I was talking with a friend who was upset because someone else had made them feel that way, and it brought up something I see often in my work. This way we take on other people’s blackness, their heaviness, and carry it with us instead of leaving it with them.
We were just talking. They were sharing what had happened and how it had affected them. I was listening, present, steady, not intervening, not trying to shift anything. Just allowing the space for them to express what was there.
And in that kind of moment, something becomes very clear to me. There is a difference between allowing someone’s experience and taking it on as your own. You can be with someone fully, you can hear them, you can hold space for what they are going through, and still remain grounded in yourself. Their experience can be seen and heard without needing to enter you.
What I often notice is that people confuse presence with absorption. They believe that to care means to take something in, to hold it within themselves, to carry it after the moment has passed. But that isn’t necessary. In fact, it clouds things. It takes what belongs to someone else and relocates it into your own system, where it doesn’t belong.
When you are grounded, when you are clear in yourself, there is no need for that. You can sit with someone in their difficulty and still remain in your own field. You can be kind, open, and fully attentive without becoming the container for their experience.
Because their experience has its own place. Their emotions, their process, even their darkness, it all belongs to them. When we take it, even with the best intention, we shift something that was meant to stay with them. And then we wonder why we feel heavy, unclear, or drained afterwards.
There is enough anger and heaviness in the world already. You would not take a big black ball of badness from someone if they offered it to you. And yet energetically, that is sometimes what we do. We receive what is being expressed and we turn it into something we carry, rather than something we witness.
So I often return to a simple question. Why do we take it?
And with practice, the question becomes less about judgment and more about awareness. Can we learn to stay present without absorbing? Can we allow someone to be exactly where they are without stepping into carrying it for them?
This is not about detachment. It is about clarity. It is about being so rooted in yourself that you can remain open without becoming entangled.
The students of Reiki School of Self & Wisdom are learning how to do this. And this is also the power of women’s circles. The ability to sit together, to witness, to share, and to be deeply present without taking on what belongs to another. To honour each person’s experience as theirs, while still holding a connected, grounded space together.
Because in a circle like that, something changes. No one is being fixed, no one is being rescued, and no one is being energetically burdened by what is spoken. Everything is allowed to move, to be seen, to be felt, and then to stay where it belongs.
And that is what makes it powerful. Not that we become less sensitive, but that we become more clear. Not that we shut down, but that we learn how to stay open without losing ourselves. In that clarity, there is real safety, real depth, and a kind of connection that does not require anyone to carry what was never theirs to begin with.