The Healers & Empath's Guide to holding space without absorbing.

Elizabeth Powell
Dec 18, 2025
6 min read

This is one of the biggest questions I get from clients:

How can I help someone else without absorbing their emotions?

Empaths are sensitive souls who have a unique capacity to absorb others’ emotional, mental, or spiritual energies and then transmute them for another person. The problem arises when empaths are unaware they are doing this, or when they are aware but mistake this energy as their own — or worse, see it as their responsibility to heal another person through absorption.

Absorption becomes harmful when boundaries are replaced with responsibility.

The good news is that there is a way to hold space for another person without absorbing energy to your detriment. This is something I struggled with my entire life, and it became a serious issue at the beginning of my Reiki practice.

What My Reiki Practice Taught Me About Holding Space

Early on, I began to notice that I would start feeling and experiencing emotions, fears, or struggles that I didn’t normally deal with — sometimes weeks before a client would even show up for their appointment. Eventually, I realized that I was beginning to receive their spiritual energy before the session ever took place.

As my practice grew, there was no way I could continue like this. The cost was too high. I was exhausted, emotionally overwhelmed, and losing clarity around what was mine versus what wasn’t.

Something had to change.

Holding Space for Trauma Requires Safety, Not Fixing

I noticed early in my Reiki career that many of the women coming to me — especially Christian women — were carrying deep trauma. This included trauma related to abortion (before or after), spiritual abuse from dogmatic religious systems, and emotional turmoil tied to shame, fear, and confusion.

It was easy for me to relate, as I too have had multiple experiences with extreme trauma. And in those moments when clients were brave enough to share these experiences with me, I noticed two things that mattered more than anything else.

First, the client needed to feel safe enough to rediscover the power of their vulnerability.Second, I, as the practitioner, needed to create that environment by embodying my Divine Feminine and holding steady presence for them.

This was difficult for me at first. As an empath, I wanted to fix their fear, sadness, turmoil, shame, and confusion. After all, they were coming to me for healing.

But this desire led me to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.

The Biggest Mistake Empathic Healers Make

The biggest mistake I made was trying to intuitively or psychically read the person so I would know how to help them. This created an energetic entanglement that I would get wrapped up in, and it would take me forever to get out of.

My own guides helped me understand something crucial:

“A person in this triggered state isn't looking to be psychically ‘read’ to be fixed. Doing that is energetically invasive and counterproductive to the goal.”

It was my ego wanting to go into the person’s energy to read it and present intuitive solutions — to fulfill my own attachments to being needed.

What they were actually looking for was a person who would help them sit with their discomfort and remind them that what they were feeling and went through wasn’t too scary or too much for me to witness and hold space for.

That required me to learn one of the most helpful things in my career:to push my own desire to be needed, good enough, or to earn connection by fixing — to the side.

Why Fixing Others Keeps Them Stuck

By trying to fix, what I was actually doing was enabling the other person to continue in their victimization instead of seeing that they had the power to move through tough emotions and pain themselves.

My job was not to flex my intuitive muscle. My job was to hold space effectively and allow Reiki energy to ground and heal the client.

Even if you aren’t attuned to Reiki, holding space this way is incredibly empowering. It teaches both people something essential:

Your value isn’t what you can do for others. Your value comes from your sheer existence on this planet and the light of healing you carry that is uniquely yours.

Effective Listening Without Judgment

Listening and hearing are two very different things.

Many people hear what someone says and immediately apply their own viewpoints — “Here’s what I would do or Here is what I did.” This often comes from a genuine desire to help or comfort.

But when I truly listened to women grappling with abortion decisions, I could actually see the person. I put my judgments to the side and offered what they truly needed: compassion.

I saw women wrestling between their intuition and their mind — knowing something was right for them even when it went against their upbringing, religious conditioning, family expectations, or societal norms. That inner conflict creates deep confusion and shame.

When they asked me what I thought, or what their guides were saying, the same message always came through:

“Don’t hand us your power to decide. Your own power of free will and decisions is your sovereignty. That needs to stay in your hands. We are here to support you, not choose for you.”

My opinions didn’t matter. What mattered was embodying that same supportive, non-invasive energy.

That is where real healing happened — not because I absorbed their pain, but because I didn’t.

When Empathy Turns Into Self-Abandonment

There has to be a point where empaths decide and learn that healing another person is not their responsibility.

What’s often called killer empathy happens when we prioritize someone else’s emotional survival over our own — even energetically. We may understand why someone is hurting, dumping, or crossing boundaries, but when that understanding becomes a reason to enable the behavior or avoid boundaries, we begin spiritually bypassing ourselves.

This is where empathy can quietly slip into shadow.

Not because someone is bad or harmful — but because unmet needs begin to operate underneath the helping.

If you notice that fixing someone else’s trauma gives you a sense of importance, worth, or connection, it’s worth pausing. When another person’s pain becomes a way to soothe your own wounds, the energy subtly shifts from presence into exchange.

This isn’t healing. It’s an unconscious power dynamic — and it doesn’t create safety for either person.

This is not about shame. It’s about awareness.

True healing asks us to look at why we don’t feel valuable unless we’re offering something, fixing something, or earning connection through over giving. Until we do that work, empaths often find themselves surrounded by people who come for something — not genuine relationship.

How Empaths Can Hold Space Without Absorbing Energy

When you notice someone struggling or venting, you can consciously or spiritually state:

My energy is mine. Your energy is yours. I am here to witness, not carry.

Holding space means standing fully in your own energetic sovereignty. That frequency alone creates a container that invites others to reconnect with their own power.

If they rise to meet it, beautiful. If they don’t, the rest is not your responsibility.

Use clarifying questions instead of offering Solutions. Clarifying questions help someone find their own truth without you entering their energy or taking responsibility for their outcome. Questions like this invites awareness while fixing statements impose direction.

This may look like this for example:

"What does your intuition say about this situation even if it doesn't make logical sense?"

"Are there any actions you can take to help your situation?"

"Have you told the other person how they made you feel?"

"What would it cost you (emotionally, mentally, or financially) to stay in the situation you are in now?

"What do you need to feel supported or grounded as you share this with me?"

Clarifying questions like this gently leads someone back to themselves instead of inviting them to become entangled energetically with you.

In the Moment:

If they say:“I don’t know what to do.”

Try this instead:“What feels most aligned for you right now?”

If they say:“Everything feels overwhelming.”

Try this instead:“What feels most overwhelming in this moment?”

If they say:“What do you think I should do?”

Try this instead:“What does your intuition say?”

If they say:“I feel so stuck.”

Try this instead:“What feels like the smallest supportive step for you?”

How Human Design Helps Empaths Understand Absorption

Learning your Human Design can be incredibly helpful as an empath.

Human Design explains how your energy interacts with the world. In a chart, you’ll see colored centers and white (open) centers. Those open centers are where you’re more likely to absorb or amplify other people’s energy.

For example: