For a long time, I believed that caring deeply meant absorbing other people’s pain. I thought being a compassionate person required emotional sacrifice. Staying up late worrying, saying yes when I needed to say no, and feeling responsible for everyone else’s healing.
Eventually, I realized the way things were going was not sustainable. I was emotionally overloaded, disconnected from myself and questioning my own worth because of my limitations.
That’s when I began exploring trauma-informed self-care and nervous system regulation. I learned that empathy doesn’t have to come at the cost of mental and emotional health and well-being.
Through a concept called care circuit activation, I discovered that it’s possible to “care without carrying.” That is, to show up with warmth, kindness and love while staying grounded in my own body, meeting my own needs, too.
The Cost of Over-Caring
There was a time when I measured my worth by how much I could give. If I wasn’t helping someone, solving something, or producing value, I felt uneasy. Like I was being lazy or indulgent and as though I wasn’t enough, just being me.
The needs of others kept growing, and I kept trying to meet them. But no matter how much I gave, it never felt adequate. I was tired, overwhelmed, emotionally stretched, and questioning both my worth and whether I deserved to do what I needed to recover.
How could I, and still meet the needs of everyone else?
This kind of caregiving pressure doesn’t always come with a clear breaking point. It builds slowly. The texts, phone calls and emails you feel obligated to answer, the never ending requests for volunteers at work and in the community, through the guilt of saying no, through the belief that your value is tied to being useful.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was experiencing compassion fatigue.
I could still function. But inside, I felt like I was losing access to the part of me that could care for others and myself freely, without fear or exhaustion. Learning about compassion fatigue and compassion fatigue recovery gave me a name for what I was feeling and ultimately, it helped me to overcome those desperate feelings of inadequacy that had become all the more frequent.
What Compassion Fatigue Feels Like in the Body
Before I understood what compassion fatigue was, I experienced all the physical symptoms. My shoulders were tight even though I didn’t think I was stressed. My breath stayed shallow, like I was bracing for something. Ready to run a race at any moment.
I woke up tired, even after a full night’s sleep. And I often felt a strange mix of urgency and heaviness. Like I needed to do more but couldn’t quite move.
These are common signs of stress in general, but also of emotional overload. To differentiate between burnout and compassion fatigue, you need to listen to the signals your body is sending you.
You might notice:
- Tension in the jaw, neck, or shoulders that doesn’t ease with rest.
- Digestive changes like bloating, nausea, or loss of appetite.
- Sleep disruptions, including waking up frequently or feeling unrested.
- Racing thoughts paired with physical fatigue.
- A sense of emotional flatness, even when something good happens.
- Difficulty breathing deeply, especially during quiet moments.
- Feeling unworthy unless you’re helping, fixing, or producing.
These signals are signs that your nervous system is trying to protect you. But without intentional regulation, it can stay stuck in a loop of hypervigilance or collapse.
Recognizing these signs was a major step toward healing for me. It helped me see that my body was asking for care, and that I deserved to listen.
Discovering the Care Circuit
When I first learned about the care circuit, it was a real breakthrough. I finally had a name for what was affecting me as I was perpetually overstretched. I wasn’t broken because I was overwhelmed, and I wasn’t getting sick or old or weak.
Put simply, I just hadn’t been taught how to care in a way that included myself.
The care circuit is a set of neural pathways that support connection and emotional sustainability. It’s part of the nervous system that involves the prefrontal cortex, the vagus nerve, and the oxytocin system. When activated, it allows us to show up with warmth and kindness and compassion for others without absorbing everything around us.
Unlike stress-driven empathy, which can lead to emotional overload, care circuit activation creates a sense of grounded compassion. It’s the difference between carrying someone’s pain and supporting them as they learn to cope. One depletes; the other sustains.
For caregivers, empaths, and anyone who feels responsible for others’ wellbeing, learning how to make this shift is life changing.
This concept helped me understand why I felt so drained and why certain practices, like deep breathing or structured reflection, made such a difference. They were activating a part of me that could care without collapsing.
What Helped Me Reconnect
Once I understood that my nervous system needed care to recover, I began experimenting with repeatable mindfulness practices until I found the ones that helped me feel safe enough to care again. These weren’t dramatic changes, but they helped me create some boundaries around my energy, and some perspective about the needs of others compared to my own.
Here’s what helped me reconnect with my care circuit and open myself to the self-compassion that I so desperately needed:
Breathwork That Slowed Me Down
I started using techniques like extended exhales and box breathing. These helped regulate my vagus nerve and shift me out of urgency. Over time, I noticed my thoughts slowing down and becoming more grounded, and my body relaxing.
Structured Self-Reflection
I began journaling with prompts that focused on emotional clarity rather than productivity. Questions like “What do I need to feel safe today?” or “Where am I overextending?” helped me reconnect with myself.
Mindfulness Tracking
I began to record how various practices impacted me, specifically, what grounded me and what drained me. Tracking these patterns helped me make small adjustments that supported regulation.
Letting Go of the Need to Earn Rest
This was the hardest part. I had to unlearn the belief that I needed to be useful to deserve care. That shift didn’t happen overnight, but it started with noticing how often I tied my worth to output and making a commitment to myself to start choosing something different.
These practices helped me access a part of myself that could care without collapse, and in a way that energized me instead of draining me.
The Deeper Shift: Letting Go of Guilt and Reclaiming Self-Worth
The breathwork, journaling, mindfulness tracking practices helped, for sure. But the real change came when I began to question the beliefs underneath my overwhelm.
I had internalized the idea that my worth was tied to how much I could give. Rest felt indulgent. Boundaries were nonexistent. Saying no felt like failure. And my needs were ranked lower than low – in fact I wasn’t even sure how to get in touch with them anymore.
I recognized I needed to do more than address the symptoms of compassion fatigue. I had to address the root causes that had driven me to care too much, give too much, take on too much, forever. What I realized was that beneath all of it was a persistent feeling of guilt.
Guilt for needing space; guilt for not being available; guilt for wanting to care without collapsing. Learning to let go of that guilt was a slow process of remembering that I am worthy even when I’m still. That my presence, not my performance, is what truly matters.
Care circuit activation gave me a new lens. It showed me that sustainable empathy isn’t about doing more. It’s about being regulated enough to show up, consistently, with joy and calm. And knowing when to step back, when to rest, and when to say, “I care, but I can’t carry this.”
Reframing my self-worth wasn’t easy. But it was necessary. And it’s what allowed me to realize that every time I gave of myself was a choice.
Learning to Care Differently
Do you ever feel like caring too much is costing you your peace? The key is to learn how to care in a way that includes yourself. Care circuit activation helps us to become more regulated, centered, resilient and present.
It’s the shift from absorbing pain to comforting others. From providing guilt-driven care to choice-based connection.
You don’t have to earn your worth or prove your value by carrying what was never yours to hold. You are allowed to rest and care without collapsing. And you are allowed to be enough, even when you’re still. That’s where I started. And it’s where you can begin, too.
Let’s Start a Conversation:
Can you relate to the concepts of compassion fatigue and emotional overload? Have you ever tried any mindfulness strategies? Were they helpful for you? Have you explored the underlying beliefs that may be responsible for our tendency to give too much without caring for ourselves? What words of advice would you give to younger women, so that they develop healthy habits earlier in life?