Have you ever heard the phrase “We can’t pour from an empty cup” and wondered what that actually means? Or maybe you’ve understood the meaning and are unsure how to put it into practice. In this article, I’ll walk you through an exercise you can do by yourself or with your therapist to get in touch with your capacity to help avoid emptying your cup and burning out. 

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Burnout

Burnout is on the rise in almost every working population, and general stress is increasing amongst folks of all ages. A recent study suggests that roughly two-thirds of Americans are experiencing burnout, with an even higher percentage of young adults burning out (above eighty percent). According to Mental Health America, the impacts of burnout and long-term stress include exhaustion despite a lot of sleep, low or no motivation, and feeling anxious or overwhelmed. For a full list of potential symptoms, see this PDF resource for assessing burnout. 

That being said, many of us were never provided the tools to avoid this chronic stress or burnout, and are often expected to perform until we burn out or even while we are burnt out. It is important to learn how to check in with ourselves so we don’t reach this state of exhaustion. Yes, so we can continue to work to support ourselves in this financially stressful time, but also to take care of ourselves so we can live full lives outside of work and other responsibilities. But how do we even know we are burnt out? How do we prevent it? 

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Cup Metaphor  

In trauma work, there is a concept created by Dr. Dan Siegel called the window of tolerance. This window of tolerance is the “optimal” zone of emotional arousal or regulation. When operating within this zone, coping with stress, emotions, etc., becomes easier. For those who have experienced trauma, regulating emotions is incredibly difficult due to frequently experiencing trauma responses of hyperarousal or hypoarousal that push them out of their window of tolerance. 

Hyperarousal is an activated state also known as the “fight, flight, or freeze response.” Our nervous system becomes alert for potential threats and danger, even when none are present. Hyperarousal might be triggered by perceived threats, traumatic memories, specific emotions, and more. It can look like: angry outbursts, fear, anxiety, overwhelm, panic, hypervigilance, tight muscles, and more. 

Hypoarousal is also known as the “shutdown” or “collapse” response. The same triggers of hyperarousal can also trigger hypoarousal. Hypoarousal can look like: depression, numbness, emptiness, exhaustion, dissociation, and more. If you’d like to read more about the window of tolerance in depth, check out this post from the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Health. 

Whether you’ve experienced trauma or not, this can be a helpful framework to check in with yourself and explore capacity in a nonjudgmental way, since this window is subjective to a person’s individual experience. And I have a helpful way of applying this concept to general capacity and burnout, playing off of the phrase “We can’t pour from an empty cup.”

Our “cup” in this metaphor is our capacity. We are constantly “pouring” into people, work, life, etc., depending on how much we have to give. But if our cup is empty, we have nothing to pour out. Meaning, if we have no capacity, we can’t give to anything else and are most likely burnt out. When we are in our window of tolerance, our cup is fuller, and we have more capacity. When our cup is low, we may be experiencing hyperarousal, hypoarousal, or even just general stress and fatigue. This is your cup based on your emotional state, needs, etc, so we need to set those individual parameters. 

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Checking in With Our Cup

To check in, we first need to have an understanding of our personal baseline. Begin by picturing a cup. Maybe it’s your emotional support water bottle, or your favorite coffee mug. To review, when we are at full capacity, that cup is full. When we are burnt out or at no capacity, that cup is empty. Now let’s define what full and empty look like. 

Recall a time when you felt burnt out, like you had nothing left to give and couldn’t give even if you tried. If it feels helpful, maybe journal about it or record yourself talking about it out loud. It doesn’t have to be recent; it can be from last week or from years ago. As you recall this time, try to connect with how you were feeling emotionally. How were you physically feeling? Any particular outlook or thought patterns? Going back to those concepts of hypoarousal or hyperarousal, burnout, or no capacity may look like emotional overwhelm, hypervigilance, tension (emotional and physical), numbness, emptiness, or exhaustion. These are just some examples; you get to define your empty cup and how it feels. 

After you have a good idea of what burnout feels like for you, recall a time when you had full capacity. Not just the ability to do things, but a time when you felt truly restored and regulated. Whatever came your way, you could handle it. Focus on the feelings that memory elicits. What was that experience like emotionally and physically? How different does that feel from that empty cup feeling? 

With your cup pictured and parameters set, you’re ready to check in! Our guiding question is “How full is my cup?” An easy place to start is to ask yourself if you feel closer to those feelings of 100% (full cup) or 0% (empty cup) and go from there. Essentially, are you over or under 50%? It can be tricky because being at full capacity doesn’t necessarily mean stress-free, but rather the stress is not bogging us down or impairing our functionality. We may still feel the stress when we are at full capacity, but there is more confidence and ease in handling it. Here are a few other questions to help better understand where your cup is at:

• How am I feeling? Happy, sad, stressed, etc.?
• Am I closer to feeling full or feeling empty?
• How motivated am I to do what I need to do today? 
• When was the last time I engaged in restorative self-care?
• Have there been any stressors or disruptions to my daily life/routine lately?

Now What?

When you have an answer to the question “How full is my cup?”, sit with it for a moment. We’ll get to some actions we can take in a moment, but the most important part of this exercise is being able to genuinely take a beat and check in with yourself. Notice what that percentage you’re at feels like. Reflect on how you’re able to identify that. And when you have taken that moment, then you can take some action. 

Some of us may be quick to jump to the action piece or desire to move on and “fix” whatever distress we are experiencing. However, if we don’t take the time to connect with our emotions, it may be harder to identify wants, needs, and what might be truly helpful. For example, if we bypass the emotional check-in component and continue to engage in our to-do list, thinking we are at 60% simply because we aren’t completely drained, we may miss some feelings of overwhelm and tiredness from a week of not sleeping well that may indicate we’re closer to 25%. By the end of the day, our cup may be empty despite having “checked in.” 

After authentically checking in, there are some steps we can and should take. If we are over 50%, that means we have some capacity! This may mean it’s a good time to do some more difficult tasks or pour energy into things we need to do. Ideally, our goal is to be at 100% as much as possible, but anything above 50% is a great place to start. 

If we check in and our cup is below 50%, that means we’ve entered our reserves and need to work on filling our cup back up. This is a super tricky aspect of this framework since we may be used to pouring our cup out constantly. Technically, when we are below 50%, we still have capacity. However, this capacity should be saved for those surprises life throws at us. Maybe it’s getting called in to work on the weekend, or something breaking in your home that needs to be fixed ASAP. If we budget our reserves into our predictable and controllable aspects of life, our risk of burnout increases. In order to prevent burnout, we need to do as much as we can to avoid our cup being empty by saving some capacity for those surprise stressors, and filling our cup back up when it’s low. 

When we notice our cup is below 50%, our main priority needs to be filling it back up and getting back to above 50% because we cannot pour from an empty cup. Responsibilities, to-do lists, and life in general are going to be more difficult if we try to act on low capacity. When we have more capacity, we do not feel the stress and pressure as much as when we are burnt out or nearing it. So when your cup is low, engage in restorative rest and or care to fill it back up. 

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Learning What Fills Your Cup

What fills or drains our cup is also subjective and may differ during different seasons of our lives. Or even week to week! You can use this cup metaphor to explore what fills or drains your cup by checking in before and after engaging in an activity. For example, check in before and after work. Some days may be fulfilling and add to capacity. Other days may take from our cup. The same can be said about self-care and finding out what fills our cup. Check in before binging TV or doomscrolling. Is that adding or draining? What actually fills your cup? Maybe a TV binge doesn’t drain or fill, but reading fills. If we are at 30%, we need to read because we need to get back to baseline.

There are certain things we can’t avoid or make easier. We can’t avoid school, work, etc., simply because they’re draining. When we use this check-in, we can find out just how much these necessary things drain us and plan accordingly. If work typically drains 30% of our cup, we need to make sure we’re doing all we can to get it close to 80% beforehand and refilling it after. That may mean adding restorative self-care, like prioritizing eight hours of sleep. Or it may look like taking away other things that drain and aren’t necessary. For example, if work was particularly rough and that laundry you were planning to do feels daunting, assess the actual need. Do you have socks, underwear, and an outfit for tomorrow? Maybe find a different day to do laundry if you have that flexibility to make sure you aren’t draining those reserves as much. 

Lastly, I want to recognize that there are larger systems that cause burnout. School and work included. Whether that’s oppression we experience or general dysregulation brought on by the current state of the world, our capacity is not always something we can predictably control/handle.

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Conclusion

This cup metaphor is a tool/framework that is helpful to the extent you find it helpful. Take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. And as is the case with any habit switch, it may take a while to learn how to do this regularly, or at all. It may also take a while to get to 100% or even just add to your capacity at all, especially if you’ve been burnt out for a while. Take it slow and be kind to yourself. Here’s to a full cup. Cheers!