You know those days when your emotions make you feel like you’re playing Crack The Whip?
You’re at the mercy of anger, despair, and frustration that fling you around in all directions.
Yet other times helplessness and apathy flatten you like one of those cartoon characters run over by a steamroller.
What the heck is going on?
Being at the utter mercy of negative emotions is one of the signs of burnout that can lead you straight into the depths of full-blown burnout, with all of its dire consequences for your health and happiness.
Fortunately, though, you can take steps to care for your emotional well-being – and help prevent or even heal burnout.
I’ll show you.
What Is Emotional Self-Care?
At its core, emotional self-care is tending to and nurturing your emotional well-being. Sounds simple, right? But many of us neglect our emotional health. We’re simply not taught to be concerned about it while we pursue personal and professional success.
Then, through neglect, your emotional health erodes, setting you on the path toward full burnout.
If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know I’m a dedicated proponent of self-care. It’s an essential part of cultivating your health and well-being. And emotional self-care is a specific set of practices such as:
- Check in daily with your emotions as they arise. Often, simply acknowledging them will take away their power, freeing you from their grip and helping to heal you from the emotional lawlessness of burnout.
- Journal about your feelings. Name them. What comes up? What was happening at the time that, for example, your anger spiked? You can make valuable insights from the association of external events and your feelings, allowing you to make more beneficial decisions which will help keep you from burning out.
- Allow yourself to have a good cry, to access the healing power of tears. Tears are your body’s release valve for stress, sadness, grief, anxiety, and frustration, which, when they become chronic, are emotions associated with burnout.
- Cultivate gratitude. There’s a reason why the phrase “an attitude of gratitude” resonates so powerfully with us. Gratitude has been shown to have numerous health benefits, including support for your emotional well-being and to help prevent or even heal burnout.
- Set boundaries in a skillful way. Noted author and speaker Brene Brown defines boundaries as “What is and isn’t okay with me”. Setting a boundary can be as simple as “that’s not okay for me”, a phrase that will keep you from overcommitting yourself and burning out.
Now that you see how many ways there are to care for your emotional health, let’s dive in to how to create a practice.
How To Create An Emotional Self-Care Practice
To create a daily self-care routine that works for you and your lifestyle, here are steps you can take:
#1 Choose an activity from the list in the previous section
Start with an activity that lights you up! You’ll be more likely to give it priority and stick to your practice. Start with just one so you don’t overwhelm yourself.
#2 Practice the activity
For example, if you choose “setting boundaries”, practice saying out loud, “That doesn’t work for me,” or something similar until you feel comfortable saying it out loud. You may find it helpful to practice saying it to an accountability partner.
#3 Make a commitment
Put your self-care routine into your calendar. Treat it as seriously as you would any other commitment since this one is to your own well-being. For instance, if you picked journaling as an activity, schedule 10 minutes for this each day in your calendar.
#4 Tweak if necessary
You may need to adjust your emotional self-care routine over time. That’s fine! If something isn’t working for you, choose a different practice. Just be sure to keep your commitment when you make a change, so you continue to prevent or even heal your burnout.
If you feel like you want more support, or are having trouble creating your own routine, I’ve got you covered with my “From Burnout To Balance: A Simple 10-Minute Daily Self-Care Practice.
This practice has been shown to:
- Increase mindfulness, well-being, self-confidence, and personal power
- Increase your ability to concentrate
- Cultivate a greater resilience to stress, a positive mindset, and a sense of hopefulness and calm
- Decrease stress and stress-related symptoms like frustration, mood swings, feelings of overwhelm or lack of control, anxiety, depression, low energy, headaches, body aches and pains, muscle tension, chest pain and rapid heartbeat, insomnia, and frequent colds and infections
- Reduce or even stop worrying
Start Caring For Yourself Right Now
There’s no reason to keep letting your emotions toss you around and push you further down the burnout path.
You can take charge of your emotional health right now. Create an emotional self-care routine that supports you best. Make a commitment to yourself to prevent or even heal your burnout. You now have the tools you need to get started.
And I’m here for you! To receive regular support for burnout prevention and recovery, sign up for my email list so you don’t miss out.
I can’t wait for you to get started!