Hey, so in this second audio, looking at empathy and ADHD, I want to talk a little bit more about how it can impact on us, and also offer some practical solutions and interventions to help you to manage boundaries. And, yeah, protect yourself from feeling unnecessarily distressed by other people's distress. Now, in the first audio looking at this, I talked about more extreme ends of the spectrum of empathy, about parentification and overbearing senses of responsibility. Because where there is empathy, there is often responsibility. And if we're extremely empathetic, yeah, it can leave us feeling this sort of stronger sense of responsibility to make everyone better, to help everyone and I think that brings with it so many wonderful gifts.I see it as my superpower, my ability to read emotion in the room, to feel it intuitively. And it's very, very common that empaths will actually, you know, just be able to not only just feel it, but read facial changes, micro-changes in mood and behaviour, inflexions in voice, all of these things matter to somebody with high levels of empathy. And, if used correctly then this can be, as I said, it can be a superpower, it can help in so many ways around friendship, relationships, in the workplace, and just being able to sort of intuitively know what somebody needs. That's all great. And if that's as far as it goes for you, then fantastic and embrace it, enjoy it, try to love that about yourself, because I guarantee you it's what others will love in you, and respect in you.So this really is more for those who feel overly responsible, that it starts to spill into areas of your life where, yeah, you need people to be okay, where you struggle when they're not. And for those of you who have this, I would like you to just sort of reflect on that for a moment. Are you actually responsible for how other people feel? That's something I grappled with for a long time until I sort of became more of an experienced therapist and I realize now, ultimately, the only thing I am responsible for is my own actions. And as long as my actions are, you know, hopefully kind, caring, compassionate, empathetic, helpful, not damaging people, not hurting people in some way, then that is very, very freeing to know that I don't have to feel responsible for how other people feel.I'm not saying don't be kind, I'm saying, Don't set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm. And there's a technique, which I really like. I like to think that I made this up, but I'm not sure if I made up that I made it up or not, or whether I read it somewhere and just stole it. But I've used it for many years for myself, and it helps me to be a trauma therapist and hear terrible, terrible things. But just to stay in the room and not take responsibility for that. After all, I didn't do those things to that person. I could sit back and look at what is my responsibility in my role in life in my relationships and in work. My responsibility is to do my job or to be a father or to be a husband or to be a friend. And that's where it ends. If you are absorbing other people's distress beyond that, you are, as I say, setting yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.So if you feel like you like that, use that expression, "I don't have to set myself on fire to keep everyone else warm" or I'm not responsible for other people's emotions, i'm only responsible for my own actions, like a mantra, or a rule, a new rule for living. And when you notice yourself getting sort of drawn in, sucked in, you true empaths will know what I mean by that, when you're getting drawn to the distress, and this need to absorb it. Imagine, as well as using the mantra, imagine an invisible glass screen between you and that person. It's a magical screen that they can't see. Only you know it's there, so you don't have to feel bad about it or guilty. And this glass screen is very clever, because it doesn't stop your words and your kindness and your compassion from coming out of you from exuding from you, but it deflects, it stops you from absorbing other people's distress.Now, if you can visualize that, maybe you can visualize their distress in some form, like some sort of black smoke or some sort of toxic waste somehow, and sort of almost see it hitting the screen that again can be incredibly liberating to realize for some people that hey, I don't have to take that responsibility. It's not mine to hold. So I want you to play around with that and give it a whirl. Try to protect yourself. Some people notice some feelings of guilt when they do that. Just keep going with it. It's like a habit. You're changing a habit, sometimes that can create anxiety or can feel uncomfortable, especially if you've been doing it a long time. But yeah, enjoy the freedom of not taking that responsibility that's not yours.