The one question I repeatedly asked myself this year was: “What will bring me the most peace?”
When you survive the unimaginable or feel drained from a season that looks different from what you thought, you shift into survival mode. It’s hard to string together the right words to convey how you’re feeling when you aren’t even sure how to decipher it yourself.
We try to push through the layers of grief, healing and heartache by doing the one thing we shouldn’t do: avoid unraveling our pain. We rarely know how to sit with it, we only know that we have to keep moving through it. The pressure to push forward overtakes our ability to rest in our healing, even though we feel like we’re drowning on the inside.
We’ve all heard the saying that we can’t pour from an empty cup. It’s not possible to keep giving when there’s hardly anything left to give. But where do we start? How do we refill our own cup, especially when it’s hard to imagine ever feeling different from the way we feel now?
If you’ve been feeling drained lately or find yourself running on empty, here are 5 helpful reminders to carry you through:
1. It’s Okay To Put Yourself First When Running On Empty
If you’re stuck in the people-pleasing mindset, you’re naturally reluctant to put yourself before everyone else. You’re conditioned to want the best for others, while forgetting that your needs are just as important, if not more.
When you’re running on empty, your perspective shifts. You no longer see things as you once saw them. In fact, it only becomes more obvious what you couldn’t see in hindsight. It’s not that you want to stop showing up altogether, but you finally start realizing that you can’t keep refilling everyone else’s cup, especially when yours is feeling far from full.
Putting yourself first might come in the form of cancelled plans, having a self-care day, or saying no to anything that you don’t actually agree with. There’s no benefit to prioritizing everyone except for yourself, especially when you’re already feeling drained. It’s okay to put yourself first. The right people in your life will always respect how you feel, not put you down or make you feel worse because of the choices you’re making for yourself.
2. Even The Hardest Seasons Are Temporary
If you’re in a season of grief, change, loss or even heartbreak, the good news is that it’s all temporary.
Time has a way of slowing down when we’re begging for it to speed up. We keep asking how much longer we’ll have to endure pain, or when we’ll reach the end of the road. It’s hard to focus on anything except how we feel, which can make it feel impossible that things will ever be different as they are now.
The month of October always comes with a heavy weight for me. It’s been almost 10 years since I left the abusive relationship I was in, and it was the first month I was able to walk away and start rebuilding my life. When I reflect on that time, sometimes it feels like nothing more than a distant memory, one that seems like a lifetime ago.
But what I learned through that, is the seasons in our lives are temporary. Even if you’ve felt a certain way for days, weeks, or even months, it doesn’t mean those feelings will last forever. The pain might feel like it’ll never go away, but it’ll eventually lessen and you’ll learn how to carry it differently.
Give yourself grace for pushing through, even if it’s little by little. And remember all the times before that you carried yourself through, because you’ll always make it to the other side. No matter how far away it feels.
3. You Never Owe Anybody An Explanation
A video that caught my attention the other day said one of our main problems is that we’re conditioned to explaining our pain. We try to find validation from other people to justify why we feel the way we do, even when they can’t fully understand the depth of where we’re coming from.
Whether you need rest, a break, or simply time to disconnect, you never owe anybody an explanation for your choices. It’s become one of the hardest yet most important lessons I’ve learned because I always felt like I had to attach a lengthy reasoning to every decision I made. As if somehow others’ opinions were more important than my own.
You’re the only person walking in your shoes, which means only you know what’s best for you. We cling to old patterns because we convince ourselves that keeping the peace feels easier than sticking up for how we feel. Never feel guilty for putting yourself first, especially when you feel drained.
Related posts you might like:
- 6 Ways To Reconnect With Yourself When Feeling Lost
- How To Trust Your Path When Life Doesn’t Go As Planned
- You’re Not Behind, You’re Exactly Where You Should Be
4. It’s Not About Doing Everything, It’s About Doing The One Thing You Can Do
I never considered myself a perfectionist, at least not in the traditional sense. I wasn’t the type to feel like everything “had” to be in order to be right, especially since organization was never at the top of my list.
But when I realized the unnecessary pressure I kept putting on myself, I felt the weight of struggling with the perfectionist mindset. Rather than separating tasks, I tried to tackle everything at once, and felt like I was falling short if I couldn’t keep up with my unrealistic expectations.
If you’re running on empty, even the smallest tasks can feel unmanageable. I didn’t want to stop showing up for myself, but I had to learn how to show up differently. When I was feeling the effects from burnout, I didn’t have the mental strength to stick to my writing schedule. Instead of seeing it as an area I was falling short in, I realized all the other ways I was still making progress, no matter how insignificant it may have felt at the time.
It’s not about doing everything, it’s about doing the one thing you can do. Maybe that looks like:
- Committing to making your bed every morning
- Drinking more water throughout the day
- Exercising 2-3 times a week, even if it’s going for a 30-minute walk outside
- Setting a timer and journaling your thoughts
- Unplugging for a night
We’re more likely to burnout when we keep piling too much on our plate. Something else that helped me immensely this year was writing down everything I wanted to get done for the day on a sticky note. I organized it from most to least important, and anything I didn’t check off my list, I’d simply move it to the next day. Sometimes it’s not about overhauling your habits, but finding tiny hacks that can make all the difference, especially when you’re running on empty.
5. Strength Isn’t Found In Your Feelings, It’s Rooted In Who You Are
I used to have this deeply skewed vision of strength. I didn’t know how to “feel” strong, especially when I felt the complete opposite.
Yet time and time again, I learned strength isn’t found in how we feel, it’s rooted in the core of who we are. Each time we make a promise to ourselves to keep going, our strength starts building on the blocks of what’s already there. After miscarrying twins earlier this year, it felt hard to bear the thought of what the future held. Especially since it already was turning into a story that I wasn’t sure how or when I was going to feel ready to turn the page to the next chapter.
Each day, my goal became the same, which was simply finding the strength to get through it. And somehow I found myself getting through that day, then the next, and the next after that. I kept one foot in front of another, until time passed at a manageable pace rather than in increments that felt like an endless loop.
I didn’t consider myself strong, even after I heard it from others when they were trying to carry me through. When you’re running on empty, strength isn’t an option. And ironically it’s not based on how strong you emotionally feel, but your commitment to keep showing up, despite how you feel. It’s rooted in who you are, and it’ll always carry you through, even when you feel at your lowest.
The most important thing you can do when feeling drained is give yourself grace for where you are, not where you expect to be. Even when a season feels long, know that it’s temporary and it will pass. As long as you’re taking it all one moment at a time, it’ll always be more than enough.
