By Anaya Culhane
Happy Holidays NHCG readers! The season of busyness is in full swing, and with it can often come the “emptying out” of our proverbial fuel tanks. I often use the analogy that likens people to cars, as a way to check in with my clients when they express exhaustion, fatigue, or even frustration with the effects of feeling pulled in a million different directions and being left on “E”. I’ll ask you what I ask them: Can a car go anywhere on an empty tank of gas? Or, does it need some fuel in the tank to be able to cut on and make any forward movement? Take a second to reflect on this for yourself, and I’m sure you’ll arrive at the same conclusion they do.
Spoiler alert: A car can’t go ANYWHERE on an empty tank without gas. It just can’t happen. And as it turns out, neither can we!
In keeping with the metaphor, a car has the ability to take us many places and serve us in many ways when it has the fuel it needs. To the grocery store, or that Friday night concert, to a doctor’s appointment, or even to the post office to drop off those last minute Christmas presents… there are many ways a car can serve us, but in order for that to happen smoothly we also need to make sure that we serve our car with what it needs: a trip to the gas station to fuel back up again.
This season there might be a million ways that you are trying to serve other people, purposes, plans, or even yourself… but eventually you’ll need to stop and give yourself what you need in order to keep going strong, too. Now, it’s just a matter of determining the things that might have the capacity to fill you back up again.
One of the ways that we can identify our own sources of fuel or gas is to check in with what our emotions are communicating to us. Emotion-focused therapy is an orientation of counseling that focuses on the exploration and understanding of a person’s emotions as a means to facilitate therapeutic change. More specifically, emotion-focused therapy encourages individuals to acknowledge, accept, and process through their emotional experiences as opposed to suppressing or avoiding them, in order to become more fully integrated and in tune with themselves. This approach can be difficult for people who might be used to distracting themselves from uncomfortable emotions, especially during seasons like this where the busyness and stress could also be used to distract and avoid hard feelings. But, engaging in distraction and avoidance can also be a quicker way to empty our tanks and become “fueled out and empty”, which can be detrimental to our wellness and self-care. So below, I have five different tips on how to use emotion-focused tools to both identify and implement some self-care practices that can help you to slow down, and take the opportunity to put some gas back into the tank.
Schedule Intentional Time for Yourself
Sometimes in the midst of our busy schedules and pre-established routines, we might lose sight of making intentional time for ourselves. Take the opportunity to make a plan for your schedule and routine that dedicates 15-30 minutes for intentional stillness and solitude. This could look like carving out time in the morning before starting your day, maybe with a hot cup of coffee or wrapped in your favorite blanket on the couch. Or, dedicating time in the evening before going to bed to have uninterrupted and intentional time alone.
Some ideas to help see what might work for you could include reviewing your daily schedule, identifying a realistic time in your day where you have 15-20 minutes to work with, blocking off time in your calendar, and/or setting an alarm in your phone with a reminder to be quiet and still. Other pro-tips could look like placing your phone on Do Not Disturb, or limiting your screen time during this intentional time for yourself (ie. no social media, no screens, and silenced notifications… trust me, it could do you good!).
The key is creating a window of opportunity for you to be alone with yourself at some point during your day. Making sure that you have this window of time is an important first step towards checking in with yourself emotionally, and laying the foundations for intentional and effective self-care.
Employ Mindfulness as an Emotional Check-In
During a moment of stillness, practicing mindfulness techniques can help you tap into your own emotional awareness to begin “checking in” with yourself. Here are some examples of emotion-focused mindfulness techniques that you could use to do this:
Focused breathing techniques – Practice breathing exercises where you are paying specific attention to your breathing, rhythms, and sensations in your body as a means to anchor yourself in the “here and now”, or the present moment. This is a good way to practice becoming aware and in tune with your mind and body connection.
Body scan meditation – After focused breathing techniques, try using a body scan meditation to pay close attention to any sensations or tensions that you notice in your physical body. Take notice of where certain tensions might be showing up (e.g., feeling a tightness in your chest, or pressure in your head), and give yourself the opportunity to release that tension as you acknowledge where it’s showing up, and how it’s feeling in your body.
Identifying and labeling emotions – During or after the body scan meditation, you could also try actively naming the emotions that are showing up for you and allow yourself to feel them as they come. For example, if you notice that the tightness in your chest feels like anxiety, name that and allow yourself to feel that emotion for a moment without passing judgment on yourself. Or, if you notice knots in your stomach that feel like nervousness, name that emotion out loud and allow yourself a moment of feeling it without rushing away from the moment. Engaging in this exercise can support your development of emotional tolerance and emotional acceptance, as a means to process and release uncomfortable emotional experiences and facilitate emotional expression.
Chair work – One way of integrating the body scan meditation technique and the identifying emotions exercise is to practice chair work. This exercise encourages you to sit in a comfortable position in a chair, with your feet preferably flat on the floor and your hands relaxed on your lap. And, as you’re in this position you would actively notice the sensations in your body, identify the emotions that are coming up, and allow yourself to let those emotions rise up and be fully felt.
None of these examples have to be done in order, but any of these exercises are helpful in the practice of building up a level of emotional awareness and tolerance for any uncomfortable emotions you may be feeling.
Use An Outlet to Help Identify and Process Your Emotions
As a follow up to Tip #2, using supportive outlets for emotional expression can also help you in practicing emotional awareness and making room for intentional self-care practices. Outlets for emotional expression could include journaling your thoughts during moments of stillness or mindfulness (e.g., using a notepad and pen that is set aside for journaling and meditation, or having a special tab in your notes app for tracking your emotions could be helpful). Sketching, drawing, painting, or other forms of artistic expression could also become outlets that support emotional expression and processing during these moments. These are just a few examples of outlets that you could use to help identify and process emotions.
An additional supplement for identifying your emotions could look like using an Emotion Wheel during this process! Emotion Wheels are tools that offer language for our emotions, and also categorize them in ways that can be helpful for identifying the primary, secondary, and sometimes tertiary emotions that you may be experiencing. Please see an example of an Emotions Wheel from the Calm App here.
Use Grounding and Somatic Techniques as an Emotional Outlet
After all of these steps towards facilitating emotional awareness and mindfulness techniques, sometimes it might feel like you’re left holding uncomfortable emotions and not know what to do next. If you are feeling emotionally activated after practicing the above exercises, a helpful next step to regulate your emotions would be to use grounding techniques. “Grounding” refers to the methods used to help people reconnect with the present moment and return to a state of emotional stability and control, especially during experiences of heightened emotional distress or dysregulation. There are also two helpful “S” words that are key reminders to effective grounding strategies – and, that is Senses and Somatics!
Engaging the five senses, otherwise known as your sense of Sight, Touch, Hearing, Smell, and Taste are a direct pathway to anchoring yourself in the present moment. Examples of grounding techniques that engage your senses include the 5,4,3,2,1 Technique. In this technique, you would pair focused breathing techniques with the exercise of identifying 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste in that order. You can allow yourself to take your time and describe in detail the things that your senses are engaging with (e.g., describing the sensations and quality of the jeans you’re touching, or describing the sensation and experience of the gum you taste during the exercise). You can also close out the exercise with a final round of focused breathing to help with emotional regulation. Repeat this as many times as needed until you reach a state of stability and calmness.
Another way to help ground yourself is to practice a somatic exercise, otherwise known as actively engaging your physical body. Practical examples of somatic grounding techniques include deep breathing exercises (e.g., taking intentional deep breathes inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth), slow and controlled stretching, going for a walk, relaxing with a sense of touch (e.g., embracing yourself in a hug, or making steady, rhythmic taps on your chest or arms), or even running your hands under water and noticing the physical sensations. You can use any of these techniques to return to a baseline after practicing emotional mindfulness, and set yourself up well for engaging in intentional self-care strategies.
Fill Back Up Again: What’s Your Favorite Form of Self-Care?
Finally, you’ve arrived at the emotional gas station! Once you’ve engaged in some of the above techniques to identify and embrace your current emotional state, you might now have better indicators about the type of self-care you need to pour back into yourself again. At this point, I would encourage you to identify the hobbies, practices, routines, and opportunities that feel like they most contribute to a sense of happiness, joy, beauty, curiosity, and other positive contributions to your emotional and mental well-being. Here are some guiding questions that might help with identifying what a personal sense of self-care might look like for you:
What are the little things that make you happy?: If you think about the small things that could happen during your day, what are some practical things that make you happy? Would it look like eating your favorite meal for breakfast, or throwing on an outfit that makes you feel good? Could it look like taking a long hot shower, or an herb-filled bubble bath? Reflect and consider some of these things.
What are the things you look forward to the most during your day/week?: What are some things that bring you a sense of elation or joy? Is it curling up after a long work day and putting on the next episode of your favorite show? Is it going for a run with your new running group? Is it treating yourself to a glass of wine on a solo date, or maybe having dinner with friends you haven’t gotten to see in a while? Consider the things that bring you a sense of enjoyment and are practical or feasible for you to plan that week.
What can I do to set myself up well for some stress-free time to myself?: Practicing self-care can also look like intentionally taking care of pressing tasks or responsibilities with an approach of self-compassion and grace. Does that look like taking care of those piling dishes or laundry the night before, so that you don’t have to worry about them in the morning? Does that look like going to bed early that night so that you have a full night’s rest to fuel you for the following day? Even when thinking about tackling tasks and responsibilities as a form of self-care, remember that you can make it enjoyable! Play your favorite music while taking care of those dishes and make it a dance party… or fill up your cupboard with your favorite snacks to prepare for the flurry of emails you may need to send out. Set up a routine and approach that best fits you, and not the other way around, to help make approaching self-care feel more feasible, and more intentional for your own well-being.
Again, these are only a few examples and suggestions, but there is one thing universally true: we all have different ways of processing our emotional experiences, and maybe even practicing self-care that feels like it specifically refuels us. But, we ALL have the ability to run on empty when we forget to refill our own tanks.
Take the opportunity to reflect on the unique ways that you need to tap into your emotions and identify self-care strategies this season, and approach the holidays with a gas tank full of energy and a refueled sense of wellness! You deserve to be filled up, and stop running on empty… and you eventually might learn to enjoy more frequent trips to your emotional gas station along the way.
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