The problem with empathy

When I'm feeling meh or otherwise uninspired, I like to randomly flip to a beloved book page (my favorite for this activity is Glennon Doyle's Untamed) and read the found words as if they are a personal inscription.  Just for that day.  Just for me.   Another tactic I use is to find the same date, but years' past in my own journal writing.  Today I'm sharing my inner ('bout to be internet out eek!) dialogue on problematic empathy.

I think I glimpse my empathetic dilemma.  I was shown that other people's pain is more important than my own.  Calming that pain and helping others with it was more noble, a higher calling than maintaining my own sense of contentment, peace, and self-love.  That in order to "help" or to truly FEEL was to feel others emotions deeper than my own. 
Other people's pain and sorrow is  not helped by sacrificing my own inner love, peace, joy, and contentment.  I can have empathy without prioritizing that pain over my own calm.  

Flash forward 3 years and lots of therapy later, I can see the hallmarks of codependency.  As I clarify for my coaching clients, I am not a therapist and free example based therapy is not really my point in posting this. 

Rather I think this message found me today to remind me that anything, even something as well-intentioned as empathy, can be destructive without balance and perspective.  A weapon formed when a tool was all that is needed.