Drop the Bags Bitch
Drop the Bags Bitch
Energy Vampires
This episode talks about a really sneaky energy vampire that might be stealing your energy and how to banish it.
If you've been feeling excessively tired or having outbursts of emotion, you might have this energy vampire in your life.
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Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
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Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
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Hey my friends it's good to be with you another week. I think I'm a really nice person like 90% of the time and then 10% of the time I am my complete asshole. And I realized that all of the times I'm an asshole have had one thing in common: and that is at some level, somewhere, I was not honoring myself and as a result of that lack of honoring myself, I lashed out in really nasty ways. At some point it became really fucking obvious to me that I only have so many spoons to give in a day and if I try to give more spoons than I have, I will turn into a monster. And the biggest sneakiest thief of spoons is emotional labor. And I think it is so sneaky because we don't calculate that into our day. Like if I do something really physical, I expect to be tired. I expect to have to take it easy afterwards. Right? I acknowledge it and do things to alleviate the effects of it. But I think we ignore the amount of emotional labor that we do in a day. Like if there's something very unsatisfying in your life, some aspect of your life that just feels really off, you might be having emotional labor to ignore that part. To pretend everything's fine. You might be spending emotional labor ruminating on the past. You might be spending emotional labor fighting who you really are. You might be using emotional labor being mean to yourself. When you have boundaries that need to be set and you aren't setting them, that takes emotional labor from you. And the list really could go on and on and on and all of that emotional labor is stealing your spoons. And it was actually dog sitting that brought this to my attention. Because at the end of some days, I would just be so utterly exhausted and just feel so wiped out and just completely spent. And I'd be like What is wrong with me? I didn't even do anything today. Like what the hell? But then I realized that I did do a lot during those days. I just didn't count it. Right. So I had a dog that I found really gross, following me around and wanting to cuddle with me. And for this dog to cuddle me, I had to allow someone I didn't want to touch me to touch me and I had to do emotional labor to allow that. I had experienced the feeling of having someone I didn't want to touch me touch me for an entire day. Like yeah, of course that's exhausting. That's a lot of fucking emotional labor. So I've started to try and account for the emotional labor that is done during a day and trying to pay attention to when I'm out of spoons. So sometimes by the end of the day, I don't have any spoons left. Like I'm just kind of spent. And so my partner will be trying to talk to me about something and I just will not want to hear it. And it's not like it's something difficult or unpleasant to hear. He's just like talking about the grass or something, but like I do not want to hear another fucking word about grass. And I can feel myself wanting to be mean, like wanting to say something really mean so he shuts the fuck up. That 10% Asshole wants to come out. But since I've been becoming more aware of this, I'm able to say something instead like it's late and I'm really wiped. I don't have the brain capacity for this conversation right now. Like can we talk about this another time? If I'm paying attention to my spoons and my emotional labor I can honor my needs and avoid being a colossal asshole. If I don't honor my needs, and I don't ask to not have the conversation in that moment, at some point I'm probably going to lash out because I'll be out of spoons. So my invitation to you would be to take stock of where your energy leaks are. Where are you spending your emotional labor? And if you find that you have been excessively tired or having angry outbursts, where can you decrease your emotional labor? Where do you need to honor yourself that you haven't been? What boundaries are you not setting that need to be set? What things in your life need changing? And be careful not to get overwhelmed with this. Like when I look at the amount of emotional labor that I do in a day. It's like a crazy amount. So an energy leak for me might be when I'm having a really But you can just take stock of where your energy is going. And you can hold that up and examine it and decide if there is an area that you can take charge of. You don't have to patch all the energy leaks- just try to patch one. Even just patching one leak can make a huge difference. But be careful not to add emotional labor by freaking out about all the leaks. Just pick a leak and patch it. needy dog that's draining a lot of my energy. I might schedule breaks for myself so that I can run an errand or something and have a little bit of time where I'm not dealing with that right? It's being mindful of where my energy is being sapped and mitigating some of that. I remember a big one for me early on was I used to get so upset when like my family, my grandma would ask me about my ex like how he was doing. I would get mad that she asked, but I was getting mad because I was at that point, I was trying to make myself be friends with him. And I've talked about that on the podcast before like all the reasons for doing that. But that was a source of emotional labor for me- trying to make myself do something, make myself have a friendship that at the core, I didn't want to have. And that showed up with being angry about being asked about that person, right? It's being mindful where the emotional labor is. And that lets you know what needs being looked after. I also think giving yourself daily recovery time is a really good idea. And not just like a nice to have but like something that is worth canceling other things in order to do. Taking care of yourself is one of those things that sometimes gets brushed off as selfish. But I think that is like the biggest absurdity ever. Because I have found that the more I take care of myself, the better a person I become. Like I'm just so much nicer. I'm so much more available for other people's support when I'm not already depleted. Take the example with my partner that I gave you, if I didn't take care of myself, I would be a much worse partner. I would be being mean when that could have been avoided just by minding my own needs. I think moms have this the worst. Like moms tend to get so much pressure to have to do all the things and be all the things and it's just such bullshit. Like it sets you up for exhaustion and depletion. But it never gets combatted because there's so much like mom guilt for not like being perfect. But you know, I don't think serving cereal for dinner and plopping your kids in front of the TV makes you a bad mom.. And if that is what it takes in order for you to have a moment of recovery, then I think that is how you are the best mom that you can be. All right, my friends, mind your spoons, plug a leak, and cut yourself some slack. Until next time, be well.