✨ The Hidden Weight of Compassion
After three weeks at special school (erityiskoulu), my workdays have become immersive, heart-wide experiences.
Every moment — guiding a child, listening to colleagues, assisting with meals — draws me deeply into connection. Yet each evening, I notice an invisible residue: thoughts, feelings, dreams that follow me home. This is not exhaustion; it is energetic empathy — the absorption of subtle emotional frequencies that remain after deep service (Siegel, 2012).
Learning to release this energy consciously is not selfish; it is the foundation of sustainable compassion.
You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway. – Steve Maraboli
🌱 Understanding Energy Absorption
Empathy activates the same neural pathways in our brains as those we observe in others (Decety & Jackson, 2004). When working with neurodiverse children, this resonance becomes even stronger. Their emotions, gestures, and silences reach into your nervous system.
Without mindful boundaries, empathy can transform into emotional fatigue. The goal is not to stop feeling, but to feel consciously — to remain open yet anchored.
Your life does not get better by chance; it gets better by change. – Jim Rohn (The Art of Exceptional Living, 1993)
🕯️ Signs of Energetic Overload
In recent nights, my dreams have been filled with the children I work with — fragments of old memories, new faces, stories unfinished. This is the psyche’s way of digesting unprocessed emotion. When we carry too much empathy, the subconscious tries to release it through dreams, tension, or restlessness (Jung, 1964).
Recognising these signals is not a weakness. It is awareness calling you back to balance.
We become what we think about. – Earl Nightingale (The Strangest Secret, 1956)
🌾 The Practice of Conscious Release
After each day at erityiskoulu, I now pause before leaving the building — just one minute of stillness, breathing gratitude into my heart and exhaling release.
At home, I wash my hands mindfully, letting water symbolise energetic cleansing.
Sometimes I journal a few lines of appreciation, not about outcomes but about presence.
Such rituals act as neural closure signals (Kabat-Zinn, 1994), telling the body: the workday is complete; compassion continues, but attachment can rest.
Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. – Dr. Wayne Dyer (The Power of Intention, 2004)
🌻 Gratitude as Transmutation
Gratitude transforms emotional residue into higher frequency energy. According to neuroplasticity research, gratitude practices activate the hypothalamus and release dopamine, creating a sense of lightness and clarity (Dispenza, 2012).
When I whisper “thank you” for each moment — the laughter, the challenge, the silence — the energy around me shifts. I do not suppress emotion; I alchemise it.
Gratitude turns what we have into enough. – Melody Beattie
🌙 Releasing Without Disconnecting
True release is not detachment but integration with closure. It means honouring what you gave, blessing what you cannot change, and returning home whole. As Goleman (1995) notes, emotional intelligence grows when we acknowledge feelings yet remain guided by purpose.
I remind myself each evening: I am not leaving the children behind — I am leaving space for tomorrow’s presence to begin anew.
The point of power is always in the present moment. – Louise Hay (You Can Heal Your Life, 1984)
🌕 Reflections
Releasing energy is both a practice and a prayer. Each evening becomes a ritual of gratitude and letting go, allowing the day’s compassion to return to light. This, too, is personal growth — the art of staying open without depletion, of serving without losing self.
For those drawn to the spiritual side of this journey, I explored the vibrational power of gratitude in Gratitude as Energy Cleansing: Completing Each Day in Light.
To change is to think greater than your environment. – Dr. Joe Dispenza (Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, 2012)
✨ Closing Affirmations
I release today’s energy with gratitude and peace.
What I gave with love returns to me as light.
I close this day gently, leaving space for renewal.
My service flows through me, not from me.— Hoa Rompasaari
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. – Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich, 1937)
📚 Book Suggestions
For those who wish to walk deeper into this flow of awakening and manifesting:
- Hay, L. (1984). You Can Heal Your Life. Hay House.
- Goddard, N. (1952). The Power of Awareness. DeVorss & Company.
- Shinn, F. S. (1925). The Game of Life and How to Play It. DeVorss & Company.
- Murphy, J. (1963). The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. Prentice Hall.
- Dyer, W. W. (2004). The Power of Intention. Hay House.
- Nightingale, E. (1956). The Strangest Secret. Nightingale-Conant.
- Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. Hyperion.
- Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall.
- Davidson, R. J. & Begley, S. (2012). The Emotional Life of Your Brain. Penguin.
- Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. Bantam Books.
- Dispenza, J. (2012). Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One. Hay House.
- Decety, J. & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The Functional Architecture of Human Empathy. Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71-100.
- Rohn, J. (1993). The Art of Exceptional Living. Nightingale-Conant.
- Siegel, D. J. (2012). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. Guilford Press.
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