All the emotional work is wearing you down

Feeling run down or exhausted? The amount of emotional work you’re putting in might be the answer.

by: E.B. Johnson

Feeling rundown, tired, or more emotional than usual? If you can’t pinpoint a reason, then emotional work might be the cause. We are living in really stressful and complex times, and there are a lot of demands being made on our emotions and our sanity. In order to find peace, we have to find a balance and figure out how to protect our emotions and our mental welfare. This requires courage, however, and speaking up for ourselves.

Rather than allowing our friends and family to take advantage of the emotional support that we offer them, we have to set limits and boundaries for both ourselves and everyone around us. This means saying something when we’ve been stressed too far, as well as learning to embrace our cosmic right to live and exist in peace. We alone have the power to control ourselves, and that means controlling our balance of emotional work.

The reality of emotional work.

Our relationships are dynamic and nuanced, and they have multiple faces and multiple requirements in order to thrive. Among these requirements is a certain amount of emotional labor, and beyond that emotional work. When this emotional work gets off balance, we can find ourselves struggling with our interpersonal relationships, as well as our own emotional and mental balance. Finding true happiness requires us to address our emotions, not sacrifice in the name of someone else.

The term “emotional labor” was coined in 1983 by sociologist Arlie Hochschild, who addressed it in his book, “The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling”. In this original definition, we see emotional labor defined as the way a person manages their emotions in order to shape the opinions of others.

While this definition focuses primarily on the workplace, emotional work goes much further to describe the emotional efforts we put into our personal relationships. Emotional work is going out of our way to comfort others, or providing emotional comfort and relief at the detriment of ourselves. Though every relationship requires a bit of emotional compromise, to put your own needs on the back-burner is toxic and self-defeating in the long run.

Examples of emotional work.

The types of emotional work that we put in are varied and occur across many dynamics. From being an emotional dumping ground for everyone, to being expected to always open the door to reconciliation — these are the most common ways you might be putting in more emotional work that you should be.

Becoming a dumping ground

Ever felt like an emotional dumping ground? This occurs people come to you with all their problems (whether you are equipped and free to deal with them or not) without ever making the same considerations for your own issues or hardships. Examples of this include the friends who always run to you with their problems, but who rarely ask after your own wellbeing or status. Usually, this dumping also comes with a demand for immediate attention and an immediate response. Over time, this changes the way you react to and interact with future friends and family.

News cycle barrage

Believe it or not, over-immersing yourself in the negative and constant 24-hour news cycle requires a huge amount of emotional work. Watching videos of murders, famine, and political unrest can leave us sad, agitated and otherwise anxious and unhappy. It takes a toll, and can seriously impact our mood and our ability to effectively deal with our own emotions. You see your world differently under a media microscope, and you can fall victim to storylines that warp interactions like voting or community outreach.

Assumed caretaker

Think about the last family gathering you attended. Did you get left to take care of the children? What about your last night on the town? Did you find yourself babysitting your friends while they cut loose (again)? When you automatically become the caretaker of sick friends and family, younger siblings, drunk besties on a night out, etc — it requires a great deal of emotional labor that can shift the way you see them and the relationships you share. The longer you are left to care for others (without the same return) the more resentment and contempt will permeate your personality.

Demanding professional advice

Emotional work doesn’t just come down to our familial and romantic relationships. When you’re a successful person, those who know you will also come to see this aspect of value as something they deserve access to. Hard as it might be (for them) to accept, it is still emotional labor when people believe they can come to you and demand your time and advice (for free) — despite your own professional and personal considerations.

Holding to a higher standard

Because so many people come to you demanding that you offload their emotional burdens for them, they come to hold you to a higher standard of living. Often, this feeds into their inconsideration. When this occurs, you find that you are held to higher moral codes and get criticized when you open up or make a mistake that reveals you to be human. For this reason, you begin to censor yourself (both consciously and unconsciously) which is a form of emotional work in and of itself. You’re squeezing yourself into an uncomfortable position to accommodate the comfort of someone else.

Whipping boy

Those who come from traumatic or abusive backgrounds will know well how much emotional labor goes into the experience. These types of people will often withstand a great deal of stress in their outward lives and then come home to more of the same. This means partners who take out their “bad days” and bad experiences on them with fits of rage and dramatic emotion that makes it hard for them to express themselves or feel safe and secure. It’s misdirected emotion of the highest degree, and it scars us for life.

Marginalized expectations

This is an important one. We’re living through changing times, and many of us are looking to minorities to solve their own traumas and the systemic systems that keep them oppressed. This includes white people asking black people to educate them on historical abuses and atrocities, or asking them to constantly relive and recount their own individual experiences through storytelling or even the gratuitous replaying of graphic video. It’s not okay to ask your black friend to explain why the world is so bad now, or ask them what you need to do to correct it. They’re well aware of struggle and don’t need to do any more emotional work for us (white people).

Dumbing-down

Do you dumb yourself down or pretend to be less knowledgeable than you really are around certain people? This “playing dumb” or allowing others to speak down to you or “educate” you on a subject you’re equally knowledgeable in is a form of emotional work and emotional labor. You’re changing yourself to make someone more comfortable and consciously limiting the space you take up intellectually. A good person would never require to be inferior just to be in their presence.

Constant initiator

Think back to the last big issue you had with a friend, or even the last time your best friend fell into conflict with someone else. When it comes to the hard moments, you’re always expected to be the one who steps up and initiates the tough conversations. In essence, not only are you expected to be the peacekeeper — you’re also expected to be the one who opens the door to resolution. Your friends and family run to you when things go awry, or they wait for you to make amends when they’ve messed up. When internalized, this can lead to an erosion of self-confidence and pervasive doubt.

How emotional work wears you down.

Failing to find the balance in the amount of emotional work that we do can take a serious toll on our lives and our happiness. Constantly sacrificing yourself on the altar of someone else’s needs isn’t noble, it’s toxic — and it makes it harder for us to be of help in the long run. We have to find the balance if we want to get back to the root of who we are and alleviate the stress.

Increased stress

The longer you carry on eroding your emotional wellbeing in the service of others, the more stress you can find yourself dealing with. Our emotions are dynamic and complex, and they can overwhelm us when they aren’t voiced and addressed appropriately. Burying your own emotions to deal with the emotional distress of others only puts your struggles at bay, prolonging your efforts to find peace and happiness from within.

Alienation from self

Sacrificing your emotional wellbeing can lead you to become alienated from your authentic self and further driven from your purpose. If you constantly spend your time and energy chasing (and subsequently putting out) other people’s fires, it doesn’t leave a lot of time and energy left for self-exploration. We change over time as individuals, and the things that we need and want change too. In order to stay aligned with our values and our integrity, we need to have the time and energy to search out and define who we are.

Decreased satisfaction

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand how greatly your life and relationship satisfaction can erode in correlation to the emotional work (or labor) that you put in. Seeking true satisfaction and fulfillment in this life requires us to search out those experiences and people which boost our confidence and sense of purpose. When we spend all our time chasing after the emotional needs of other people, it’s impossible to find our own little island of satisfaction and contentment.

Seeping resentment

Feeling chased by an overwhelming sense of resentment or contempt? The amount of emotional work you’re putting in and getting back might be the cause. When we don’t get what we need from the people around us (even after doing our best to put in what we can) it can leave us feeling disgruntled and undervalued — causing us to resent our partners, our friends, our family and even ourselves over time.

Failed emotional management

You can’t become a master of managing your own emotions when you’re only thinking about the emotions of other people. Getting in touch and in charge of the way we feel takes time, and it also takes personal space and a lot of compassionate understanding. When all that compassion, and all that attention and understanding is already over-extended there is nothing left for you.

The best ways to balance your emotional labor and protect your wellbeing.

If you want to walk away from these toxic and repeating patterns of self-battery, you have to learn how to balance the amount of emotional work and labor you’re putting into your relationships. Don’t over-commit when your boundaries and limits will do. Protect your wellbeing and learn how to stick up for yourself and your needs.

1. Get familiar with the dynamics

The first step in finding the balance in the amount of emotional work we’re doing is getting familiar with the dynamics and all their root causes. There are a million and one reasons that we overextend our emotional compassion, and they can range from a sense of guilt to the gender roles that are pressed into us by society. Correcting means identifying these underlying causes and addressing them for what they really are.

Spend some time considering where your need to overextend comes from. Get honest about the dynamics of the emotional work you’re doing and be brutally honest about any corresponding effects. Women, more often than men, take on the brunt of emotional labor in their relationships and this is automatically expected of them — no consent, no consideration.

Embrace the reality of the dynamics that you’re working with, and embrace any of the flaws that you have incorporated into your day-to-day life. Account for them, then hold yourself accountable. After all, once you know there’s a problem it’s on you to figure out a solution. You are responsible for taking care of your mental and emotional wellbeing. At the end of the day, you alone choose how you will expend your energy and be treated by the surrounding people.

2. Understand how important it is

Because our emotions aren’t always physically visible, many of us have a tendency to downplay them or put less importance on them. This is selling ourselves short, however, and doing a disservice to our overall safety and stability. You have to understand how important this emotional work is, and you have to understand how much of it needs to be reserved for your own experiences.

Stop pretending that your emotional efforts aren’t efforts. Whenever you’re listening to someone vent or offload their pain — listen to your own body and mark your own emotional response. Notice the fatigue, the lethargy. Notice when you feel their sadness and when it begins to get heavy.

Listen to your body. Listen to your feelings. Stop putting everyone and everything else before your own physical and emotional needs. Helping others is noble. Allowing yourself to be swallowed up and corrupted does a disservice to all the good you could be doing in this world. Be about the long game and ensure you’re here for every inning by protecting yourself and setting limits.

3. Demand equality and balance

Like it or not, the people in our lives aren’t always going to like it when we start to protect our wellbeing. When the people around you get used to using you for your emotional labor, it becomes a real shock to the system when that effort is suddenly removed. They’re then confronted with effort of their own, and that’s something that can cause rifts and a new type of hardship. No matter what, however, you have to protect yourself and protect the things you need to be happy.

Figure out what balance looks like to you and then demand it both vocally and by taking up space and presence in the world around you. Don’t be moved or bullied by people who don’t have your best interests at heart. If you want to stop doing all the emotional work, then you need to start sticking up for yourself.

Demand equality in the emotional work — no matter what relationship you’re considering. Once you know what balance looks like to you, express that balance clearly and vocally with the people who take advantage or cross the line. Let them know that what you’re doing is not a personal decision against them, but one that has been made for you and your betterment. Those who love you will understand, and they’ll do what they can to meet you in the middle.

4. Protect yourself

No matter how much you demand a balance of emotional work for yourself, some people will not give it to you (and they will get upset and uncomfortable when you demand it). You have to protect yourself and stand strong — even when the people that you love refuse to respect you in the most basic and crucial of ways. You don’t owe your emotional labor to anyone. You do, however, have a duty of care to yourself and your own emotional wellbeing.

If someone comes to you and expects you to solve their problems, say no. If they lash out or dump on you after a bad day at work, step up to the plate and call out their selfish and inconsiderate behavior.

Lean into personal space and spend some time chasing your own individual needs. Dig into the meat of the bad emotions that plaguing you and find a way to work through and resolve your own stress and pressures independent of those around you. The more personal responsibility you take when it comes to long-term joy, the less you will seek the validation of the world outside. Protect yourself and stand fast to your boundaries against those who would use you for their own desires.

5. Embracing what you can control

One of the biggest secrets to happiness (no matter what the circumstances) is learning how to embrace what you can control, while letting go of those things which you can’t. When it comes to emotional work, we have to let go of people who want to use us, and problems that we can’t fix. Any energy we spend chasing these things is wasted, and it’s energy we desperately need in order to build happier futures.

Understand that the only person you can control is yourself. Know — with absolute certainty — that the only emotions you have true mastery over are your own. Stop beating yourself up over other people’s suffering. Stop dragging along the dead weight of a partnership that’s one-sided.

When we embrace our own control over our lives, we are empowered to take action and find the balance and the stability for ourselves. We don’t need to chase the skirmishes of other people when we realize that they are futile. Each one of us has a responsibility to ourselves. We alone ensure that we get what we need to stay happy, healthy, and on top of things.

6. Refusing to bottle it up

One of the requirements of being an emotional whipping boy for others is that you bottle up your own emotions. You have to lose yourself in their pain, which causes you to push your own to rear of your mind. If we want to break out of these toxic and self-defeating patterns, we have stop allowing our emotions (and our self-worth) to take a backseat to everyone and everything around us.

Don’t bottle up your feelings anymore, especially in the name of someone else. When you feel bad or get upset, address the feelings (with yourself) then and there, then find a convenient time to reach out to the other parties involved. The longer you sit on negative emotions, the deeper they’ll fester within you.

Open up. Reach out to those who still love you; who still look out for you. Lean into those support networks that are mutually validating and let go of the toxic attachments that regard you only for advantage. Speak up when someone is taking more than they are giving; speak up when you feel like they don’t also see your pain enough to help or hurt along with you. Have a little self-compassion and a lot of self-respect and learn to give power to your thoughts and your needs.

Putting it all together…

If you’re feeling especially worn or rundown right now, the culprit might be the amount of emotional labor you’re giving away for free. Emotional work occurs whenever we are required to shift our own behavior or put in an emotional effort for other people, and it plays a crucial role in our own mental and emotional wellbeing. We have to safeguard our emotional stability if we want to build happier futures, but that’s a process that requires us to stand up and demand the respect we deserve.

Get familiar with the dynamics of emotional labor in your relationships and identify the underlying causes like gender issues that might be involved. Look to your boundaries to start forming limits and understand how important your emotional labor truly is. Holding this truth to heart, you will begin to see the value in the emotional space you give away, and within that you will start to demand the emotional space and equality that you deserve. Protect yourself and know when to say “no” and when to walk away from someone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart. The only person we can change is ourselves. The only person we can control is ourselves. Embrace these things and let go of your need to constantly sacrifice yourself emotionally in the service of those who do not do the same. Stop bottling up your emotions and speak up and speak out. You are responsible for caring for yourself and your wellbeing. Accept the responsibility and start taking positive action.