s energy you are not going to be able to hear your intuition.
Ang: That is so well said Syd, and I am glad I asked that question. Now, before we close off our conversation today because let's be real, it has been super informative, so I hope you guys are all, including myself, having that pen consistently to paper and writing down some Ah-Ha moments; something that you can take away from this conversation, something that you can apply for your life, or maybe you have some new ideas on how you can cleanse your energy, what you can be doing proactively that feels good for you. Everyone has a way of doing things differently, so it's a matter of finding which way feels good for us in order for us to create positive outcomes in our life.
Before we close off Syd, I’d love it if you could summarize in about 30 seconds some of the major takeaways from this conversation today, about removing trauma bonding from our relationships as an empath.
Syd: I think ultimately what it comes down to is, as an empath we want the people around us to feel peace and to experience joy, because when we see the people around us experiencing joy then we get to experience joy. Everyone’s path is different and everyone is going to learn things at their own pace and everyone needs to do their own emotional healing. In order to remove trauma bonding from your relationships as an empath, the first sense is removing it for you so you can feel at peace, so you can feel more joy, so you are not being triggered by your own stories.
You are affected by your emotions and the other person’s emotions around that situation. It starts off with detaching yourself emotionally from the story, so you’re not triggered every single time you're with them or the topic comes up. As I said, cleansing yourself, using water to cleanse yourself when you’ve been around them or the conversation has come up. Building awareness through meditation and journaling because that’s really important. Ultimately, what all of this brings you to, is a space where you are able to hold compassion for that person and where they are in your life no matter where they are in their journey. This way if the conversation continues to come up, even after you are emotionally detached, you can hold compassion for them without trying to fix them, without trying to offer advice. You are holding compassion, you are walking away, cleansing your energy and then feeling at peace. Then they get to heal in their journey.
Ang: Yes! Thank you so much Syd! Thank you for sharing that and it is getting me really excited for next week’s conversation because we are going to have another check in episode. It is where we are sharing what we are learning and what we are moving through. Obviously we will have an episode for myself, Angie and then we will have another one for Syd. I’m excited for you guys to be tuning in next week because I have a strong feeling it’s going to be somewhat related to this topic that we chatted about today.
Thank you so much for sharing all your expertise today Syd, that was absolutely wonderful. Now before we close off is there any last piece of advice that you forgot to mention earlier that you think is super important for our listeners to learn that are either currently going through a trauma bonding experience in one of their relationships or they are having difficulties as an empath understanding those emotions.
Syd: I want everyone to walk away remembering to carry compassion for themselves. None of us are perfect, we all move through struggles, we all have challenges and judgment is real. The more we can learn to carry compassion for ourselves and the people around us, the easier things start to become.
The last point that I have for you, is if you are in a space where this conversation really resonates with you and you really want a sense of support on your journey, I am ready to work with you. If you consider yourself an empath and you are easily affected by the energy and emotions of your environment and you are wanting to master your energy, you are wanting to live a more peaceful life and you are wanting to feel empowered in the life you are choosing to live, you are the perfect candidate for my 1:1 mentoring offer. You can check out my website at the link below and I would love to connect with you. If you resonate with my story and anything that I offer there is a good chance that we are going to connect and we are going to be aligned on our journeys together. I would love to support you. If it doesn’t resonate, no worries, it’s all good.
That is what I want to leave everyone with, compassion, compassion, compassion.
Ang: I love that! I am definitely taking that in, for sure. I am so excited to be checking in next with either myself or you Syd, and sharing all the things we’ve been moving through. So for now until next episode, we are sending you so much love and we are excited to be chatting with you then. Bye everyone.
Syd: Bye!