When my heart is confused, my emotions are frazzled, and my reasoning faculties fried; I continually return to myself.
Upon returning to myself, I turn within for restoration, stimulation, and inspiration.
Emotional exhaustion can come at the dawn of a trying work week, after a long vacation with the in-laws, or during a fight with your wife. Interaction with people can be both stimulating as well as intimidating. It can be positive and, at times, furious. Our passions can run the range during relational interaction of all types and sorts with various people. Some conversations are more pleasant than others.
If you are a relational person or in the people business, you are more susceptible to conflict and interpersonal disappointment. This is because of the recurrence of your interactions and the power of your expectations. Professions requiring less involvement with people can often be far less stressful due to the elimination of the relational component. Things don’t have complaints or expectations. These come from people.
That being said, it should be no wonder where emotional fatigue originates. Unlike rational exhaustion that flows from books and places high demands upon the brain, emotional fatigue typically occurs from placing high orders upon our emotions when battled interpersonally with people in altering contexts.
Priests feel it when they must balance emotions from interacting with people in different life seasons. Their gatherings are full of people burying, marrying, celebrating newborns, admitting divorcing spouses, and board members battling each other. Priests must analyze a long pattern of emotions to show themselves as understanding, sympathetic, celebratory, and wise-hearted.
Medical doctors feel it when they must empathise with grieving family members, ill children, dying patients, pregnant mothers, nurses in understaffed hospitals, pharmacists on the call, and insurance malpractice case adjusters.
Mothers feel it when they must generously support their husbands, rear their kids by day, be a sweetheart at night, a social butterfly on the weekends with their colleagues, assist in their community in some capacity, provide chauffeuring to and cheerleading at their children’s sporting events, and be a chef for three square meals every day .
Salespersons feel it when they must be competitive to gain leads, develop new clients, renew deals, bargain closings, and follow-up for future sales. There are employee interactions, emotionally needy secretaries, competing salespersons, money-hungry executive managers pushing them to their wit’s end to produce and rescind clients on their contracts.
Add to this all of the family responsibilities that any reasonable person would have after work and during the weekend. Yes, this could drive even the most enduring soul insane.
Emotional exhaustion, therefore, can affect us all at various times.
We should acknowledge our need for personal space, time to refuel, and earnest desire to regroup when necessary. Such times do not devalue any person dearest to us. In fact, it is just the opposite – because after being refreshed, we can return to being at our best, when we are most loving and useful to those we love and need us most.
Here are 5 Secrets to Refuel Your Emotionally Fatigued Soul
- Take time alone where you can rest. Physical rest provides both emotional and bodily rest, and renewal together.
- Find a silent place to meditate. Secure a place to dream, think and map your life. This lets you see the forest from the trees.
- Engage in a hobby where you can let yourself free. Take some me-time. For some, that means being alone. Others find it stimulating to be around friends who appreciate and can rejoice with them. Whatever wholesome luxury makes you feel best, incorporate such into your week.
- Gracefully remove yourself from intrusions of the soul. Use an answering machine to manage annoying people and calls. When a stranger comes knocking at your door, look through the peephole. If you’re not interested in talking to them, don’t.
- Say no without feeling guilty when asked to do something you don’t want to. It’s your life. Live it your style!
It has been said that victory is not defined by what you say yes to, but instead by what you say no to. Build your life in such a way to establish boundaries and margins to protect your focus. What you permit will dominate. Make your expectations known when relating to others, while seeking to explain and clarify their expectations of you. Be genuine, realistic, authentic, and clarify what you can and cannot do to lessen relational stress.
An undivided focus on your life’s purpose will unquestionably animate you within and move you forward with dynamic momentum. Recover your focus and life’s purpose. Upon pinpointing your passion and pursuing it, you will fulfil your heart.
Say no to intrusions, intruders, and things which decay your focus. It’s your life! Now live it your way without regret.
