TL/DR Episode Summary: This episode explores the tender line between empathy and emotional fusion, and why so many sensitive, overgiving women lose themselves while trying to care for others. If you’ve ever felt responsible for someone else’s feelings, this one will feel like coming home to yourself.

Welcome Back!

In this second part of the series, we step into one of the most tender, defining truths of the overgiving pattern: the difference between empathy and fusion. This is the moment in therapy where clients usually go quiet, or cry, or exhale in that way that tells me something finally landed.

Because most people who care “too much” aren’t struggling with empathy at all. They’re struggling with over-identification. Emotional merging. Becoming a one-person sponge for everyone else’s feelings while slowly disappearing inside their own life.

In this episode, we explore how fusion feels in the body, why it masquerades as kindness, and how it forms in childhood, long before you had words for any of this.

We look at the nervous system mechanics behind over-attunement, the praise that rewarded your self-erasure, and the subtle ways fusion shapes your posture, your breath, your sense of self, and your relationships.

You’ll hear real-world examples that make the pattern unmistakable, the heavy-text spiral, the relationship “pause,” the emotional weather system that turns someone else’s storm into your climate. And you’ll learn why this reflex isn’t a flaw; it’s a survival strategy your body learned to keep you safe.

Most importantly, we talk about what healthy empathy actually looks like, and the sentence that becomes a turning point for so many sensitive, intuitive women:

You can care… without carrying.

If you’ve ever felt like you know everyone else’s feelings but not your own, if you’ve ever lost yourself in someone’s silence, if you’ve ever confused hyper-attunement with love, this episode is a homecoming.

Let’s walk it slowly, together.

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With warmth,

Dr. Lauren Schaefer

Dr. Lauren Schaefer unpacks the psychology of overgiving and explores the quiet slide from compassion into self-erasure. We explore when empathy becomes vigilance, when connection becomes labor, and when our nervous system mistakes intensity for intimacy. Through attachment, trauma bonding, and neurodivergent wiring, we’ll look at why these patterns form and the addictive push-pull that keeps so many deep feelers stuck in relationships that drain them.

We’ll learn why “caring harder” becomes a reflex, and why certain patterns feel magnetic even when they’re painful. A validating exploration of overgiving, for anyone who feels like they’re always managing the emotional weather around them.

Recommendations, Feedback, Comments? I’d love to hear from you!

Support the show

With warmth,

Dr. Lauren Schaefer

Ever feel like you know you’re overreacting but can’t stop? Dr. Lauren Schaefer breaks down why frustration hits harder for sensitive, high-alert nervous systems, and how small shifts in thought, breath, and rhythm can rebuild your frustration tolerance from the inside out.

What if your frustration isn’t a flaw but a signal? In this episode, Dr. Lauren Schaefer unpacks the science and psychology behind an overactive alert system: the blend of hormones, beliefs, and attachment that turns small stress into big emotion. You’ll learn how to spot your body’s “I can’t stand this” loop and rewire it into calm, compassion, and trust. This episode bridges cognitive therapy and body-based regulation to help you move from reactive to resilient.

Recommendations, Feedback, Comments? I’d love to hear from you!

Support the show

With warmth,

Dr. Lauren Schaefer