Sacred Alchemy: How to Feel Without Carrying

For most of my life, I felt everything.

Not just my own emotions - but everyone else’s too.

I didn’t have a name for it at the time. I just knew I was exhausted. Confused. Misunderstood. I was the one who cried at things no one else noticed. The one who stayed up late trying to figure out how to fix the energy in the room. The one who left conversations with a heavy heart, wondering if I’d done something wrong - when all I’d done was care.

There was a time I believed that carrying other people’s emotions was part of loving them. That to be present with someone meant taking on their pain, holding it for them - sometimes longer than they held it themselves.

But I know now: That’s not love. That’s self-abandonment.

What I’ve Learned

I’ve learned that you can feel deeply without losing yourself. You can be a soft place for others without becoming hollow inside. You can love people and let them carry their own weight.

It took years to understand this. Years of tears. Years of being misunderstood. Years of thinking, “Why would someone who knows me think I’m capable of that?”

That question followed me for a long time - especially in my family.

When my sister once said, “The problem is not what I said - it’s how you chose to take it,” I felt myself shut down. It wasn’t just invalidation. It was erasure.

I wasn’t trying to be right, I was trying to be real. And it was like no one wanted to meet me there.

Letting Go of the Role I Never Asked For

Some people will never understand what it costs to feel everything. To hold space, to hold back, to hold on. And eventually, I had to let go - not of my sensitivity, but of the expectation that anyone else would know how to hold me.

I disconnected from relationships that made me feel frantic, unseen, or guilty for having needs, and I began practicing something I now call Sacred Alchemy - a way of witnessing emotion without carrying it. A way of transmuting pain without losing myself in it.

It’s not a method or a technique. It’s more like a quiet promise I’ve made to myself:

I will feel.

I will love.

But I will not disappear.

What Sacred Alchemy Looks Like for Me

It’s not perfect. It’s something I practice more than I master.

Some days, I still carry what isn’t mine. I still feel that old pull to explain myself, to prove I’m good, to smooth out the rough edges of other people’s discomfort.

But I’m quicker now to recognise when it’s happening.

Quicker to pause.

Quicker to come back to myself.

Here’s what that looks like in real life:

• I notice the feeling - sometimes it’s tension in my chest, or that restless, unsettled energy in my body before I’ve even named what’s wrong. Now, I pause and ask myself:

“Is this mine?” Often, it’s not. It’s something I’ve picked up in the room, in a conversation, or from someone I care about.

• I give it somewhere to go - I don’t try to push it down. I let it move. I write. I walk. I light a candle. I shake it out of my hands.

I say, out loud if I need to: “This is not mine to carry. I return to myself.”

• I create boundaries with love - This part used to be hard. Especially as someone who’s naturally nurturing but I’ve learned that boundaries aren’t rejection. They’re clarity.

I can love someone and still say, “I can’t hold this for you. Not today. Not like this.”

• I let go without needing closure - This one’s still tender. Sometimes I help people who never thank me. Sometimes I’m misunderstood or blamed. Sometimes I give more than I should. But I no longer chase resolution. Instead, I practice a quiet release: “I trust what I gave will land where it’s meant to. Even if I’m not there to see it.”

We Heal in the Web

I’ve come to realise that personal healing is never truly personal. When we begin to feel without carrying…When we stop rescuing and start reflecting…

When we speak the truth we used to silence - we don’t just set ourselves free. We send a signal through the web. Like the mycelium beneath the forest floor, our healing communicates with others.

It says:

You can soften now. You can stop performing. You can return to yourself. Even if no one knows what shifted, something does.

Somewhere, a woman breathes easier. A child isn’t asked to hold what they can’t name. A pattern breaks before it repeats again.

Sacred alchemy isn’t just survival - it’s transmission. It ripples. It roots. It re-members us to one another.

Maybe This Is Just for Me

Maybe I wrote this for myself. To make sense of the ways I’ve felt too much. To name the moments I lost myself in other people’s pain. To remind myself that I don’t have to carry what was never mine. That I can still be kind, and strong, and soft - without disappearing.

But maybe… it’s also for you. Maybe you’ve felt misunderstood. Maybe you’ve questioned your sensitivity. Maybe you’ve tried to be everything for everyone, and you’re tired.

If so - I see you.

You’re not broken.

You’re not dramatic.

You’re not too much.

You’re just learning, like I am, how to feel without carrying. How to love without losing yourself.

That, to me, is sacred alchemy.

And if this helped you even a little, then maybe it was never just for me after all.

With love,

Madonna x