How to tell if you’re carrying someone else’s emotions

Why we absorb what other people feel, and how to know what’s actually yours.

In a past conversation, I talked about how validating someone else’s emotions doesn’t mean you have to take responsibility for them. And this is something I see constantly in my practice. When clients come in wanting to work on their emotions and their relationships, they often perceive another person’s opinions or feelings as something they have to attend to, something they have to answer for.

And there’s a real reason people feel that way. We’re biologically wired to be influenced by other people’s emotions.

So I want to start with why that is, and then get into how we build the discernment to know what belongs to us and what belongs to the other person. Because recognizing that someone’s experience is theirs doesn’t mean we have to detach, create distance, or shut down. That’s often what people think their only option is, because they don’t know what else to do.

Why we soak up what other people feel

Let’s start with the wiring, because we’re built to be social.

There’s a concept I love from neuroscience, and it’s a helpful one for anyone in the therapy world: mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are in charge of reading social cues, nonverbal communication, facial expressions, behaviors, all the things that aren’t tied to words, and they let us feel that in our own bodies.

There was a study done with college students sharing dorms. The students paired with roommates who were struggling with depression or another mental health condition started, over the following weeks, to feel the same way. Not because they were doing it consciously. It’s just how we’re wired. Our bodies connect at that level, and if we’re not aware of it, we can be influenced without ever noticing.

There’s a book that goes into this further, Building Happiness, with a story I love. You could stand in an airport, start checking the time and tapping your foot against the floor, and watch other people begin to check the time and tap their feet too. Because we read each other’s emotions. We may not know exactly what someone is feeling or thinking, but we can tell something is going on. Same with happiness. When you see someone smiling, it sends you a signal that things are okay, things are calm, even if you weren’t having those thoughts yourself.

So no one escapes this. Everyone has mirror neurons. Some people are more attuned to it, more sensitive to reading another person’s state, but all of us are wired this way. The first step is simply acknowledging it: I am going to be influenced by other people’s emotions. And that doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s not good or bad. The question is how we use our awareness to build a relationship with our own body, so we can ask: what am I feeling, and is it mine?

The check-in that builds discernment

Constantly assessing your body at this level is one of the most helpful things you can do. I recommend clients do a check-in three to four times a day. A quick one. What’s going on in my mind? What’s going on in my body? Let me scan. What’s going on in my emotions? How am I feeling? What am I doing?

When you connect with yourself regularly like this, you get to know your normal, your usual go-to state. And then you start to notice things. Maybe every time you’re about to talk to one particular person, you have a certain reaction you don’t have with others. That might be a sign you’re being influenced by their state.

And when you notice it, you have a choice. You can say to yourself: I was feeling peace, calm. Then I started interacting with this person and I began to feel unease, a little stressed, a little worried. Are these emotions actually mine? Was I feeling this before I sat down with them?

No judgment. This isn’t about blaming anyone, including yourself. It’s about clarity.

It goes both ways

Here’s the part people miss. This isn’t a one-way street where we’re only ever the ones being influenced. We influence others too.

If you’re already stressed when someone walks up to you, you can pass that right along. So when we talk about responsibility, it runs both directions. We don’t want to take responsibility for another person’s emotions, but we do want to be accountable to this: am I in a state that might be influencing them?

When you start having those realizations, everything changes. In your relationships, at work, in your personal life. Because once responsibility sits where it belongs, interactions get easier.

I’ve heard people say, I got upset because this person made me mad. And to a point, I understand how it feels that way. But as you build awareness of how you’re influenced, you get a choice. You get to look at the person you’re talking to and consider that maybe they’re going through something hard. Maybe they’re in distress. You get to connect quickly to your body and say, wait, hold on. I can see this person is frowning, their voice is rising, and it’s making me uncomfortable. And then: do I take this on? Do I embrace this influence? Or do I set an emotional boundary?

The trouble is, we tend to set that boundary in a way that blocks the other person out entirely. And that’s exactly where connection gets lost. I can recognize, this person is doing this, and I started to feel uncomfortable, so this probably isn’t mine, it’s theirs. And if a boundary needs to be set, set it. I’m not saying otherwise. If someone is yelling or screaming at you, you don’t have to allow that. But you can remind yourself: this has nothing to do with me. This is something that person is carrying, and that’s okay. As a human being, they have every right to their emotions. Their behavior, though, I’m not going to allow.

That distinction gives you a sense of self-control, of steadiness. A clarity that keeps you grounded in what’s mine and what isn’t. And it makes it easier to see when someone is moving through hard emotions, or, as I say to my grandkids, big emotions. From there, you can validate that person without taking responsibility for them.

Emotions and feelings aren’t the same thing

Here’s something worth knowing. A human being has somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 thoughts a day, and we’re not aware of most of them. And thoughts are directly linked to emotions, so without realizing it, every time we think, we’re activating an emotion.

People also tend to use emotions and feelings interchangeably, but they’re not the same. An emotion is an internal state. A feeling is the recognition of that internal state. Why does that matter? Because we’re not always aware of what our internal state is. Going through an emotion doesn’t mean we’re aware of it. The moment we become aware, that’s the feeling, the awareness of recognizing the emotional state underneath.

This matters because we move through most of our day disconnected from that internal state. And not being aware of an emotion doesn’t stop us from reacting to it. I can’t tell you how many couples I’ve seen where one partner says, I can tell something’s wrong with them before they even notice it themselves.

Why this matters more now

The point of all of this is to help us build the connection we’re seeking, but to do it in a way that’s healthy, for us and for the person in front of us. To keep us from setting boundaries built on protection, disconnection, armor. Because one of the best things a human can experience is genuine connection with another human, and it gets disrupted when we don’t have clarity about whose emotions are actually present in an interaction, and who needs to attend to them. So much of our exhaustion is taking responsibility for things that were never ours to carry.

I believe we’re at a moment in history that’s pushing us to connect with each other more than ever. We’ve kept connection and compassion and love in one small corner of our lives, our intimate relationships, our closest friends. Now we’re being asked to open that up in our work and our careers too, because that’s what will set us apart. That’s what will sit at the center of everything as technology keeps changing the world.

If you look back through history, life was harder before. So many things are handled for us now that we don’t have to worry about. So what does that leave us with? It leaves us room to access more of our humanity. More connection. And if we don’t have these conversations, if we don’t turn inward and get familiar with our emotional state, we’ll keep struggling the way we have been.

So here’s the recap. Discernment isn’t about reading someone else perfectly. It starts with checking yourself first. The next time you feel heavy after a conversation, before you decide what to do with that feeling, pause and ask: is this mine?

And if it’s not, be kind to yourself. Release it. And still, see past what you’re feeling and connect with the human in front of you.

— Roselyn Pérez Casiano