“You are very strong at your core.  Start living from that, in whatever way you can and it will become real to your outward experience.As far as feeling peoples traumas, emotions, etc.  that is a natural result from your past.  As I imagine it is similar with all people from alcoholic/abusive relationships, your sensitivity is extremely high to other peoples pain because you’ve been trained to be sensitive.  It may seem like a problem at the moment when you work with people, but you have a leg up on other practitioners with this sensitivity.  Your task is to bring the sensitivity under your control, so you can observe without getting sucked into it.