Avoiding toxic environments all together is nearly impossible but you can foster your own health by being mindful of your needs.
Last week, we discussed the need for strong and routine self-care. In order to cash the emotional expenses that life and situations demand, having emotional currency to spend is key to overcoming toxicity.
This week, I want to encourage you to be mindful of your own needs, as they arrive in real time. By being able to identify what you need to experience safety/security/strength in toxic environments, you are one step closer to meeting your needs because they are defined and focused as opposed to ambiguous and overwhelming.
Practice strong self-care routines
Identify what you need to feel safe/secure/strong
When I was on an airplane over the Christmas holiday, the flight attendants gave the routine safety lecture that instructed adult passengers in the event of an emergency to affix their own air mask before helping a child/dependent affix theirs. In many ways that is what identifying your own needs does; in toxic environments, you cannot survive unless you know what you need. You can have a great self-care routine, but still not know what you need in real time, thus causing a greater need for self-care in order to continue survival. You will survive in toxic environments when you know what you need in the toxic environment before it is too late and you experience burnout.
Identifying your own needs starts squarely with the problem(s) you are experiencing in a toxic environment. In some cases you may need a break, 15 minutes of outside time or to pause a conversation to pick it up later. Relying on others to read and meet your needs puts a lot of undue responsibility on others. The mindful contemplation of what you need to do for yourself will facilitate smaller emotional withdrawals from your emotional bank account.
How full is your emotional bank account? Try asking yourself “what do I need right now in order to feel safe, secure or strong?”, then go after it! Don’t give into any form of resistance that tells you your needs are invalid, wrong or bad. Meeting your needs are integral, and in toxic environments meeting your own needs will prolong your survival and increasing your health!
If you missed it last week and would like to assess how strong your self care routine is, you can download a FREE tool here.
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