How full is your cup? A guide to managing emotions

How full is your cup? A Guide to Managing Emotions

By: Michelle L. Taylor, M.S.

This is an exercise to help you with managing your emotions. You can imagine this exercise in your mind or actually try it. Either way, you’ll get the point.

• Grab a full cup of water, coffee, soda. Walk around with it.
• Try walking in a crowded place, like a subway, mall, concert, family reunion.
• Try walking in a wide open space.
• Try walking without looking at it.
• Now walk while looking at it.

What did you find?

More than likely, you’ll experience these things:

• You may have spilt some, which makes you feel angry or guilty, perhaps anxious.
• You may not have, but you were stressed out trying not to and you can’t wait to stop this exercise.
• You didn’t care if it spilled, but you now have water, coffee, soda all over the place.

If this happened to you, great… you’re right there with this metaphor.

Now I want you to walk around with a glass or cup that has only a little bit of liquid in it. Go in a crowded place, look at it, don’t look at it… you know the drill.

What did you notice?

• More than likely, you’ll experience these things:
• It’s easier not to worry about spilling.
• It didn’t spill.
• Even when people bumped into you, you were able to save it from spilling.

Perfect. Now for the metaphor.

Our minds and bodies are like that cup. It fills with emotions, positive and negative, all the time. They are different every day… sometimes every hour or minute. Managing your emotions can be difficult.

It’s imperative that we know how “full” our cups are at every moment. This helps us prepare for the “spills” that can happen when we are too full. And helps us brace for impact.

One day, you may experience high anxiety at work or school… you go home and you didn’t realize how full of anxiety your cup is. So, the first “bump”, like your significant other complains about the dishes or you get a flat tire or your kid is throwing a tantrum, and BAM! Your anxiety and anger and frustration is spilled all over the place. Those around you get splashed with your anxieties, your anger, your frustration… even though they may view the “bump” as something insignificant. For you, it was the “bump” that broke the camel’s back.

It’s important before we step into situations with those we care about and know how full our cups are. Maybe ask ourselves, “On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the worst I’ve ever felt, and 10 being the best, where am I right now.”

If you can do this before stepping into stressful situations, you allow yourself time to “empty your cup” a little before you enter that situation. Some ways to empty your cup may be:

• Breathing
• Exercising
• Grounding
• Therapy
• Journaling
• Talking to a friend

When you empty your cup, you leave room for those stressful situations to “bump” you and you can take the hit and not spill as easy. You will improve your relationships with those around you, your parents, kids, friends, family, colleagues, and strangers.

Try this metaphor and practice being more aware of how full your cup is. You will not regret it.

Contact me for a free 15 minute consultation to help you with your anxiety, depression or relationships.