Are you taking care of yourself emotionally?
We live in a busy, demanding world that requires a great deal of resilience to keep us from burning out.
Living intentionally within that hustle and bustle means we must take care of the various parts of ourselves that can negatively affect our overall well-being. That doesn’t just mean our physical and mental wellbeing, but our emotional wellbeing too.
Emotional self-care includes how we interact with others, what kind of energy we allow into our space, and the boundaries that we set with ourselves and other people.
If you’re doing any of these 8 things, you’re not taking care of your emotional wellbeing as well as you should, and you risk suffering the serious consequences both now, and later down the line.
1. Saying yes to things you don’t want to do.
The word “no” is a crucial tool for protecting your emotional energy and well-being. People will just take and take and take without any real consideration or understanding of how it affects you.
And they may not even be doing it because they are a negative person or mean you harm. They may just be lost in their own problems and unaware of how much they are really taking.
Your ability to say no will keep you from overextending yourself.
2. Letting people walk over your boundaries, whether intentionally or not.
Boundaries help cultivate and maintain healthy relationships. The truth of the matter is, a person who cares for your well-being isn’t going to want to do you harm. They don’t want to take too much from you. The problem is that they also can’t read your mind or know when they are taking too much unless you can state and enforce a boundary.
People will push against boundaries to see where the line is, but that isn’t necessarily unhealthy. They may push because they just haven’t figured out what is and is not acceptable yet. Boundaries protect your emotional well-being. Make them clear and stick to them.
3. Not accepting yourself for who you are.
There is great power in accepting yourself for who you are, both good and bad. And let’s face it, we all have some aspects of ourselves that are both good and bad.
You may do great things for other people, but have a short temper and little patience for mistakes. Or maybe you mean well and try to do the right thing for others, but you’re kind of lazy and don’t really want to do anything as much as possible.
The key to fixing those problems and not tearing yourself down about them is to accept all aspects of yourself. If you don’t accept your bad with your good, then you’re creating emotional turmoil within yourself by not living honestly with yourself.
On the other hand, some people need to learn to accept their good with their bad. They have no problems tearing themselves down for all of the negative things they perceive themselves to be, but may have a hard time accepting that they can be good things too.
4. Rejecting compliments.
Do you feel awkward when you receive a compliment? Do you think the praise is unfair or unnecessary? Do you feel the need to counter-compliment a person to dispel that awkwardness?
You don’t need to do any of those things. Accepting a compliment is accepting that someone else thinks positively about a thing that you have done. All you really have to do is smile and say, “Thank you.”
And guess what? The more you do that, the less awkward and uncomfortable it will feel.
The feelings of the person who gives the compliment are valid. Don’t disturb your emotional balance by working to convince yourself that they’re not.
5. Apologizing for things unnecessarily.
Apologizing for non-issues undermines your sense of self and erodes the trust of other people in your word.
If you apologize for every small issue or things that you’re not actually sorry about, the people around you will not trust your word when it’s serious.
And to apologize for things that are not yours to apologize for is to accept a burden of responsibility that is not yours to accept.
That is valuable emotional energy wasted and more stress for you to deal with.
6. Being unable to ask for help when you need it.
Do you feel frustrated? Overwhelmed? Can’t figure a thing out?
Allow yourself the grace to be wrong or ask for help from someone who can help you.
There is no shame in seeking out assistance if you are confused or cannot find a solution to your problem.
You can’t possibly know everything. Life would be so utterly dull if we all knew everything! There are so many other people out there with a wide variety of perspectives, experiences, and knowledge that can help you accomplish your goals.
Look for them! It will make your journey easier.
And you will very likely be able to teach them some valuable lessons yourself!
7. Judging yourself for your emotions.
When you judge yourself for your emotions, you only add more emotions to be judged. Like guilt and shame for instance. You can see how that would be counterproductive, right?
How can you not judge yourself for the emotions that you have? How can you not feel guilty, sad, or bad about a particular emotion?
A simple (but not easy) approach is to feel the emotion and then let it go. The longer you dwell on the emotion, the more opportunity you have to assign other emotions to it that do not necessarily belong there.
Take the time to feel the emotion, really consider it, what it means to you, and why you’re experiencing it. And once you’ve figured that out, force the emotion out and away by engaging in other activities or thinking about other things.
Don’t let yourself dwell.
8. Thinking your weaknesses or flaws somehow make you less than.
Life is difficult. Our best-laid plans can be dashed to bits by unforeseen circumstances or because we made a mistake.
That is just part of living!
It’s okay that some of your plans didn’t work out. It’s okay that things don’t go entirely as you envisioned. And it is also okay that you failed, even though you tried your hardest to succeed
Or maybe you didn’t try your hardest, and it still failed. That happens too.
Accept it and strive to do better next time.
The plan didn’t work out? Make a new plan, try again.
Every failure is an opportunity to learn new things. The more you learn, the better you can hone and tweak your strategy until things go the way you want them to.
By accepting these flaws and knowing that you are not perfect, you will conserve and protect your valuable emotional energy.
People regularly stress themselves out because of their weaknesses, and it’s really not necessary.
It’s not going to change the outcome at all, so let it go. Strive to accept things how they are while working to accomplish your goals.
