Self-reflection invites self-awareness, and self-awareness enables you to better regulate your emotions.
From this, we can get a deeper understanding of why we feel the way we feel and make positive steps towards change and growth.
Better emotional regulation equates to less anxiety.
Less anxiety means a more peaceful, contented, and stress-free life.
It is tempting to believe that something outside—a great job, meeting Mr. or Ms. Right, winning the lottery— can make you feel okay and mollify envy. For a while these may seem to work, but an outer fix alone, no matter how gratifying, can’t sustain self-esteem.
Judith Orloff.
Taking back some control isn't easy, but is absolutely necessary and you can't just flick a switch: there is a process, and it takes commitment to change. But if the alternative is the status quo, then really, what do you have to lose?
Firstly, let's look at the word 'control'...
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We use it here to reinforce the point of what emotional burnout feels like...it feels like being out of control. That your life is dictated by a constant stream of outside events, this includes other people, and for many, it will include your career. I've yet to meet many people who truly love what they do for a living, regardless of how much 'wealth' it brings them, but you don't have to go to far to find someone who down right hates their job, and will gladly chew your ear for an hour about how bad it really is, and how it negatively affects their life.
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One thing that is within your control is changing your job. However, if you can't bear going into work on Monday morning because you loathe being a salesperson (yes that was me...) do you really think a different sales job is the answer? It's not the job you loathe, its a lack of purpose, passion and inspiration that drags you down.
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You jump from one fire to another, hoping for a while things will seem better, and for a little while they often do, but inevitably they lead to the same discontentment, the same old patterns and the same old feelings and behaviours. Some people do this with relationships, convinced that by taking control and finding someone new, that in that person they will find the peace that is so obviously lacking.
Taking back control then requires a different approach...
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It's taking time out to understand yourself better, get in touch with what is important to you, connecting to your passion which may have been suppressed since childhood. It's learning to love yourself and to give yourself permission to rest, to have some personal boundaries and to learn to say 'no' sometimes.
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It is overcoming people pleasing behaviour by understanding why you do it, and it may well mean letting some people down, or even letting them go.
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It's making time in your diary for your own self care, however that looks to you. This will mean communicating to your loved ones that you need some time alone occasionally, that you can't pour from an empty cup, and that you need their support. If they can't provide it, or even worse protest and accuse you of being selfish, these are not your people, anyone that truly loves you will understand and work with you, not against you.
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It is feeling confident in your right to take up space and have an opinion, that you don't need to feel guilty for doing something for yourself, that yes, you are worthy of the love you so freely give to others.
Emotional burnout manifests itself in physical and very evident and obvious external symptoms, but it is rooted in your emotional blueprint, in how you see yourself, in your own self-worth, it is rooted in the core of your own self-esteem.
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Using mindfulness as an emotional anchor, meditation, sentence completion, inner child work and gaining a deeper insight into your own psychological makeup, we can start to unravel the parts of us that hold us back.
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These parts of us that drive our emotions and behaviours, are the same parts that are running your autopilot, unconsciously, like a computer program in your brain, and it's this same blueprint that is causing your burnout.
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Emotional burnout is a symptom of an emotional blueprint that is no longer serving you.
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The path to less emotional burnout, is by installing a new emotional blueprint.
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This mean's taking back 'control'...of the inside...it's not your life you need to take control of, it is your mind.
