Interior Alchemy by Natalie Kirkpatrick

Empathy Isn't What It Looks Like

Epathy has been over-romanticized.
People act as if it's inherently good, inherently
generous, inherently relational.
It isn't.

Most empathy in the wild is one of two things:

a person avoiding themselves
or
a person avoiding you.

Everything else is branding.


1. Empathy as self-erasure.
This is the version people applaud—usually 
because it keeps everyone comfortable.
It shows up as:

- tracking every emotional shift

- absorbing tension before it's expressed

- softening instinctively

- translating someone else's discomfort into
personal responsibility

- staying "aware" at the cost of staying present

This isn't connection.
It's disappearance.

It's what happens when empathy becomes a
survival tactic.
When being highly attuned once kept the 
peace.
When reading the room was safer than
inhabiting your own body.

People mistake this for sensitivity.
It's actually exhaustion 

2. Empathy as avoidance.
This is the version people rarely call out.
Some of the most emotionally avoidant
individuals lead with empathy because it's an
elegant way to stay untouched.
They reflect feelings, articulate insight, mirror
understanding—while revealing nothing and
risking nothing.

It sounds supportive.
It feels mature.
But nothing lands.
Nothing shifts.
Nothing deepens.

Empathy becomes a shield that protects them
from actual contact.

Both patterns are different sides of the same
coin.

One person vanishes internally, the other
stays distant externally.
Neither one is intimacy.

This is why so many relationships feel lopsided,
confusing, or strangely hollow even when the 
conversations sound thoughtful.
Someone is giving too much.
Someone is giving nothing.
Both are calling it empathy.

The missing ingredient is containment.

Containment is the ability to stay rooted in one's 
own body while engaging with another person.
It's the difference between witnessing and
absorbing.
Between connection and collapse.
Between being open and being porous.

Without containment, empathy finally does what
it's meant to do—it lets two people stay intact while meeting each other other fully.
It allows feeling without fusion.
It allows openness without losing ground.
It allows contact without retreat.

Healthy empathy doesn't melt.
It doesn't mirror endlessly.
It doesn't perform understanding to avoid
tension.
It doesn't manage the moment.

It stays steady.
It stays honest.
It stays present enough for something real to 
happen.

When empathy is paired with containment,
relationships deepen.
When it's paired with avoidance or self-erasure,
they drain.

Empathy isn't the gold standard.
Empathy with boundaries is.

Everything else is noise.