You've probably heard of codependency.

Maybe you've studied it, read about it, or taken courses on it.

Maybe you've witnessed or even experienced it inside romantic relationships or family dynamics.

But what we do NOT often talk about is how codependency shows up in subtle, energetic ways... and in every type of relationship we encounter.

Friends

Family members

Co-workers

Clients

Colleagues and peers

And of course, in romantic relationships

For those in transformational professions or spaces, such as… 

Coaches

Healers

Bodyworkers

Facilitators

Leaders

Spiritual practitioners

Sensitive, empathic guides

… This pattern of codependency and energetic enmeshment can be negatively impacting your business, relationships, and life... often without you even realizing it, because this way of connecting – that requires a loss of self – has been occurring for so long.

You likely haven’t had many opportunities to examine the subtle forces shaping your energetic experiences with others—how entanglement occurs beneath conscious awareness, how you may take on what isn’t yours, and how profoundly these dynamics can disrupt your connection with yourself—because few people know how to recognize and work with these energetic patterns.

This kind of energetic awareness is rarely understood, much less taught. 

The reality is…

You can care deeply about loved ones, clients and other people without energetically carrying what belongs to them.

You can hold space or be in relationships without taking someone else’s pain, fear, urgency, projections or confusion into your own body.

And you can stay connected with others without losing yourself in the process.

If any of these things feels difficult to you, and if you’ve ever wondered why it’s so hard to stay separate from the feelings of your clients or the people you love, you have likely experienced energetic merging.

What is energetic merging?

Merging is what happens when your energy field begins to blend with another person’s.

Though it’s no fault of our own and nothing to feel shame about (it usually happens unconsciously), it can be incredibly draining.

This kind of energetic codependence can block healthy connections with others and with yourself.

Instead of being with someone, you begin carrying them.

And instead of staying rooted in yourself, you begin acting around their feelings and needs instead of staying sovereign in your own feelings and needs.

But once you are aware of it, it becomes a skill and you can be in better relationships with those around you.

Why this happens

Most of us were trained into some level of codependence growing up. We learned to feel other people early, and we learned it for a reason: to keep us safe, to help us stay connected and even to help us read the room, manage the people around us, and sense what was needed before it was spoken.

For a lot of us, the emotional and mental pieces of that codependence have shifted over the years. We have done the work. We have built better relationships, and learned to name our needs, set boundaries, and notice our patterns.

But the vibrational (energetic) piece can still be alive. Maybe more alive than ever. And while you can understand boundaries emotionally and mentally, it’s still possible to lose them energetically.

Here’s what energetic merging and losing your energetic boundary could look like:

✦ Feeling like you're holding the nervous systems of each of your clients and team members all day every day, bracing for impact if something doesn't go right for one of them

✦ Noticing that you’re fawning to clients, trying to make them happy or telling them what they want to hear, instead of honoring reality or your own truth

✦ Carrying the emotions of everyone else you work or interact with, and feeling things that aren't yours (mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically)

✦Wanting to take on more projects and clients but dreading having more people to manage and make space for

✦ Feeling "off" or not like yourself, especially after spending time with people (even if you love them)

This is especially common for the beautiful humans who hold empathetic space for others, like coaches, healers, bodyworkers, facilitators, leaders, and sensitive people who learned to survive by feeling what was happening around them.

This is the piece most healing work never reaches.

You can journal it, therapize it, and understand exactly where it came from, and still find yourself giving your energy away in the next room you walk into.

That’s because the exchange isn’t only psychological. It’s happening in your energetic field, on a frequency you were never taught to feel, let alone protect.

Here's what happens when we live in this place of energetic merging for too long:

✦ You start dropping balls. You forget to follow up on important things. Your friendships and other relationships suffer. You stop taking care of yourself in the ways you want to

✦ You feel irritable, confused, overwhelmed, and maxed out... and simultaneously frustrated that you feel that way because you're here to do big, creative, transformational things in the world

✦ You start wondering if the "collapse" you're feeling is something about you that needs to be fixed or another problem to solve that you don't have space for

✦ You have trouble sleeping or shutting your mind off... because your brain and body has invisible attachments connecting you to 10+ other people

✦ You say no to things that you normally would really want to do, like speaking engagements, fun trips with friends, community events, podcast interviews, and other expansive opportunities because you’re afraid of adding one more thing to the pile

✦ You fall into shame or blame around the idea of even creating healthier boundaries in your life – healthy boundaries feels like a loss of relationship.
✦ Your definition of relationship includes the idea that you have to give yourself away to be in connection.

You do not have to identify with all of these. Even if you identify with 1 or 2, this mini-course is for you.

So what changes when you stop giving yourself away?

Sovereignty is not a wall, and it is not distance.

It’s the ability to stay close to someone without dissolving into them, or them becoming absorbed into you.

FROM THERE YOU CAN:

✦  Tell, in the moment, what’s yours and what belongs to someone else

✦  Stop being run by feelings that entered you from outside

✦  Stop taking on other people’s stuff and projections while you hold space for them

✦  Walk out of a hard session, heated argument or high stakes interaction intact instead of carrying it for days

✦  Know your own desires again, that exist underneath what everyone else wants from you

✦  Stay connected without handing over your life force to do it

We split the teaching the way our skills split: Tim on the energetic mechanics, Rae on how the pattern lives in the body and how it resolves.

Why Rae and Tim?

Not long ago, almost no one knew what merging or enmeshment even pointed at. That has changed.

More and more people can feel this merging dynamic happening to them now and want to understand what it’s doing to them.

Helping with exactly this is one of our zones of genius, because we have both lived it.

Both of us were habitual mergers, for years.

We gave ourselves away in the name of service and connection, and didn’t know we were doing it.

Someone had a headache, we’d take it. Someone was having a bad day, we’d carry it. Someone was exhausted and scared, here, have some of me. A partner was upset, and we’d allow the projection to land in our body and system.

What changed for us wasn’t a concept. It was learning the actual tools, and then learning them again the only way they ever really land: in real time, through real relationships, and with real people.

The same way you will in this course.

Tim DeSutter

Tim has studied energetic medicine and the impact of trauma on vibrational wellness for more than twenty-five years.

A master-level coach, teacher, and facilitator, he works with people who lead and guide others, helping them clear old patterns, hold their energetic boundaries, and stay in their own integrity while doing demanding work with other human beings.

He came to this the hard way, by having to find his own way through.

Rae Halder

Rae is a writer, coach, and guide in the trauma, somatic, and embodiment fields, certified across ten modalities, with a decade in trauma resolution and holistic sexuality work.

She works with coaches, healers, and leaders who’ve done “all the work” and still sense unseen patterns running underneath.

Her work reaches past standard somatic practice into the energetic field and the unseen.

In this course she holds the somatic trauma resolution and trauma-informed aspects: where this pattern lives in the body, why it sticks around, and how it lets go.

Who this is for

What people say about working with Tim and Rae

Returning to Self