Setting Emotional Boundaries in the Workplace

In last month’s blog post, we explored a few ways one can cultivate an empathetic mindset in the workplace. However, for some, empathy is not something they need to work on. In fact, they find themselves feeling burned out because of their empathy, and resilience levels begin to run low! 

If you’re the leader or team member who often feels responsible for helping your teammates through a challenging situation, or perhaps a situation you have deemed challenging (and they are not even aware of), here are some ways you can strengthen that Emotional Intelligence to prevent your empathy superpower from becoming your kryptonite. 

Regulate the felt emotion with the body 

Sometimes it can feel like we have no control over what we feel, especially when we’re feeling it so strongly. But this is simply not true. 

One way to control our emotions is to center ourselves (come to a place of neutrality) through the body- doing things like box breathing, doing few jumping jacks, putting on our favorite song and dancing to it, rubbing two fingertips together to focus on the ridges of your fingertips. 

This moment of “coming to center” is an opportunity for us to move into the pre-frontal cortex of the brain where we can operate with more rational thought rather than all emotion. So, when you find yourself caught up in the feelings that belong to someone else, this is a helpful tool that can help you to regulate the power of that emotion, determine rationally what actions to take (if any) with this person, and release the emotion that you weren’t meant to take on so heavily.  

Acknowledge what you can and can’t control

In today’s world, it’s easy to watch the news and get overwhelmed by all the work to be done or to feel hopeless because of all of the negativity that’s highlighted. Feeling this is evidence of your empathy for others, our country, the world, etc.

Similarly, sometimes we find ourselves in a work situation where there’s so much that needs to be “fixed” but we don’t have the time, resources/tools, or energy to address them. We have the empathy to recognize the need for these things to change- we FEEL it- but what we can actually do to change the situation doesn’t seem to make a big enough impact. 

To prevent emotional overwhelm and burnout in these situations, do an analysis of what you can and can’t control. Actually, write out:

• “what/things I can’t control: _________”

• “what/things I can control: __________” 

By doing this exercise, you are moving from operating solely from your emotional brain (the limbic system), and you are also tapping into the rational brain (pre-frontal cortex). This helps you to determine what’s worthy of you to focus your effort, energy, and emotion on, rather than spending them on something you can’t do anything about. When we can make movement in areas we can control, it releases the sense of emotional overwhelm we feel. 

Boundaries

If you find yourself feeling empathy burnout often, it might be time to set some boundaries- for yourself and for others. But before you can set boundaries, you need to have an awareness of when you’re starting to cross the line from a healthy level of empathy to a full-on embodiment of someone else’s emotions. Knowing this is your indicator to start leaning into boundaries.

Boundaries might look like:

• Hitting pause to do your centering exercise to regulate yourself (see “regulate the felt emotion with the body” above!)

• Turning off the news

• Engaging in practices, actions, or exercises that help you move from your emotional brain to accessing your rational and emotional brain together (journaling, making a list of facts and assessments within the situation, practicing gratitude, acknowledging the positive, etc.) 

• Refusing to take on responsibility (and more emotion than necessary) for someone else’s situation. Practically, this might look like moving the conversation toward action and having the person with the problem be the one to come up with those actions. Don’t let them leave with the monkey on your back!

• Minimizing or limiting conversations (as appropriate) to certain time periods or within certain topics when we begin to cross the line from a healthy level of empathy to an unhealthy level

Ensure you have other tasks/hobbies to focus/spend time on

What are you putting your effort and identity into? Does your sense of purpose come solely from helping and leading others? If so, this is a danger zone and often contributes not only to empathy burnout but also straight-up burnout! We were not meant to take on that much responsibility. 

So, to help level set this expectation of ourselves, it’s good to find our sense of purpose in other things, too. Taking on hobbies, engaging with different groups of people or clubs, and focusing on things that don’t relate to work can help us stay resilient when prone to empathy burnout. Not only do they give us additional satisfaction, they can also be a temporary distraction or an opportunity to hit “pause” on the challenging situations in which we are noticing our empathy burnout showing up. 

Additional hobbies, engaging with different groups of people, and non-work-related tasks remind us that there is so much more to this life than the problem or challenge we are feeling overwhelmed by! And, you’ll often find taking a moment to “distract” yourself from that overwhelming sense of emotion gives you some clarity when you’re ready to head back into the situation that is creating the emotional overwhelm. 

Empathy is a good thing. But let’s ensure we have the Emotional Intelligence skills to gauge when it starts to hinder our resilience in the workplace and take action to keep it as a strength rather than a sticking point!