Lover Empath – Chapter 12

Your archetype’s personality within the family

Your personality within a family structure tends to be the peace-maker. You make an effort not to upset anyone and tend to quell intense feelings when they arise in yourself so as not to upset the people you grew up with. This has created scenarios in which you have suppressed your true feelings for the sake of the group.

Over time, you generally come to understand that you have fallen into the role of self-sacrifice for the rest of the family. Learning to speak up about your needs is one of your lessons to learn when it comes to family dynamics.

Understanding that you have this tendency, can help you embrace the existence of your own difficult or challenging emotions. Accepting that to process things, you have to address them in yourself and go from there. And while you are able to make space for other people’s feelings, you often don’t tend to do the same for your own self as readily. Recognizing that this side of yourself exists can help you to avoid detaching from your own emotional experience.

Growing up you most likely were in situations where other family members came first, or your talents or gifts were not adequately appreciated. You may have grown up feeling self-conscious about expressing yourself. Your sensitivities caused you to feel too vulnerable to fully share who you were or that others were just not paying enough attention. As you go throughout life, you are being challenged to share your true self regardless of what your family says or does. In addition, getting past your own internalized judgment about what is an acceptable way to express yourself is an added layer to work through.

The Lover Empath seeks to understand family dynamics in depth and detail. You often spend much of your adult life engrossing yourself in information related to this topic with the intention to understand your own experiences. You might join support groups, workshops, or coursework to also learn more so you can better realize what inclinations you’ve been conditioned with.

The Lover Empath as a parent

Feel free to flex the concept of ‘parent’ to your situation when reading this section.

Parenting for you is quite a journey—one that usually starts with a little self-parenting. Self-parenting is the concept of providing your own self with the things you needed as a child. Giving yourself space to acknowledge what your child self would have needed and making those needs heard and valued.

Processing things from your childhood or past might feel important to your experience as a parent in the present. You are likely to spend time as an adult analyzing and working through your past in relation to your parents. The lessons you glean from this emotional processing will assist you in moving forward as a parent yourself—if that is the path you are wanting to pursue.

As a parent, you are adamant about the way you want things done. While other areas of your life might be approached with more flexibility, as a parent you require lines that are clearly drawn. You like to have a road map in mind of how you will handle the various scenarios that could potentially arise. You want to be knowledgeable of well-researched parenting styles that you might employ.

You are also very encouraging and extremely nurturing to the people you are responsible for. Your personality type brings a lot of love, care, and affection. You don’t like to get upset and generally maintain a calm, capable demeanor as a parent.