Am I aware of my own emotional bucket?

Dear EQuipped Leaders,

I get to work with educators, and I love them. I love their willingness to bring so much of themselves to their work, their hope for their students, and their desire to impact the world in a positive way. It’s not hard to love teachers.

Except for when those teachers fail to love themselves. Then things go sideways.

Schools can be a confusing place to work because there are so many needs everywhere you look. From your students constantly trying to get your attention, “Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Martin!” to your ever full email inbox requesting unending demands on your time and energy, a job in education can quickly become a black hole for your personal life if you don’t know how to hold firm to your values, set boundaries, and say “no.” I had zero of those skills as a teacher. I poured out and poured out and didn’t know how to refill my bucket.

I didn’t even know my emotional bucket was empty.

I didn’t know that my emotional bucket had always been empty. That I had so many unmet emotional needs I was totally unaware of.

As a teacher, I was able to distract myself from my own unmet needs by focusing on all the unmet needs of my students. It was very well-intentioned and also misguided. I was projecting into the world what I needed. I told my therapist in one of our first sessions that I wanted to start a “School for Humans” because it didn’t seem like the schools where I worked made space for students’ or teachers’ humanity. I don’t think I was wrong, but what I now realize is I was going to therapy to try to learn how to let myself be human. How to stop suffering and inhibiting myself. How to let myself feel and face the emotions I’d been running from for so long. I was trying to give to my students something I didn’t yet have myself: permission to be human.

As I get to interact with educators now, I’m learning that I’m not the only teacher who has tried to give to students something they don’t have themselves. One common theme that’s arising is that educators are often quite skilled at the components of emotional intelligence that allow them to meet the needs of others:

And many (like me) are also lacking in the skills that make them aware of and able to meet their own needs:

This is why I love learning about and teaching about feelings. Because feelings are the ultimate needs roadmap. Feelings point to my unmet needs. They tell me who I am, what I value, what I need in order to grow.

I was terrified of my feelings, truly terrified. I thought it was only okay to feel certain emotions, and if I didn’t feel the right ones at the right time, the world would fall apart.

I didn’t know my thoughts and feelings mattered. That not only did I not need to fear them, but I needed to listen to them. I needed to take them into account when I made decisions.

I think becoming aware of and learning to regulate my emotions has been the ultimate key to my growth. Now that I can tolerate my feelings without being overwhelmed by them, I can get curious about what my emotions are signaling. So when I feel angry or annoyed or hurt or sad, I can just be curious. “Huh, I wonder what this feeling is pointing me towards. I wonder what needs might be rising up in me.”

My son will talk about his emotional bucket with my husband and me, and I’m so impressed with how well he knows himself and what he needs at only 5 years old. He was telling me his love was feeling empty the other day. I asked him what he needed to raise the love, he thought about it and then said he wanted me to play spider man with him. After 10 minutes of playing spider man together (where I also had a blast and pulled off some pretty impressive improv acting), he told me he felt better. I asked him where his love bucket level was and said it was all the way to the roof. He just needed 10 minutes of my full attention and presence to play. To enjoy time together. To express my love in a way that he could receive it. To fill his emotional bucket.

I’m learning from my son to be honest about what I need and concrete in asking for what I need from other people. I keep being shocked how well this works.

Where does this land for you?

How aware of your outer world are you? How aware of your inner world are you?
Where is your emotional bucket level right now?
Are you getting your emotional needs met?
Do you know how to meet your own needs? Do you know how to ask others to help you meet your needs? Do you know it’s okay to have needs and to ask for help?