What happens when you have nothing left to give?
Thoughts on imbalanced emotional labour, and how to get ourselves back on track.
What Is Emotional Labour?
The phrase, first coined by sociologist Arlie Hothschild, originally referred to "emotional labour as the “paid labour which centrally involves managing, evoking and suppressing emotions and feelings.” Examples given are those of teachers, flight attendants, bill collectors and child care workers — professions which require heavy emotional lifting on a daily basis, and are embedded into their work requirements and everyday interactions.
Here, I expand emotional labour to a wider perspective. One that acknowledges the psychotherapeutic lens, and includes both paid and unpaid emotional labour. My work is also not without a racial and cultural context. I am a Black therapist, who primarily works with black women and people of colour. Emotional labour in the way I speak to it in this article, takes into account the burden that Black women and people of colour unduly face when it comes to managing the emotions of others around them to prevent discrimination, harassment and prejudice — in both professional and personal settings.
To me, emotional labour as a term has its roots in many things, but as a therapist the pieces of major significance to me are the way it is shaped by our past, how it impacts the boundaries of relationships in our present, and what that might mean for our own emotion regulation and stability moving forward.
I define emotional labour as the often invisible labour of supporting, caring and attending to emotional needs in relationships. To feel safe, healthy and understood in our relationships, we need a balance between meeting the emotional needs of others, and getting our own emotional needs met.
Emotional labour is also necessary work in our relationships. Meeting the emotional needs of those in our family and immediate community is an important aspect of community care and collective resilience building. We do this work to navigate interpersonal situations, be effective parents, smooth over conflict, understand others, and express internal values of connection + care. Providing emotional labour is hard work. Service related and healthcare industries, advocacy work, caregiving and parenting are all examples of places where emotional labour is difficult, needed and important.
When emotional labour is imbalanced, it can lead to feelings of disconnection, disappointment, resentment and burnout. Paying attention to the ways you give and take in relationships creates a foundation for mutuality, conscious connection and intentional conflict resolution. Finding a balance in giving as well as accepting support is necessary to prevent undue burnout and establish clear boundaries with yourself and others.
Signs you may be doing too much emotional labour:
You always make yourself available and ready to support whenever someone needs you, even at the expense of your own mood, energy or interest.
You are constantly changing and adjusting your needs and boundaries in order to make other people feel comfortable.
You are highly sensitive to potential negative emotions and reactions in others, and make extra effort to anticipate, manage and avoid negative outcomes.
You find yourself often over-involved in other people's conflict, and are usually the go-to person for advice, validation and soothing.
You may feel resentful, angry or disappointed at other people's inability to offer the same level of support that you freely give to them.
Your identity and how you see yourself are defined solely by your role in other people's lives, and not by your own desires and actions.
Our capacity to balance emotional labour is usually first learned in our families of origin, our early friendships and can be shaped and impacted by a history of trauma — particularly emotional, relational and psychological abuse and neglect. However, you don’t have to have a trauma history for this to be difficult for you. Trouble balancing emotional labour can also arise when we feel disconnected and out of touch with our minds, our bodies and our communities.
An important note: Dealing with trauma, abuse and triggers is something that many people need extra help and support with. Learning to correct imbalances in your emotional labour may also mean recognizing when you need to seek out and accept professional help from a therapist, doctor or other healing professional.
Because emotional labour is intangible, learning the ways it shows up, and figuring out how to balance and set boundaries around it are subtle. As well, it is not common that we are given the education, language and the tools to describe and communicate around our emotional labour. We may know that aspects of our relationships and our sense of self need to be understood and negotiated— but emotional labour tends to fall under the radar when it comes to our mental health, despite it being a major component of our life experiences and personal story.
A few reasons why balancing emotional labour might be hard for you:
Not being taught or exposed to healthy internal and external ways of engaging with your own emotions.
You never learned to meet your own needs without judgment and shame, or see the value in asking for your needs to be met by others.
A history of abusive romantic, familial, work and friend relationships, which utilize power dynamics of intimidation, bullying and unreasonable expectations or demands of your energy, labour, love and time without reciprocity or discussion.
Growing up with emotionally immature caregivers who have difficulty expressing, identifying and understanding the impact of their emotions and behaviour.
Experiences of (intentional or subconscious) coercion, lack of choice and manipulation around your obligations related to caring for and attending to others emotional needs.
Example: Having neglectful parents and having to care for younger siblings/ family members, or not given space or option or opportunity to decide whether or not you want to be a caregiver.
Tools for finding a balance of emotional labour:
Practice embodiment and understand your triggers.
Understanding how your body, mind and soul feel and interact with each other is a key tool to develop the internal wisdom to state your needs, meet them intentionally, and determine your capacity and energy to do so for others. Especially if you have a history of trauma, knowing your internal and external triggers is a foundational tool for healing, and makes the difference between self-aware engagement with the wounds of your past, versus avoidance, numbing and isolation.
Practicing embodiment can start with a simple mindfulness or meditation practice, or prioritizing a quick emotional check in during your day. To balance and understand the role of emotional labour in your life and relationships you need a finely tuned body compass. One that is calibrated to the priorities and needs of yourself and the important relationships you keep. Whenever you feel indecisive or overwhelmed by the load of caring for others, or begin to notice resentment/frustration in your relationships, this is a great time to get centered, practice being present and touch base with your thoughts, emotions and physical sensations.
Pay attention to time spent.
How much time do you spend caring for others, noticing the needs within your immediate and wider community, and/or observing and planning around other people’s moods and feelings? Awareness of the time and energy spent in these areas allows you to spot when you’re losing track of your schedule and recognize the parts of your routine that are emotionally and physically draining. The danger of inattentiveness to our time, is that when we don’t have this awareness, our every day routines can feel fragmented, disorganized and ineffective.
When this happens, we lose valuable time trying to collect ourselves, transition from one task to another, and end up de-prioritizing the activities and relationships that actually bring vitality, energy and conscious connection. Take a look at your calendar and rate your expenditure of emotional labour on a scale of 1-10. If you notice that on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, you prioritize, relationships, activities and tasks that require the most of your emotional energy, then it might make sense if you haven’t felt able to engage or participate in self care, or spend time with people that support and inspire you.
Learn to identify and communicate your boundaries and needs.
You need to have the vocabulary to define your needs. How do other people in your life get their needs met? Practice observing this in others you admire or respect. Articulating your needs is equally if not more important than just identifying them. People can’t read your mind. Do you feel worthy or valuable enough to get your needs met? Do your needs feel overwhelming or ‘too much’?
Getting the courage to name what you need and then communicate them effectively can take work. Seek out resources to help you with language and strategies for boundary communication. Observe how other people in your life communicate their needs, making note of when something resonates, is helpful or doesn’t feel good. Nervousness around communication is normal. Practice makes perfect.
Determine whether your emotional labour is necessary or unnecessary.
Is this a parent-child relationship, or a romantic one? Are you constantly available to lean on at work, or are you a caregiver for an elderly family member? Is your job one that requires offering service and support to others? Recognizing when emotional labour is necessary and important allows you to attend to your major priorities and your capacity. When emotional labour is defined and purposeful, it can be both draining and rewarding.
Knowing the benefits and negatives can ensure you know how to, and when to engage in emotional labour, and remind you of your obligations and priorities in caring for others and yourself. Perhaps you spend your whole day giving advice and bending an ear to others at work. Realizing the limitations of your emotional labour will support you in making a decision to set a boundary at work, so you have more emotional space for your family at the end of the day.
Release what you can and cannot control.
Emotional labour in relationships can quickly become unbalanced when you are attempting to hold on to other people’s reactions — good or bad. Practice doing what feels right and letting go of controlling how others respond to your needs. This might feel frustrating and difficult to do at first. A key aspect of emotional labour is the amount of rumination, worry and care you may spend trying to avoid negative outcomes and attempting to manage the feelings of others. It is worthy remembering that despite our best actions and intentions, we can’t always control or prevent how people respond to our boundaries, needs and desires. Release yourself from the unnecessary pressure and mental load of this.
Assess your role self and healing fantasy.
Your history influences your expectations. What role do you play in people’s lives? Are you constantly offering advice, solving problems, being the go-to person at work, or assessing emotional concerns at home or with friends? The role you play in the world is connected to your healing fantasy. Your healing fantasies are the internal (often subconscious) hopes, desires, and expectations that you have in relationships. This can be shaped in your childhood in your family of origin, or can be integrated through formative relational experiences at any time in your life.
For example: If I pay enough attention to my parent’s needs, then maybe they will have enough time to listen to me and play with me when they’re less tired? Or My partner will love me and appreciate me more when I make myself useful, by silently anticipating and planning for their bad days. or The house will feel more relaxed and safe when I try to plan around my roommates bad mood and negativity.
Do a relationship reflection.
Who are the energy vacuums and vampires in your life? Who are you with and where are you when you need to feel energized and inspired through connection? Are you often drained and avoidant of engaging in certain activities and environments? What do you notice internally when you are supported by your community? Do you have relationships that feel reciprocal, clear and mutual? What role do you play in maintaining this dynamic and why?
Let yourself feel angry.
Core feelings associated with realizing that there is an imbalance of emotional labour are usually anger, resentment and frustration. As you begin to unpack the relationships in your life, examine your history and understand the impact of them, it is natural to feel angry and upset with yourself and others. Anger is often the experience of remembering your worth. The key here is to use that anger to make effective changes, instead of turning to yourself with shame, or to others with destructive aggression and passive aggressiveness. Remember to communicate your feelings first to yourself and then give yourself the space to make a choice about what you want to do or how you want to communicate it to others.
There will be times where emotional labour is imbalanced and necessary in many of your relationships. Being a parent, a caregiver, a community supporter as well as engaging in a service related industries for work such as nursing, teaching, customer service, or advocacy work can create a sense of helplessness and overwhelm when it comes to balancing this.
When emotional labour is necessary and imbalanced it can feel deeply unfair. Return to your values, reflect on the why and the passion you had for these tasks/ relationships/ jobs etc. Create space in your schedule that is just for you, and challenge the unhelpful thoughts that this is “unnecessary, impossible and selfish.” If after trying all of the above, and you still feel angry, resentful and overwhelmed by the emotional labour you provide - it may be time to let something go, even if it is temporary.
Perhaps pausing volunteering for a few months, taking an extended mental health leave from work, or letting your friends know that you’re not able to give advice or support until you can find a balance. Check in with the most important relationships and set your urgent priorities around emotional labour to attend to, making sure to put yourself if not first then equally as important as those you care for.
When we educate ourselves on emotional labour, we can then take a long hard look at our current relationships to identify the unique footprint of emotional labour in our own lives. Once we get clear on the individual and collective impact of emotional labour for ourselves, we can start to use tools, skills and strategies to correct imbalanced relationships, including the relationship we have with ourselves. This is not a quick fix, nor is it going to be an easy process. This journey will look different for everyone and will unfold with time and experience.
In other words: Don't rush, and be realistic about your progress. What does imbalanced emotional labour look like for you? What role do the values of mutuality, reciprocity, clear boundaries and community care play in your life?
Happy healing,
-Meg