A Talk On Self-Care With TwoCreamTwoSugar!

Talker: @TwoCreamTwoSugar

What is your idea of spending a balanced time on 7cups? Share your idea of how a good day looks like on 7cups, for you.

It is absolutely critical to have balance in all areas of life. Too much of one thing can be draining, even for the best of us. Thus, I tend to reserve at least one or two nights a week of not being on 7 Cups at all unless I am helping some individuals through a particularly tough time in long-term support and I feel I have the reserves to allocate those nights to them. But generally, I do like to have a night off. Other than that, I also only check 7 Cups in the evenings in my time zone and generally no other time of day. One important thing to note, however, is that sometimes we all need self-care breaks when we’ve been at it for a while or have had some tougher conversations that have either triggered us or have just been much heavier on our hearts. That’s always okay and 7 Cups encourages it!

What challenges did you face in trying to strike that balance?

I tend to be sometimes too involved in always wanting to “save someone”. What I mean is that I used to almost feel obligated to devote as much time as I possibly could because that person was somehow my responsibility. This is not the case whatsoever. 7 Cups encourages and indeed teaches its listeners that we are to empower members to find their own solutions and to utilize any and all resources at their disposal for conquering problems in their life. I realize I am not the keeper of every member I help and must help equip those who come to me with the tools to solve problems, because ultimately I am not in their daily lives. So I realized once I could not feasibly solve all the problems–though we certainly make good progress toward that–and that my mental health is important too, I set appropriate boundaries so that I could get the most out of 7 Cups and I’d minimize the risk of burnout.

How did you try to deal with those challenges?

I think I answered that in the prior question. You have to let go of the reins a bit and let the member take the tools that hopefully you’ve helped equip them with so that they can go about tackling the problems they face and learn to establish healthy emotional boundaries.

What are the benefits of improving your balance for the time you spend on cups?

I am less emotionally drained and even, oddly enough, more fulfilled. I get so much sincere fulfillment out of helping others that I always want to be on top of my game. The effects of burnout are rarer and I generally think that I’m a more capable listener due to taking action on balance.

What message would you like to give to the cupsers who have come to be negatively attached to cups, in one of the many ways?

Realize that ultimately, life’s problems that you face have to be addressed by one person: you. But that does not in any way mean you have to go it alone. But I strongly encourage you to take the feedback and loving support listeners have provided and approach even the most uncomfortable situations head-on so that you can not only overcome these problems in the moment, but also prevent many problems from coming up ever again. Life will never be perfect, unfortunately, but with a healthy relationship with others, a willingness to try new techniques to better ourselves and address conflict, etc, we can ultimately free ourselves to living lives less dependent on second-guessing and in general more full of positive experiences and emotions.

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