Do you find that you’re perpetually in the role of emotional caretaker or mediator for everyone around you? And that having that responsibility foisted upon you is draining your energy and making you feel resentful and stressed out? If so, then it’s time to take a big step back and stop doing it.
Of course, that’s easier said than done, and it can be particularly difficult if you’ve carried this responsibility for a long time. But it is imperative if you’d like to improve your own stress levels and overall well-being. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some things you can do to break this cycle and free yourself from that role permanently:
1. Recognize that other people’s emotions are not your responsibility.
People who have never developed their own coping mechanisms get overwhelmed by their emotions and don’t know how to regulate them by themselves. This often happens when others have always stepped in to manage their emotions for them, never giving them the chance to work through them on their own, or if they weren’t taught healthy ways to express emotions growing up.
Though it’s good to have compassion for them, this doesn’t mean you need to take on that responsibility when a person like this enters your life. It may feel flattering at first if the person you’re with shows so much vulnerability and trust in you that they’ll come to you with their unwieldy feelings. But without at least some boundaries, it’s a gateway for having you manage their emotions for them indefinitely.
Instead, you’re better off helping them by encouraging them to develop emotion regulation skills for themselves.
2. Let them feel what they’re feeling.
This is very similar to allowing people to make their own mistakes as needed. None of us likes to see our friends and other loved ones suffer, but fixing issues for everyone denies them the opportunity to learn from them. If you always step in to manage other people’s emotions, they’ll never develop the vital coping skills needed to work through them and manage them on their own.
If you’re anything like me, you may have a difficult time not stepping in when others are sad or hurting, but every human being needs to experience and process these difficult emotions on their own.
Let others feel things without intervening, and absolve yourself of the responsibility of taking on their emotions as if they were your own.
3. Ask how they’re going to navigate this issue, rather than how you can help.
It’s possible that up until this point, your response to hearing about someone else’s difficulty has been “How can I help?” Now is the time for you to re-train yourself into expressing sympathy as usual, but then asking them how they are going to navigate the problem instead of asking how you can get involved.
This is an opportunity for the individual in question to carefully consider all their options and determine a way forward for themselves. It’s how people learn to navigate and handle difficulties on their own, and develop more autonomy as sovereign adults. You can offer encouragement for their chosen direction, but then step back and let them get on with it.
4. Stop trying to make things better to alleviate your own discomfort.
A lot of parents insist that their children put on sweaters or jackets because they’re feeling cold, and assume that their kids are also feeling chilly. They don’t want their kids to potentially catch a cold, but neither does it occur to them that their kids may not feel chilled at all.
Similarly, people who feel uncomfortable in certain situations may try to fix whatever is swirling around them in order to alleviate tension — and by extension, their own discomfort.
In reality, the other people around them may not be feeling the same things they are at all. Basically, what makes one person anxious or upset may roll off another like water off a duck’s back.
By taking action to ease perceived tensions around you, it’s possible that you’ll either make the situation worse or that you may misinterpret what’s going on and upset people by interfering when you weren’t asked to do so.
Before taking any action, really take some time to self-reflect and consider whose discomfort you are trying to ease: theirs, or yours?
5. Determine why you feel obligated to manage their emotions.
If someone else is feeling upset, angry, anxious, or irritable, why do you feel responsible for managing that person’s emotions for them? Are you trying to save them from the discomfort of experiencing these things? Or do you feel that you’re in a position of superiority or expertise and therefore feel obligated to take control of the situation?
Alternatively, do you get annoyed or triggered by emotional outbursts and feel that if you get involved, you can neutralize that irritation quickly and efficiently?
Understanding the reasons why you feel the need to manage everyone else’s emotions can be immensely helpful for encouraging you to stop perpetuating that behavior. Sometimes we realize our actions are less about them and more about our own feelings toward the situation.
6. Explain that you need to protect your own peace.
Those who have been turning to you to manage their emotions for them for years likely call on you for help as soon as they feel even a modicum of distress. As a result, they aren’t going to take it well when you start to establish boundaries about what you’re no longer willing to take on and carry for them.
The best thing you can do in a situation like this is to be honest about the fact that you don’t have the bandwidth to help them anymore. You can expect pushback, tears, and possibly even cruelty here, but stay firm for the sake of your own emotional stability.
I had to go through this with a close friend who had essentially been using me as her emotional support animal for nearly 20 years. Within a very short period of time, she transformed from her usual, caring self into a mean, aggressive individual who spewed vitriol at me for “making her” deal with her emotions alone. The friendship fell apart after that, but from what I hear, she’s a lot more emotionally stable now.
7. Take distance from them.
If the people you’ve always helped don’t respect your new desire to be relieved of this burden, then it may be necessary for you to distance yourself from them. This isn’t going to be an easy thing to do because you’re a kind, empathetic person who sincerely wants to help, and it hurts when those you care about are struggling.
Unfortunately, most people won’t step up and take care of their burdens unless they have no other choice but to do so. If you’re still within their sphere, they’ll often do everything they can to maintain the status quo that has existed up until now, which has consisted of you managing their emotions for them so they don’t need to.
If these people can’t respect the boundaries you’re establishing and are trying to manipulate you into doing the same thing you always have, then it’s best to withdraw and keep your distance for a while.
8. Remember: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
This phrase (or a similar one using whichever animals you like) can be an effective mantra to repeat to yourself if you feel obligated to step in and handle someone else’s feelings for them. Essentially, you’re reminding yourself that this duty is not meant for you. Although you may witness it, you’re not obligated to step in and wrangle those critters.
Care, feeding, and management of the monkeys are all their owners’ responsibility. Their caretakers may not want to do so because it’s not a fun job, and are therefore eager to offload them onto someone else, but this is the sign for you to back away and let them deal with the problem on their own.
And even if you are their actual caretaker, inasmuch as they are your children (and they are still young enough to depend on you), you still need to remember point 1: their emotions are not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to equip them with the tools to manage their own emotions. The rest is up to them.
9. Allow people to learn how to navigate conflict on their own.
Just because you can step in and neutralize an argument between those you care about doesn’t mean that you always should. A lot of people feel obligated to mediate family dramas and fights between friends to keep the peace, but they ultimately disrupt their own peace in the process.
In the same way that people need to learn how to fail with grace, they also need to learn how to deal with different types of conflict without anyone else intervening and fixing it for them.
Young children may run to their parents to fight their battles for them and smooth things over when they have arguments with their friends, but continuing to do this as they age means that they never learn vital emotional navigation skills. By intervening, you prevent them from immense amounts of personal growth, leaving them in a state of stagnated maturity.
Final thoughts…
Many who try to manage others’ emotions for them grew up in volatile family environments. They learned that if they were hypervigilant about subtle mood shifts in those around them, they could mitigate inevitable outbursts. As a result, managing others’ emotions became a means of self-preservation: they knew that they could only have real peace if they took that responsibility onto themselves.
If this was your experience as well, you may have difficulty letting go of this instinct even though you’re in a safe place now. Please be kind and patient with yourself as you move past this programming, and don’t hesitate to seek professional support if you need to.
