How to Stay Grounded When Other People’s Emotions Affect You

Years ago, I used to associate myself with people who drained my energy. I guess you can call these toxic or negative people. These people, in particular, were very judgmental, they were angry a lot, and didn’t have many goals and dreams of their own. I remember always feeling disconnected from myself and feeling sad for no reason. Well, there was a reason I just didn’t put two and two together at the time. 

Later on, I learned that part of the reason was that I wasn’t grounded within myself, so it became easier for other people’s emotions to affect me. 

What does being grounded mean? It means that you trust yourself. That you are present and you can healthily manage your emotions. It also means that you have mental clarity and you feel safe within yourself. 

In this post, I will explain why other people’s emotions affect us and some tips on how to stay grounded within yourself. 

Why Others’ Emotions Affect Us

Have you ever been around someone always happy (not saying that it’s a bad thing)? And on the contrary, have you been around someone who is always complaining or always upset? How did you feel around these people? I am almost certain that being around a happy person uplifts your mood. And being around the complainer and angry person didn’t keep you in the best of spirits. This is because our emotions are contagious. Our moods spread very quickly, even when you make a conscious effort for them to not let them affect you. 

Another reason other people’s emotions affect us is due to childhood trauma or conditioning. If you grew up in an environment where paying attention to an adult’s feelings, such as a guardian getting upset very quickly, then you were probably more likely to watch out for their feelings. Or maybe you felt like you were walking on eggshells. This could have taught your body and nervous system to stay alert to these feelings to keep you safe and calm.

As humans, we naturally care about others and yearn for connections with others. We want to understand other people’s emotions and get along with others.

Since many of us consume social media, we come across many posts that can trigger a range of emotions. 

There are posts that talk about sad things going on in the world and bad things that are happening to people, to give a few examples. Always being exposed to these types of posts is another reason why other people’s emotions can affect us. Even when we do our best, it affects us. When our subconscious mind is exposed to something over and over again, it will begin to absorb it and view the information as true.  

• You feel drained after certain interactions and anxious 
• It’s becoming hard for you to determine your emotions vs someone else’s 
• You have physical signs like headache, tension, fatigue
• Reacting and thinking too much 

When you are not grounded with yourself, you can give other people too much power. In other words, you let other people determine how you feel. For example, if someone calls you out of your name and you get upset about it, then you have just given that person power. You gave them the power to upset you, which is exactly what they wanted to do. Being grounded allows you to respond and not react.

Not being grounded in yourself may lead to stress and being mentally tired. This can make it easy for you to forget about your own needs and neglect yourself. This is another thing that I neglected to do for my healing journey, and I cannot stress how important it is to take care of yourself. 

Not being grounded in yourself can make you indecisive. When you have a hard time making decisions, this can be a sign that you aren’t listening to your intuition. We as women have a strong intuition, and in my opinion, our intuition is right 99.999% of the time. Okay, maybe I’m a little biased when it comes to that, but speaking for myself, it hasn’t let me down yet.
It can cause you to hold on to hurt feelings and form thoughts that can be harmful to your well-being.  

Energetic boundaries are invisible lines that we draw to protect our energy and emotions. This can look like doing visualization exercises, where you close your eyes and visualize a white bubble around you, for example. 

When you do this you are speaking the language of your subconscious mind, which begins to teach you to protect yourself on an energetic level. 

Another energetic boundary could be limiting habits that drain your energy and limit time spent with toxic people. It could also be saying no to people who continue to ask for favors and people who feel entitled to your stuff. Ive been there. It’s super annoying. These people need to be told no. 

The more you understand what you need, the easier it will be to create and stick with the new boundaries that you are setting for yourself. 

This is going to require you to be real with yourself. Checking in with yourself will help you be more aware of how you are feeling and respond appropriately to the situation. Ask yourself these questions: 

• Are these my feelings, or are they coming from somewhere else? 
• What triggered this emotion?
• How is my body feeling right now? Is it tense, heavy, tired, etc? 

Take deep breaths and slow down. Slowly breathe in through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. Repeat it about 3-5 times. 

You can also incorporate meditation into the mix, even if it’s only five minutes a day. If you are a beginner, you can start with a guided meditation session where the narrator walks you through breathing and visualization exercises. When I first started, this was the one I used. It’s gentle and only 5 minutes, and it helped me a lot. 

We briefly talked about social media earlier and how it plays a role in our being affected by other people’s emotions. Social media can be used for entertainment, education, and inspiration. Depending on how you use it and what and who you’re following can determine how it will affect you. Always consuming negative content can yield a negative mind, and the opposite is true for positive and uplifting content. 

 If you need to go on a social media detox, I challenge you to do so. I love to do social media detoxes at least four times a year. 

When we look outside of ourselves to make us feel good, we open ourselves up to getting hurt, especially in relationships. Not everyone has good intentions (I’m not saying everyone is out to get us either). People have their own situations going on.

Understand that you are enough. You don’t need anyone else to tell you how great a person you are or how beautiful you are. When you accept your own positive feelings and thoughts, you begin to validate yourself. At the end of the day, you are either your greatest enemy or your greatest ally.

You decide. 

I always advocate for getting some type of movement every day. We all know the greatness of moving your body and exercising. Outside of the physical benefits, movement is an act of self-care. It can be whatever you enjoy like dancing, stretching, walking, or doing a sport. 

There are many other self-care practices you can do. Whatever it is, make an effort to do it every day, even if it’s just for 10 minutes a day, and watch how you begin to feel. 

When I was going through my healing journey, I had to change my way of thinking. I had to separate other people’s emotions from how I felt. Seeing other people’s emotions as their own, I had to understand that it is not a reflection of me. You can practice empathy without letting other people’s emotions and circumstances affect you.

• Which of my feelings are truly mine today?
• What emotions did I pick up from someone else?
• What are some things that are within my control? 
• When do I feel most like myself?
• How can I release what isn’t mine right now?
• What do I need to do right now to feel at peace and centered?

Learning to stay grounded and being grounded is a practice. When you protect your energy and peace, that’s a form of self-care. You have the power to be centered and trust yourself fully. 

What’s one small step you can take today to protect your energy and stay grounded?