Floating or Sinking?
One of the first leadership conferences I organized with my team was back in the 90’s. Yeah, last century. Some of you can relate?
I remember the speaker, talking about emotional resilience, said something like this: You are like a sponge. You soak up as much as you can but at some point you will become saturated and you cannot take on anymore.
We need to squeeze out the excess when our sponge is full before we can take on more.
This applies to our energy levels, learning something new, taking on new projects, emotional drama, physical fitness, and eating to name a few things.
We don’t like to think we have limits but we do. It’s okay to test your limits and push past your comfort zone because it is truly amazing to see how much more you can take on than you think you can.
But when you find yourself sinking, or being over emotional, self care is SUPER important.
Self care includes eating well, thinking positive, schedule in some down time, sleep 7-8 hours consistently, and take breaks when you are learning and focusing hard.
And if you are thrown the curve balls in life, you know like when the dog gets sprayed by a skunk, or your child tells you at 8PM that they forgot to tell you it’s their turn to bring cupcakes to school tomorrow, or you just found out a loved one has cancer, those kind of curve balls, you need to take extra special care of yourself.
Extra special care includes taking a “mental health” day from work, scheduling a spa treatment, curling up with a good book, ordering out, and spending time with a good friend who will listen.
Because when your sponge gets too full, you begin emoting on others. When our system is overloaded, we can’t pick up on the queue’s others may be giving us at work or at home.
When we are overwhelmed we may struggle with communicating accurately, what it is we need. Others may perceive us as insensitive because we are not speaking in a gentle and kind way. When life feels overwhelming constantly then it’s possible you are dealing with burn out and you may feel you are in over your head or sinking. That is no way to live life.
This is the time to be nice to yourself. Treat yourself like you would a good friend. Have compassion. Set some boundaries and don’t take on more than you can. It’s okay to say no.
Set up daily routine of exceptional self care and you’ll float with all of life’s ups and down in a much easier way. You’ll better deal with the emotional drama and be able to read the room and allow your emotions to wash through you much easier.
I know you know this but I thought I’d pass along a reminder because I need to hear it. Sometimes I write these messages for me ya know. And it’s amazing how often I hear back from a few of you that it was a good message for you too.
If you want to know more about emotional intelligence and learn about how to expand your emotional resilience, please join me for a free workshop this afternoon. See the information below.
And be on the lookout next week for an announcement about an in-person (for real) LIVE workshop that you can register to attend which will be held in mid-May in Farmington, CT (Agile EQ: Understanding Self and Others).
On the podcast this week . . .
There is a lot of stigma associated with addiction. I don’t believe there is one type of addiction that is better or worse than another but there are some addictions that have greater stigma attached. And the addiction to pornography has a high level of stigma. I don’t hear many people talking about this one. I was a little afraid to talk about this one too. But I learned with alcohol that we are not “bad” people, we just have/had a bad habit that took our choices away. We had to surrender completely when we were ready.
Well apparently it is the same regardless of what addiction you have, including porn. I must admit I had some trepidation asking Dr. Michael Jaquith to share about his recovery from porn addiction but I’m so glad I had him on the podcast because I learned a lot.
This is a powerful episode where Michael shares his story of addiction and recovery and how important it is for listeners to know there is help.
All my best,
Maureen
Emerge. Evolve. Lead. Podcast
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