You Can’t Pour From An Empty Cup: Caregiver’s Emotional Wellbeing

We, as social beings, are bound by emotional relationships, its rules, duties and reciprocation. This makes us prone to everyday thoughts that range from feeling ecstatic one day to draining our energy the next day.  

This article is a reflection on everyone who plays the role of a caregiver, a helper, a friend or a support system to anyone in life and how one needs to balance one’s own emotional weighing scale before taking up the load of others’.

For anyone who has offered or wants to offer help to a close one or console someone, caregiving is an emotional journey; one that needs full attention and along with a problem-solving hemisphere, activating the sensitivity zone.

When we choose to help people, we do so with our hearts in the right place and supportive intentions. However, what about our own emotional turmoil that needs resolving at times?

Remember, the key to emotional joy lies in striking a self-love concept. Self-love and self-care is not selfish or dramatic but necessary.

Keeping themselves happy and emotionally stable is crucial before one leaps to lend a listening ear or takes on a bigger role of a caregiver. Here are a few pointers for caregivers:

• Self-healing: Heal yourself first and introspect your emotions first. Don’t deny feeling any emotion, good, bad or ugly emotion.
• Take time out: Hit the hills, beaches, pick up a nice book, play your favourite music, enjoy a good meal or even retail therapy – make time for yourself. Make sure you incorporate the privilege to spend a little time out on yourself, to unwind and restart.
• It is okay to say no: You do not have to stretch your plans to accommodate people if it emotionally drains you. Excuse yourself from the friend who is constantly complaining, the peer who is emotionally toxic, etc. It’s best to refuse, rather than getting stuck in an emotional impasse.
• Meet diverse people: Even as an introvert myself, I recommend acquainting yourself with  people from all walks of life and ages. A child, a parent, an aged person, a theorist, a musician, a DJ, an artist or a technician. They would all open your emotional adaptability to a lot of situations.
• Before pragmatically helping, lend a listening ear: Now, this is a tricky terrain. Empathy is feeling someone’s pain and re-living their experiences. Ask yourself, “Is it best to simply listen and support than to offer solutions at a go?” Some people may prefer problem-solving, some simply need a listening ear.
• Never self-deprecate: When you try helping, not everything goes as planned. Every person has a different reaction and response, thus affecting the outcomes. So, try to maintain an ‘attached detachment’. Offer a solution/advice with an alternative back up, then let it play out. It may be magical, or it may lead to chaos. However, remember you tried your best, with your best intentions and with the best of your capacity.  It is better to help and fail, than failing to help at all.
• No self-guilt: Helping souls must remember that guilt will cloud your ability to make a change or to think rationally. Keep your own emotions in control, breathe, relax and get involved genuinely to make a difference even if it means doing 1% of what is required. Do not let your guilt force you into making decisions.

So before taking on the caregiving role, heal yourself first – let go off the emotional binge eating habits, the ‘bad-vibes’ acquaintances and social pressures. Because as it goes, ‘You can begin to pour help and spread solutions, only when your own pitcher of happiness is full!’

Ashima Verma Member since May 16, 2020

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Ashima Verma is working as a counsellor at The Mallya aditi international school bangalore and had previously worked for 8yrs at The Air Force School, New Delhi. She has completed her bachelor’s in psychology from Jesus and Mary college, Delhi University post which she did her MA in child and clinical psychology from the same institute. She also holds a Diploma in guidance therapy from Indian Institute of Counselling,alongwith a B.Ed Degree.