Burnout Prevention Pt 1: Let Your Feelings Speak
“People who acknowledge and address feelings, especially uncomfortable ones, experience less burnout.”
Don’t Push Through
You may have heard something like this before: No matter what you’re going through, just push through it. You’ve got this!
This is a common strategy that has proven to not only be unhelpful for burnout, it can make things far worse! Like continuing to push with an injury, it can lead to greater problems. So, what is a stronger strategy?
What Are You Feeling?
When was the last time you did a “feeling workout”?
This is a new concept for most members of the missionary cohorts we take through the Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (EHD) course, but one that is so vitally important. It feels a little awkward for many and outright dangerous for others.
Why does naming our feelings, and in particular the ones we find difficult or unacceptable, seem to be so difficult? Emotional awareness can be atrophied like an unused muscle. This can be because of traumas we have experienced, the ways our family of origin did (or didn’t do) emotions, cultural norms, and many other reasons.
However, being emotionally aware and expressive is biblical. A few examples from Scripture, highlighted in the EHD course:
David was a man after God’s own heart. Yet, if we read his best-selling lyrics, we learn that he was depressed, may have had suicidal ideation, expressed rage, confusion, guilt, along with joy and awe.
Job is known as a man who was righteous, staying loyal to God through immense suffering. In his suffering he speaks about his anguish, he wishes he was never born, he experiences depression and anger.
Jeremiah, a prophet and a spiritual leader, wrote a whole book called Lamentations (the Hebrew word for lamentation could be interpreted as “Alas!”). He writes about devastation, grief, and suffering as well as hope.
Jesus felt deeply. At times he was overwhelmed with grief, overcome with compassion. He had joy but also deep sorrow and fiery anger. In the garden of Gethsemene, he was in so much anguish, yet he did not become frozen or shut down. He did not run away from difficult feelings.
Tools for Emotional Awareness
Exploring the Iceberg
One practice that has proven to be immensely helpful, both within our own lives and in the lives of those we serve, is “exploring the iceberg”. This is one of the practices from EHD that we like to introduce to new missionary candidates, precisely because of the necessity for emotional awareness during intense times of transition and cross-cultural stress.
Exploring the iceberg is about acknowledging the deeper emotions within us that often go unexplored. An iceberg is only about 10% visible, with 90% of its volume underwater. It is believed that for most of us, the same is true of our emotions. Whether or not we acknowledge 90% of our emotions, they are still there, and they have the habit of coming out eventually whether we want them to or not. For some it may “leak out” in the form of sarcasm or snarky remarks, or perhaps, after being shoved down for so long, these emotions explode out of us with hurtful and even violent behaviour. Often, refusing to acknowledge and process these emotions can lead to anxiety, depression, and physical illness.
“Exploring the iceberg” asks four questions:
What are you angry about?
What are you sad about?
What are you anxious about?
What are you glad about?
(Or my Dr Seuss version: Mad, Sad, Bad, Glad)
Using these questions, one can journal through (or speak out loud with a safe person) what they are experiencing emotionally. It’s a wonderful tool for gaining emotional awareness, but like an atrophied muscle, much practice may be required.
Want to learn more? Check out this podcast: Why Bottling Up Emotions Kills Spiritual Growth
Expanding Your Vocabulary
Many of us are the equivalent of a toddler, or even an infant, when it comes to emotional maturity. A toddler has a limited vocabulary. Often, they are unable to express themselves fully and this can lead to misunderstanding and frustration. As they grow, they gain more words in their vocabulary and are therefore able to communicate more deeply and fully.
When asked what we are feeling we may use statements that start with “I feel like…” or “I feel that…” These statements are almost always a statement of thought, not of emotion. Try asking: “What emotions do you feel about x, y, or z?”
We may be unable to articulate what we are feeling because we do not have an adequate emotional vocabulary.
Expanding our emotional vocabulary can give us the language we need to name some of the more nuanced emotions. We often share an emotions wheel with workers when we are doing a check-in or a debriefing. I keep one at the front of my journal so I can refer to it when I am journaling and praying.
Using the Tools
Remember when I wrote about the toolbox full of tools that I didn’t know how to use?
Having awareness about one’s feelings is like having a tool. Tools are important, but only if you know what to do with them. Knowing what a tool is called isn’t enough. Knowing what a tool can do isn’t enough. We need to know how to use them. Accurately and skilfully. The only way to do that is through training and practice.
I realised recently that although I have a pretty good awareness of my emotions, and I was becoming adept at naming them accurately, I wasn’t letting them speak to me. I wasn’t letting them help me.
Once we have an awareness around what we are feeling, we can ask a few questions:
What is this emotion telling me about this situation?
What is this emotion telling me about me?
How is God coming to me through my emotions?
What is God’s invitation to me in light of this?
An example: Someone set up an appointment with me which they canceled at the last minute. I became aware that I was angry. How can I let this emotion speak to me?
What is this emotion telling me about this situation?
I do not like it when people cancel last minute. I feel stressed about having to try to reschedule and wonder if this will happen again. I feel irritated about not having been available to someone else in this time slot.
What is this emotion telling me about me?
I value knowing how I will use my time. I desire others to respect my time. Commitments are important to me. I am also afraid that they canceled on me because they don’t like me.
How is God coming to me through my emotions?
My values of respecting commitments and making the best use of my time are good things in me. Others valuing me is not the most important thing; God wants me to know that he values me, my time, my commitments. I can be angry, but not sin by “bearing false witness” (making up stories) about why this person cancelled on me.
What is God’s invitation to me in light of this?
The next time we have an appointment set up, I need to have agreement from them that they will let me know 2 days ahead if they need to reschedule (barring any true emergency). I need to be open to learning if there is something I need to do differently.
Letting my emotions speak to me so that I can learn from them and make some positive changes going forward will make a huge difference. If I just “push through” – keep going but continue to encounter situations like this one – my stress levels, anger management, patience, and compassion are all compromised. If left unaddressed this can lead to compassion fatigue and burnout.
Sometimes what we are angry, sad, or anxious about is not something we can take action on, it is something broken, traumatic, or wrong that we have no control over or say in. We can use the same questions as above, yet we may not know how God is coming through our emotions or what God’s invitation may be; an appropriate response, then, is to engage the biblical practice of lament. To lament is to “give voice to suffering” (see Consider My Lament in the Member Care Journal). Prayer, journaling, counselling, debriefing, and friendships (but not like Job’s friends!) are all appropriate ways to do that.
Acknowledging, processing, and letting our emotions speak to us not only help us to avoid burnout (or recover from it), but help us to become more like the image bearers of Jesus that we are meant to be.
Questions to consider:
Are there any ‘no go’ emotions for you? How do you see Jesus and other men and women of the Bible acknowledge and express these emotions?
How aware are you of your emotions? Do you have a regular practice to uncover and acknowledge difficult emotions?
What is your emotional vocabulary like? In what ways can you expand your emotional language?
How can you make room to let your emotions speak to you? What are they telling you?
What support do you need? Who can help you grow in this area?